Boehner, Cruz & GOP cry uncle ARMAGEDDON AVERTED, GOP HUMILIATED: Boehner and Cruz cave in to allow Democrat debt-ceiling bill to speed through Congress before midnight default deadline can cause global chaos. Top lawmakers announced a compromise on the Democrat-led Senate floor at noon Wednesday - its all over but the voting Crushing defeat for GOP and House Speaker John Boehner, who was forced to assure reporters today that he will absolutely get the Senates bill through the House Ted Cruz, who has been the face of tea party demands during the deadlock, said he will not block the Senates vote Two conservative groups are still threatening to punish Republicans who vote in favor of the Senate plan Both houses of Congress are racing against time to beat a midnight deadline, when the U.S. risks defaulting on its debts Bill will go to the Senate at 5pm and then to the House later in the evening The Dow Jones closed 205 points ahead on Wednesday following news of the deal, and yields fell on both short- and long-term government bonds The White House took a short victory lap and has already moved on to immigration reform, as its political leverage is at a high point Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Texas Senator Ted Cruz dramatically caved in to pressure today paving the way for a Democrat-led bill to pass before a midnight deadline to ensure the country doesnt crash through its debt ceiling and cause global chaos. The bill still needs to be navigated through the House and Senate, but observers on Capitol Hill expect it to sail through in a crushing defeat for Republicans on the partys right wing. Boehner and his House caucus have walked away humiliated after a month of brinkmanship in which the Republicans were accused by President Obama of holding the White House ransom over Obamacare and their desired spending cuts. The speaker made his capitulation official after a closed-door meeting with his caucus Wednesday afternoon, saying he would absolutely navigate the bill quickly through the House, even if he has to rely on Democrats to pass it. Republicans fight against the Obamacare law will continue, he said. But blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us. News of a deal saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring to a finish 205.82 points ahead, a 1.36 per cent gain. U.S. Treasury bond yields, which rose through the morning, headed downward again after Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell announced their compromise, signaling at least a temporary relaxing of global market fears. The bill will not only raise the debt-ceiling through to February 7, but the partial shutdown of government will be lifted, but most furloughed federal workers will likely not take their posts again until Friday. In Washington, though, the blame-game will begin before ink meets paper, with Boehner and Cruz, the maverick Texan, taking their places in the firing line. Many Republicans are sniping that the pair carried the nation to the brink of disaster and extracted nothing from Washington, D.C. liberals that they can spin as a victory. After losing such a high-stakes game of political poker, the GOP will now shoulder the burden of being blamed for the fiasco that led to serious fears of a fresh economic catastrophe and dragged Americas global reputation through the mud. Meanwhile, House and Senate managers are working to push a result across the finish line by midnight. We are not putting odds on anything, said White House press secretary Jay Carney in his afternoon briefing, but he urged both houses of Congress to act swiftly and as soon as possible to avoid economic disaster. Carney then took questions about President Obamas plans to leverage his new-found political capital in a bid to reform Americas immigration system, a move he told the Spanish-language Univision network on Tuesday that he would undertake the day after Congress solved the debt crisis. Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, said Wednesday that all of the Democrats and a big chunk of the Republicans would vote to support the Reid–McConnell bill. Nunes has been critical of GOP advocates who pushed for a government shutdown in late September, calling them lemmings with suicide vests. A senior House Republican aide told MailOnline that while the GOP caucus is in disarray, more than enough Republicans will support the Senate-crafted bill to assure its passage in the House. Frankly, were all just tired of this problem and everyone – well, almost everyone – is ready to move on, the House staffer said. That comment was a dig at tea party-affiliated Republicans who have held up the process and given the White House endless opportunities to bash the GOP. The Club For Growth, a conservative political action committee that often pressures members of Congress on key issues, sent notices out less than two hours after the Senate deal was announced, urging conservatives to register their displeasure with a no vote. The Senate plan appears to have little to no reforms in it, the group said. There are no significant changes to Obamacare, nothing on the other major entitlements that are racked with trillions in unfunded liabilities, and no meaningful spending cuts either. If this bill passes, Congress will kick the can down the road, yet again. Heritage Action, another right-wing group, told members that it opposes the Senate-negotiated proposal and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard. Those messages mean the groups will punish congressmen and women who vote yes by downgrading their job-performance ratings, which guide decisions about fundraising. But while conservatives are whining, liberals are crowing. Looks like the grownups came to the rescue, an aide to a Democratic senator told MailOnline shortly after the deal was announced, suggesting that the public would see Republicans as obstructionists who couldnt find their way through a near-disaster. If there is a silver lining in this cloud, said New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, its that hopefully this debacle means that the power of those that favor confrontation has peaked. Boehner blinked first by agreeing that the Republican-led House would vote on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown. The Senate is expected to vote at 5:00 p.m., and then the measure will go to the House. Moments after Senate leaders announced their compromise, Sen. Cruz was asked if he would block the bill. Cruz, a tea party hardliner who has been making hardline demands over the deadlock, said, Of course not. But Cruz announced on the floor of the Senate that he would not support the emerging compromise bill with a yes vote since it failed to make significant changes to the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas signature health insurance overhaul law. Countless Americans all over the nation are being notified their premiums are skyrocketing. Others are losing jobs or seeing their work hours reduced, and thousands upon thousands are losing their healthcare plans altogether. All because of Obamacare, Cruz said. I am saddened to say that today, the Senate did nothing to help them. Washington did nothing. His fellow Republicans, however, have already started to complain about actions Cruz took as the debt crisis deepened. Hes the one whos responsible, New York Republican Rep. Peter King said on the Fox News Channel, noting that Cruz organized the House tea partiers to oppose Boehners Tuesday compromise proposals. Even Cruzs hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, has become suddenly hostile. When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, the papers editorial board wrote Wednesday morning, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation – that he follow [former Sen. Kay Bailey] Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator. Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem. Americas economy hangs in the balance as the two houses of Congress are scrambling to finalize a deal and avoid crashing through the nations debt ceiling tomorrow. The bill, drafted by Democrats, will give President Barack Obama new power to run up debts without making any significant changes to his controversial Obamacare health insurance law.Thats when the country risks defaulting on its interest payments to creditors and sparking a global recession. The mid-morning change of course stunned some in Washington, as it suggests Republicans have fallen in line and are collaborating with their political opposites. The deadlock had been driving up the cost of U.S. borrowing as more and more foreign bond holders move their investments to other currencies, hurting the strength of the dollar. The International Monetary Fund had said failure to come to agreement would risk another global recession. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet told CNBC on Wednesday morning that it would be a pure act of idiocy if the U.S. defaulted on its bills and damaged the countrys reputation for paying its bills that has been built up over 237 years. Wednesdays most likely scenario sees the House voting on a package that will extend the debt ceiling through February 7 and reopen the government until January 15. A joint House/Senate committee with equal numbers of members from both parties would be charged with staving off the next crisis deadline, by agreeing on a long-term solution by mid-December. According to a Republican Senate aide, the plan will include an income-verification measure that Republicans insist is needed to make sure Americans who claim subsidies under the Obamacare health insurance law actually qualify for the handouts. But gone is a provision that Obama threatened to veto. It would have required him, the vice president, top-level political appointees and members of Congress – and their staffers – to register in the Obamacare system without financial help from taxpayers. The Senate aide said Boehner will end up with the most egg on his face after the dust settles. This is really bad for the speaker. The conservatives over there really gave him headaches, he said. At this point he just has to put the Senate bill on the floor, collect the Democrats votes, and leave the tea party crowd on the sidelines. Its not clear exactly when a House vote would happen, and there is no guarantee Congress will send a bill to the White House by midnight. The longer it takes, the more likely it is that markets will react to the perilous and uncharted economic waters. The U.S. has defaulted on its debts twice before, but one instance came during the War of 1812 and the other amounted to a clerical error in 1979. In that Carter-era case, the Treasury had to catch up after failing to pay bond holders their interest for two weeks. But the federal government has never before come this close to setting off a fiscal feeding frenzy that could tank its entire economy. Wednesdays events will follow a day of high drama on Capitol Hill during which Senators and the Republican-led House played a game of high stakes poker with the countrys economy and its reputation abroad. Senate Democrats said Tuesday night that they were back in control after House conservatives torpedoed Boehners attempt to craft a politically workable proposal of his own. But Republicans in the House of Representatives abandoned a planned Tuesday night vote shortly before dinner after it became clear House Speaker John Boehner wouldnt get enough votes to pass a surprise rival bill he unveiled hours earlier. At that point, Boehners staff found there was nothing to do but order a massive stack of pizzas for dinner. The surprise announcement of the GOPs rival plan Tuesday morning left Reid stunned and furious. California Senator Dianne Feinstein had lamented that bipartisan talks in the Senate were in disarray. Its all fallen apart, she told Bloomberg News, lashing out as McConnell broke off negotiations with Reid while his House GOP counterparts worked on their own bill. But the Senate started up its processes again after dinnertime, following news that Republicans in the House couldnt reach agreement on the terms of their own proposal. Its game, set, match, I think, a GOP aide to a centrist Republican House member told MailOnline. We should have seen this coming. The only questions left are how much pain Harry Reid will want to inflict, and how much Mitch McConnell will let him get away with. Its all over. Well take the Senate deal, another GOP staffer told the conservative National Review. The GOP was unable to close the deal on its own proposal amid claims that Boehner couldnt satisfy enough of his caucus to push the deal across the finish line.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 00:57:11 +0000
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