Boehner Backs Out Of Debt-Limit Deal

House Speaker John Boehner lent his full support Thursday to undoing a key part of the debt-limit deal he struck with President Obama and the rest of the congressional leadership last summer.

Republicans in the House, Boehner confirmed, will advance legislation to replace automatic cuts to the defense budget from taking effect on Jan. 1. Those cuts are part of an enforcement mechanism he and a majority of his members agreed to accept, but that would only be triggered if Congress was unable to pass a significant deficit-reduction bill. They included the defense cuts, intended to force GOP cooperation and domestic-spending cuts, intended to force Democratic cooperation.

The GOP’s unwillingness to accept higher tax revenue doomed that effort, and so the automatic cuts — known technically as “sequestration” — are locked in. Now Boehner and the GOP are accelerating efforts to undo the one part of the deal that they don’t like.