Speaker John Boehner's plan to cut spending in exchange for allowing a rise in the debt ceiling fell a bit short in the savings department when it was scored by the CBO, so it's being reworked and will likely come to a vote on Thursday.
Although many House Republicans initially refused to vote for the bill, Boehner wisely opened up the conversation to his caucus and the revamped bill seems to be picking up steam in the House. Rep. Allen West ( R-FL) was a key endorsement:
"From what I saw in there, I think there’s a pretty good change of heart,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said following an early morning meeting of the GOP. Although West had already indicated he would support the bill, he said the Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate of the bill and lobbying by leaders seemed to have help turn the page on the measure.
Asked if he thought the bill would be passed, West said, “I believe it [will]. I’d almost put my retirement check on it.”
One conservative lawmaker said Boehner and his lieutenants have been pushing their Conference hard on the issue. “They’re working it hard. They’re working it earnestly. They’re working it aggressively,” the lawmaker said.
The work will be for nothing if Senate Majority leader Harry Reid ( D-NV) has anything to say about it.
Reid hasn't even seen the reworked plan yet, but says the Boehner plan isn't going to get a single Democrat vote in the Senate, which if he's right means that it would fail on a party line vote - just like 'cut, cap, and balance', the first solution to the problem passed by th eHouse and voted for by every Republican in the Senate. Reid referred to Boehner's plan as " a big wet kiss for the Right Wing."
Does Reid have a plan, as he claims? Well, no one's sure there is one, since no one's seen it!
The president and the Democrats are obviously going to deliberately go for a government shutdown unless they get whatever they want in the way of sharply higher tax increases. They've apparently decided that the political gains they feel they can reap by holding people like social security recipients and military families hostage and then blaming it on the Republicans outweighs the good of the country.
And Tom Friedman in Pravda-on-the-Hudson had the nerve to compare the Republicans with Hezbollah in his screed today..talk about political terrorists.
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