Four days and three revisions later, House Republicans narrowly passed a debt-ceiling proposal that will be killed later this evening.
House Republicans muscled through a revised debt limit plan without a single Democratic vote on Friday night and headed toward a confrontation with the Senate, where Democrats were anxiously awaiting the newly passed measure so they could reject it. President Obama has also threatened to veto it.
About 24 hours after the first Republican proposal backed by Speaker John A. Boehner stalled, the House voted 218 to 210 to approve a plan that would increase the federal debt ceiling in two stages, with the second installment of $1.6 trillion contingent on Congressional approval of a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. The Constitutional amendment provision was added to attract conservatives who balked Thursday.
In all, 22 House Republicans ended up opposing the measure, along with every House Democrat. Here’s the roll call in case you wanted a list of the 22 opponents.
The Senate, which may remain in session around the clock through the weekend, will reportedly take up the Boehner bill tonight, quickly dispatching it and beginning work on a compromise measure. The Senate vote could come within the hour.
Why’d the House waste nearly a week on a doomed right-wing plan that House Republicans didn’t much care for? Especially after wasting last week on a similarly doomed right-wing plan that was immediately rejected by the Senate? The point had something to do with giving Boehner “leverage,” though the end result is a weakened Speaker, a divided GOP, and a nation perilously close to the most dramatic, needlessly destructive, self-inflicted wound imaginable.
Update: The Senate tabled the Boehner bill around 8 p.m., with a 59 to 41 vote. Here’s the roll call.
