GOP leaders try to sell debt, budget pact with Obama

Markets and voters who prefer a solvent USA government have cause to rejoice. Lawmakers have until November 3 – next Tuesday – to handle it or risk a default. And it’s also likely that a substantial majority of Democrats in the House will be required to pass the measure. And House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says there will be equal increases in funding for defense and non-defense programs.

The budget deal will lay the groundwork for the government spending package that Congress will have to pass by December 11 to fund the government through next September.

“When you sign up for the job you have to take everything that comes at you”, Boehner, who has been serving in Congress since 1991, said about leading the 435-member body. Still, he has stitched together a few bipartisan accomplishments this year, including a payment-funding fix to Medicare this spring and trade-negotiation authority this summer.

A vote on the deal is expected on Wednesday, a day before Paul Ryan is set to be elected the new House Speaker. GOP defence hawks are a driving force, intent on reversing the automatic cuts and getting more money for the military.

Now Ryan, the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, will face immediate – and perhaps competing – tasks: passing must-do debt and spending bills likely to be opposed by a majority of Republicans, even while he attempts to unite a badly fractured House GOP.

Further, the deal also would avert the possibility of a government shutdown until sometime in 2017 (Chicago Tribune/Los Angeles Times, 10/26). It will then be up to the next Congress and president to renew the budget wars – or not.

According to the Washington Post, Boehner presented broad outlines of the deal to House Republicans on Monday evening but did not disclose the all the details of how the spending increases would be offset.

Emerging from a meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, Boehner was teary-eyed – colleagues gave him a golf cart with a license plate that reads “Mr. Spkr” as a parting gift – but also newly emboldened after clinching a final fiscal deal that had appeared elusive.

While there is consternation in the ranks, many expect there will still be ample support from Democrats – and a large enough number of Republicans – to pass the deal later this week.

John Boehner has said he wants to “clean the barn up” for the next speaker of the House, and surprisingly, he may be able to make that happen before he retires at the end of the week.

“I’m not excited about it at all”, Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., said of the agreement.

The deal would increase federal spending by $80 billion over two years and increase the federal borrowing limit through 2017. The deal would increase spending by $50 billion in fiscal year 2016 and $30 billion in fiscal year 2017, split evenly between military and domestic spending. New auctions of electromagnetic spectrum to communications companies and sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would provide new revenues.

The deal would make changes to the Social Security program used to help support disabled people. The newest deal could spell out a formula to avoid those automatic cuts.

Moreover, the deal would spread out increases in Medicare premiums over time so beneficiaries don’t feel them acutely.

Even with a two-year budget deal, Democrats and Republicans still could fight over how the money would be divided among various programs.

Congressional leaders turned their attention toward resolving only the first deadline, for the debt limit. A vote could come as early as tomorrow. But talks seemed to falter after the majority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, abandoned his bid for speaker, and House Republicans wrestled with the question of who would lead their deeply fractured conference. His views on health care and entitlement reform remain completely at odds with Obama’s, and movement on key issues like gun control, for which Obama has pressed, are improbable.