House Republicans will meet in private session Tuesday morning to discuss additional ways to prod Democrats to negotiate over government funding and the debt limit.
GOP leadership is considering tying shutdown pay for federal employees to new language that would have the House and Senate appoint negotiators to wrangle over the deficit, debt and government funding. The plan elicited sighs from some senior Republican lawmakers, who saw this as a gimmick that moves Congress no closer to an actual deal. Republicans have been stymied, as Democrats stand unified against negotiating to end the government shutdown and lift the nation’s borrowing cap.
The government has been shut down for a week, and the Treasury Department says the debt ceiling must be lifted by Oct. 17.
In the closed session, which started at 9 a.m., Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will also seek to hear feedback from rank-and-file lawmakers who went back to their districts Sunday. GOP leadership is eager to hear if there was significant backlash from constituents.
(PHOTOS: 25 great shutdown quotes)
Some conservatives in the House are pushing a short-term debt limit hike that would be accompanied by spending cuts, but Republican leadership is cool to that idea — and President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats say raising the debt ceiling will contain no policy riders.
The Senate’s Republican and Democratic conferences will caucus at separate lunches off the Senate floor Tuesday to hash out raising the debt ceiling. Stuck at a stalemate with the House on reopening the government, Senate Democratic leadership is mulling moving a bill that would raise the debt ceiling through the 2014 elections and would not include policy riders — although a shorter time frame may appeal more to Republicans.
The 54 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus appeared united on the debt ceiling plan Monday with the support of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) but now must pick off six members of the GOP to vote with them and break a 60-vote procedural threshold for the bill — no easy lift given the lukewarm reception given to the proposal.
Republicans will not only have to hash out whether they will break precedent and block raising the debt ceiling but also whether to hold things up procedurally in the Senate. The longer the delay, the closer a vote in the Senate would come tothe Oct. 17 deadline and the more pressure to avert a catastrophic debt default.
House GOP strategize debt limit fight
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