Friday Afternoon Breaking: Support Grows As Boehner Adds Balanced Budget Amendment
Jul 29, 2011 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
House Republicans will link passage of a balanced-budget amendment to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) last-ditch debt-ceiling plan, which GOP lawmakers said would move the measure to passage in a high-stakes vote later on Friday.
Republican lawmakers seemed confident after a vital Friday morning conference meeting that the tweaked Boehner proposal would pass muster with a restive conference.
“I’m smiling,” Boehner said after perhaps the most crucial conference meeting of his speakership.
GOP members said Boehner’s revised framework would still pave the way for the $14.3 trillion debt limit to be raised through the 2012 election in two chunks.
It would also mandate that the second hike of the ceiling could occur only occur after a Balanced Budget Amendment passed both chambers of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. Previously, a vote on a BBA was all that was required for that second increase – which, under the Boehner plan, would likely be necessary early next year.
But in adding the balanced budget amendment and postponing Thursday’s vote on Boehner’s initial measure, several GOP lawmakers warned their party had given up valuable leverage to Senate Democrats in the final days of talks to raise the debt ceiling by an Aug. 2 deadline.
“The fact of the matter is, because of the dust-up yesterday, we’ve lost some leverage,” Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), a close Boehner ally, said after Friday’s conference meeting.
“You could say it’s remote, but there was a chance that the package yesterday, if it had been successfully voted out, would have been adopted by the Senate and signed by the president. I think everybody acknowledges that’s not going to happen with this piece of legislation.”
A GOP leadership source said the vote would take place between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday.
