House approves balanced-budget bill, defies Obama Veto
The Republican-controlled House defied a presidential veto threat Tuesday night in approving a bill to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. But Speaker John A. Boehner acknowledged that a backup plan is needed, and a Senate GOP leader said he expects such an alternative to win his chamber’s approval.
The House voted 234 to 190 in favor of the “Cut, Cap and Balance Act,” which the White House has said will be vetoed in the unlikely event it passes the Senate and reaches President Obama’s desk. Faced with those prospects, Boehner told reporters that it would also be responsible to consider a backup plan for raising the federal debt ceiling and thus averting a potentially disastrous default on U.S. obligations.
In the Senate, the second-ranking Republican leader, Jon Kyl (Ariz.), said the backup proposal being crafted by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) should be able to pass, although he would not predict whether it would win approval in the House. It would allow Obama to raise the $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling in return for about $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years.
Separately, a more ambitious plan to slice $3.7 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade was gaining momentum Tuesday in the Senate after more than 40 Republicans and Democrats attended a morning briefing on the proposal. However, it was not immediately clear how the proposal might be combined with existing debt-limit strategies — or with raising the debt ceiling. As described by its creators, the framework calls for $500 billion in immediate spending cuts as a downpayment on a broader debt-reduction effort.
House Republicans insist that a constitutional mandate is the only way to impose discipline on Washington’s spending binges and avoid dangerous political showdowns like the one now pushing the country to the brink of its first default.