Suspension of debt limit clears House

Arkansans vote no as plan moves to Senate, 221-201

House Speaker John Boehner, shown last week at the Capitol, said after the vote to extend U.S. borrowing power Tuesday that House Republicans “are not crazy about voting to increase the debt ceiling.”
House Speaker John Boehner, shown last week at the Capitol, said after the vote to extend U.S. borrowing power Tuesday that House Republicans “are not crazy about voting to increase the debt ceiling.”

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives voted to suspend the U.S. debt limit until March 2015, giving a win to President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress who insisted that the ceiling be lifted without conditions.


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The measure passed Tuesday on a vote of 221-201. The four representatives from Arkansas, all Republicans, voted against the measure.

The plan was sent to the Democrat-led Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said the chamber would act as soon as possible. Obama and Senate Democrats had refused to negotiate on raising the debt limit, and U.S. companies sought assurances that the government wouldn’t exhaust its borrowing authority.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the issue came down to whether the U.S. will make good on its obligations to debt holders and provide stability by boosting the limit.

“Will America pay its bills?” Hoyer said on the House floor before the vote. “Will it give confidence to the business community? Will it give confidence to its own citizens? Will it indeed give confidence to the world?”

Republicans have been divided over spending issues. Fewer than half of House Republicans voted last year for measures that averted spending cuts and tax increases, assisted victims of domestic and sexual violence and provided aid for victims of superstorm Sandy. Republicans needed Democratic votes to pass a budget deal in December and a farm bill last month.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he will insist on requiring at least 60 votes to advance the debt-limit measure, instead of a simple majority of the 100 senators.

Responding to criticism that he was forcing five Republicans to join Democrats in passing the bill, Cruz said, “Republicans in the Senate and House should stand united” to “stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper.”

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, asked whether that chamber would have 60 votes to advance the measure, said, “I think so, if 60 votes are required.”

Two House Democrats, Jim Matheson of Utah and John Barrow of Georgia, joined most Republicans in voting against the measure. Among the 28 Republicans supporting it were House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan and Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky.

“You all know that our members are not crazy about voting to increase the debt ceiling,” Boehner said.

“Our members are also very upset with the president,” Boehner said. “He won’t negotiate. He won’t deal with our long-term spending problems without us raising taxes, won’t even sit down and discuss these issues. He’s the one driving up the debt.”

Two Arkansas lawmakers released statements after the vote that echoed Boehner’s statement about Obama.

“President Obama’s reckless spending has added trillions to our national debt,” Rep. Tom Cotton said. “If we can’t trust him to enforce his namesake law, Obamacare, then we can’t trust him with a blank check either. I will keep working to cut spending and to find long-term solutions for Arkansas.”

Rep. Tim Griffin referred to Obama’s vote against raising the debt ceiling when he was a senator.

“As then-Senator Barack Obama said in 2006 when he voted against raising the debt ceiling, ‘Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.Americans deserve better.’ Unfortunately, President Obama is currently unwilling to spend within our country’s means or work with Republicans to find long-term solutions - but I’m still hopeful he will have another change of heart,” Griffin said.

Another representative from Arkansas, Rep. Steve Womack, released a statement calling a debt-limit increase “irresponsible.”

“Failing to raise the debt ceiling has extremely serious consequences, but raising it without making a single spending reform is equally as irresponsible, and that’s what this vote was. I simply could not support a clean debt ceiling increase,” Womack said.

Republicans said after October’s 16-day, partial government shutdown that they wouldn’t again risk breaching the debt limit and wanted to move on to other issues after public opinion polls largely blamed them for the impasse. House Republican leaders are emphasizing their opposition to Obama’s health-care law leading up to the November election.

A suspension of the U.S. debt limit enacted by Congress in October expired Friday. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said last week that borrowing authority may not last past Feb. 27.

On Monday night, Boehner laid out a plan to link the debt-ceiling increase to legislation that would have reversed a cut to veteran retirement benefits. But conservative Republicans opposed the plan, and Republican leaders worried that Democrats would not go along, holding firm to Obama’s demand that no policy attachments come with a debt-ceiling increase.

On Tuesday, the speaker, who once declared the “Boehner Rule” - which holds that any debt-ceiling increase should be attached to spending cuts of equal size - gave up. A House Republican who was in the room for the speaker’s announcement described the response as “stunned silence.”

When asked if the Boehner Rule was now dead, the speaker replied, “I would hope not.”

“As I said before, this is a lost opportunity,” he said. “We could have sat down and worked together in a bipartisan manner to find cuts and reforms that are greater than increasing the debt limit. I am disappointed, to say the least.”

Business groups have urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling as soon as possible to assure companies that the U.S. government won’t default on its obligations.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying group, said in a letter to lawmakers Monday that quick passage would avoid “collateral stresses so often inflicted during similar episodes in recent years.”

A dispute over raising the debt limit was among the issues that led to the shutdown in October. House Republicans tried repeatedly to attach policy provisions curbing Obama’s health law and promoting the Keystone XL pipeline in exchange for raising the debt cap and funding the government.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement, “The House has come to the realization that following the hard right on the debt ceiling made no sense.” He said he hoped the party would “come to the same realization on immigration.”

The speaker’s move signals that, even as some Tea Party-backed lawmakers may have wanted to attach policy changes, the ranks of such Republicans are dwindling, said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University.

“They’re in a difficult political position,” Zelizer said.“I do think it signals this is not a strategy they plan to continue in the near term.”

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the budget deficit this year will be the smallest as a share of the economy since 2007 as stronger economic growth boosts tax revenue.

The office said the deficit will narrow to $514 billion this fiscal year, or 3 percent of gross domestic product, from $680 billion in 2013 before surging to $1.07 trillion in a decade.

Polls show that the issue of deficit reduction is declining as a priority for U.S. adults. A Jan. 15-19 poll by the Pew Research Center found that for the first time since Obama took office, the deficit slipped as a top item, with 63 percent of those polled saying that closing the budget gap should be a top priority for Congress and the White House.

That’s down from 72 percent a year ago.

The poll of 1,504 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Information for this article was contributed by Laura Litvan, Michael C. Bender, Kathleen Hunter, Richard Rubin, Roxana Tiron and James Rowley of Bloomberg News and by Ashley Parker and Jonathan Weisman of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/12/2014

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