White House rejects latest House proposal to end deadlock, as default deadline nears

October 15, 2013 – WASHINGTON – The Obama Administration today dismissed the latest fiscal proposal offered by House Republicans, calling it a partisan attempt to appease Tea Party conservatives. With time running out toward a Thursday deadline to avert a historic U.S. debt default, House Speaker John Boehner proposed an alternative to a Senate plan that would affect Obama’s healthcare law. The White House prefers a proposal from Democrats and Republicans in Senate. White House spokesman Amy Brundage said Obama has vowed repeatedly that lawmakers “don’t get to demand ransom for fulfilling their basic responsibilities to pass a budget and pay the nation’s bills.” The reaction came after some Senators expressed hope that a bipartisan deal could emerge on Tuesday to end Washington’s fiscal crisis. Even if Democrats and Republicans agree, it could be Wednesday before the U.S. Senate signs off on a plan, senators said, close to a Thursday deadline when the Obama administration says it will reach its borrowing limit and risk default. “I think we’ll get an agreement today in the Senate,” Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor told CNN’s “New Day” program. “I’m not saying we can pass it today because there’s logistics about drafting and getting it to the floor and the procedural things we’ll have to do … but my guess is we’ll pass something in the Senate tomorrow.” Boehner said on Tuesday that no decisions had been made yet regarding House of Representatives legislation to reopen the government and raise the debt limit. “There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. There have been no decisions about what exactly we will do,” Boehner told a news conference after meeting with House Republicans. “I have made clear for months and months that the idea of default is wrong and we shouldn’t get anywhere close to it.”

Congressional sources said that the two sides in the Senate were still at odds over Democrats’ demand for a delay in an insurance fee that is part of the new healthcare reforms, which are known widely as “Obamacare.” Thursday is the deadline for raising the debt ceiling to extend the government’s borrowing authority. The Obama administration says it will be unable to pay all of its bills if Congress does not raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit by then. The federal government has been in partial shutdown since Oct. 1 when Congress missed the deadline for funding it. The House plan would include stronger measures targeting Obama’s healthcare law, but still represents a major scaling back of GOP demands and may draw opposition from the most conservative Republicans in the chamber. The proposal would accept key parameters of the emerging Senate deal – reopening the federal government by extending current spending levels through mid-January, and raising the nation’s debt limit through February. But the House plan would add tweaks to the Affordable Care Act. Rather than delay a new tax opposed by labor unions, as the Senate plan would do, the House would delay for some time a tax on medical devices that the law imposes on manufacturers. –Chicago Tribune

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