Congress has a debt-ceiling problem again. A big one.
House GOP leaders initially planned to vote on a red-meat proposal Friday pitched by the Republican Study Committee to increase the debt ceiling while imposing new limits on executive-branch power. That measure stood no chance of passing the Senate, but would at least show effort.
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Yet when House Majority Whip Steve Scalises (R-La.) team tested Republican support for the legislation, it fell far short of the needed 218 votes, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) postponed any floor action.
Now, the U.S. government is 12 days from reaching the debt limit without a clear plan of what to do.
Boehner, McCarthy and other GOP leaders are refusing at this point to move ahead with a "clean" debt ceiling bill insisted on by President Barack Obama. Senior leadership aides said they couldn't find the 30 Republican votes needed to join with all 188 Democrats to pass that proposal a bleak indication of the current state of play.
Boehner is still trying to hammer out a broader budget deal with the White House that would boost defense and infrastructure spending while making offsetting cuts in entitlement programs. But Obama is playing a strong hand and has refused to make any major concessions. Boehner, who wants to leave Congress next week, remains hopeful he can reach a budget agreement with the president, which would then allow him to put a clean debt bill up for a vote.
"We'll see," Boehner said when asked whether a budget accord was possible.
Complicating the issue is the question of Boehner's all-but-official successor, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The House Republican Conference will vote on Ryan's nomination for speaker next Wednesday, with the entire House taking up the issue on a day later.
Republicans are very unlikely to take any major action on the debt ceiling before Ryan's expected ascension to the speaker's chair is complete. The issue presents one of the most contentious votes that Republican members cast, and party leaders fear that doing so before the floor vote on Ryan-for-speaker could harm the Wisconsin Republican's chances.
Senate Republicans had planned to take up the House bill and amend it in a manner that could pass the Senate, potentially making it a straight debt ceiling measure in order to attract Democratic votes. But GOP leaders said they were making contingency plans in case the House stumbles, senators said.
"Shame on us if we haven't sort of thought about that in advance and war-gamed it," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn in an interview. "It's possible we could pass something, and we send it back to the House, and they pass it before it gets to the president. We're getting ready to get on a glide path to get to a conclusion here."
With the federal government set to reach its borrowing limit on Nov. 3, the Treasury Department on Thursday postponed an an auction of two-year debt notes, citing concerns over Congress' inaction on the debt ceiling issue so far. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has repeatedly warned that Congress should not wait until the last minute to boost the debt ceiling.
"The current debt limit impasse is also now adversely affecting the operation of government financing, increasing federal government borrowing costs, reducing the Treasury bill supply, and increasing the operational risk associated with holding a lower cash balance," the department said in a statement.
House leadership was considering a vote on the RSC's "Terms of Credit Act" Friday, but a whip check showed the party several dozen votes short, according to multiple sources familiar with the count.
The legislation would have lifted the debt limit until 2017, frozen all new agency regulations for at least a year, required Congress to stay in session until it passes all 12 appropriations bills and prevented the Senate from filibustering spending bills after October.
The measure lacked support to clear the Senate, let alone for Obama to sign it. But it was seen as a first step before the inevitable: a vote on a debt limit bill without strings.
Now, House Republican leadership is saying Democrats need to give up something in order to convince a "minimum number" of GOP lawmakers to avoid a lapse in the borrowing limit.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bashed Republicans for their disarray on the debt ceiling during a news conference on Thursday.
"Its only a matter of hours until we have to act in the House. We have to act really by tomorrow. This calendar of chaos is really coming down to hours, days, weeks," Pelosi told reporters.
Burgess Everett and Lauren French contributed to this report.
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House Republicans scramble for debt-ceiling plan - POLITICO