White House, Congress reach tentative budget deal

The White House and congressional leaders are close to reaching a two-year budget deal that would set new, higher spending caps and increase the nation’s borrowing authority.

The pact, which would cover the 2016-17 fiscal years, represents one last agreement between President Barack Obama and departing House Speaker John Boehner.

When Boehner leaves the Capitol for the final time, it will mark an end to a complicated, fraught chapter for House Republicans – a chapter that began in 2010 when they regained the majority and was marked by stalemates, deadline crises and a 16-day government shutdown in 2013, and is ending with the largest GOP majority since Harry Truman was in the White House. A lot of conservatives disliked that measure.

Officials who described the deal did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about confidential negotiations.

Boehner is taking the lead on the negotiations with the White House while Senate leaders in recent weeks have been hesitant to endorse any proposals on either the debt limit or the budget. And Congress is, once again, just days away from an impending November 3 deadline on another component of the deal – the debt ceiling. “We secured a victory in getting Boehner to resign, but that is just the first step in ending Congress’s capitulation to Obama and the Democrats”.

U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, gave strong indications that he would have no qualms with Paul Ryan succeeding House Speaker John Boehner during an appearance Monday on the “The Matt Murphy Show”.

The deal under discussion would extend the life of the disability fund for as many as six years and would include programmatic changes, such as allowing a few recipients who can still work to take partial payments while earning outside income. “This is going the way that the current leadership wants it to go”, Mulvaney said.

Cardin said passing a budget is “the least Congress can do”.

Take question number 13, which reads: Would you attach significant structural entitlement reforms included in the FY 2016 budget resolution, such as welfare reform, and significant process changes, such as legislation establishing an automatic continuing resolution and the Default Prevention Act, to legislation that would raise the debt limit and not schedule the consideration of another vehicle that contains a debt limit increase? The GOP is expected to vote on Wednesday, October 28th, with the full House voting Thursday.

House Republican leaders announced a closed-door meeting Monday night to gauge support among rank and file. That bill, sponsored by Republican lawmakers, is primarily aimed at giving workers the ability to choose “comp time” off, instead of overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week.

Members have been battling over how to fund the government and provide relief from a separate 2011 deal that created budget ceilings known as the sequester.

Republicans also agreed to an increase in spending that is spread equally across both domestic and defense accounts.

Aides said that the Social Security Disability Insurance program would be amended so that a medical exam now required in 30 states before applicants could qualify for benefits would be required in all 50 states.

Premiums and deductibles are rising next year due to a quirk in the formula governing such payments for years when Social Security benefits don’t receive an annual cost of living increase, as is the case for next year.

The agreement would also repeal a delayed provision of the 2010 health law requiring employers to automatically enroll workers in company plans.

For months, the White House and Democrats had called on Republicans to hold negotiations over the spending caps for the next two fiscal years.

But Republicans were also forced to make concessions, including a “clean” debt limit hike, which is opposed by dozens of House Republicans who want to reduce the $18.1 trillion debt. Senate action would come afterward.

“I don’t see how a clean debt ceiling [increase] passes this floor”, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) told reporters Monday.