user news House passes debt ceiling deal

House passes debt ceiling agreement

House passes debt ceiling agreement; Senate vote expected
Tuesday

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. House on Monday passed the

House passes debt ceiling agreement

House passes debt ceiling agreement; Senate vote expected
Tuesday

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. House on Monday passed the
debt-ceiling deal worked out by President Barack Obama and
congressional leaders, sending it to the Senate for
consideration a day before the deadline for the government
to face possible default.

A Senate vote was expected Tuesday, according to multiple
Senate leadership aides from each party.

By a 269-161 vote, the House overcame opposition from
liberal Democrats and tea party conservatives for
ideologically different reasons.

One of those supporting the plan was Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords, D-Arizona, who cast her first House vote since
being shot in the head in an assassination attempt in
January.

In an emotional moment, Giffords entered the chamber during
the vote and received a prolonged standing ovation from her
colleagues. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hugged
Giffords as other House members mobbed her, and the
commotion diverted attention from the ongoing vote total
showing the measure would pass.

The agreement reached Sunday by President Barack Obama and
congressional leaders from both parties calls for up to $2.4
trillion in savings over the next decade, raises the debt
ceiling through the end of 2012 and establishes a special
congressional committee to recommend long-term fiscal
reforms.

The legislation needs to reach Obama's desk by Tuesday at
the latest. If the current $14.3 trillion debt limit is not
increased by that point, Americans could face rapidly rising
interest rates, a falling dollar and shakier financial
markets, among other problems.

A number of Republicans worried about cuts in defense
spending and the lack of a required balanced-budget
amendment to the Constitution. Progressive Democrats were
livid over the extent of the deal's domestic spending cuts,
as well as the absence of any immediate tax hikes on
wealthier Americans.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was able to round up the
support of most of his GOP caucus, while the chamber's two
top Democrats -- Pelosi of California and Minority Whip
Steny Hoyer of Maryland -- voted for the plan along with
more than 90 of their caucus members.

Still, emotions ran high after months of grueling
negotiations that pitted the small-government, anti-tax
ideology of conservative Republicans against Obama's call
for balancing spending cuts and entitlement reforms with
increased tax revenue to spread the pain of necessary
deficit reduction steps.

This "may be the single worst piece of public policy
to ever come out of this institution," declared
liberal Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, while Pelosi noted
the measure "makes these big cuts and has ... not one
red cent from the wealthiest people in our country -- no
revenue."

At one point, more than a dozen protesters caused a
disturbance in the House gallery by chanting against Speaker
John Boehner until Capitol Police officers removed them.

Vice President Joe Biden spent much of Monday on Capitol
Hill, trying to persuade unhappy Democrats to back the
proposal.

"I am confident that this will pass," Biden
asserted. "We have to get this out of the way"
in order to turn Washington's focus to job growth, he
said.

Boehner and other House leaders said the deal would start
reshaping how Washington spends taxpayer money, which was
the goal of conservatives who elected Republicans to a
majority in the House last November.

"The bill is not perfect ... but changing the way that
Washington spends tax payers dollars is often a lot like
redirecting or turning an aircraft carrier." said
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia. "It's
a monumental task."

Boehner acknowledged that Republicans on the Armed Services
Committee were concerned about cuts to military spending in
the agreement, but he told reporters he believed they would
support the proposal.

"As I told them, this is the best defense number
we're going to get, and frankly if we don't pass the bill,
it's pretty clear to me what'll happen ... the defense
number will go down," Boehner said.

The agreement revolves around a two-stage process.

The first stage includes $917 billion in savings, including
a roughly $420 billion reduction in the national security
budget. The cuts would be accompanied by a $900 billion
increase in the debt ceiling.

Because of the pending Tuesday deadline, Obama would have
immediate authority to raise the debt ceiling by $400
billion, which will last through September, according to the
White House.

The other $500 billion increase in the debt limit would be
subject to a congressional vote of disapproval that can be
vetoed by Obama.

In the second stage, a special joint committee of Congress
would recommend further deficit reduction steps totaling
$1.5 trillion or more, with Congress obligated to vote on
the panel's proposals by the end of the year.

The committee would comprise 12 members: Six from each
chamber, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.
The panel's recommendations would be due by November 23 and
guaranteed an up-or-down vote without amendments by December
23.

The committee is expected to consider politically sensitive
reforms to the tax code and entitlement programs, though
Democrats and Republicans disagree on the likelihood of any
eventual revenue increases.

If the committee's recommendations are enacted, Obama would
be authorized to increase the debt ceiling by up to $1.5
trillion. If the recommendations are not enacted, Obama can
still raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion. At that
point, however, a budget "trigger" would kick
in, imposing mandatory across-the-board spending cuts
matching the size of the debt ceiling increase.

The cuts would be split between defense spending and
non-defense programs, an unpopular formula intended to
motivate legislators to approve the committee's
recommendations.

"You want to make it hard for (lawmakers) just to walk
away and wash their hands," Gene Sperling, the
director of Obama's National Economic Council, said Sunday.
"You want them to say, if nothing happens, there will
be a very tough degree of pain that will take place."

The final debt ceiling increase in the agreement would also
be subject to a congressional vote of disapproval that can
be vetoed by Obama.

The agreement calls for both houses of Congress to vote on a
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, though it
does not make a further increase in the debt limit subject
to congressional passage of such an amendment -- something
tea party conservatives were initially demanding.

In a key concession to Democrats, benefits from entitlements
including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare -- as well as
veteran's benefits -- will be exempt from any immediate
cuts.

Leaders on both sides of the aisle have conceded that the
deal is far from perfect.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, emphasized that
"no one got what they want" and "everyone
had to give something up."

But this "is a great stride forward" that shows
"we can succeed not in spite of our divided government
but because of it," he said.

A recent CNN/ORC International Poll reveals a growing public
exasperation and demand for compromise. Sixty-four percent
of respondents to a July 18-20 survey preferred a deal with
a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Only 34% preferred
a debt reduction plan based solely on spending reductions.

According to the poll, the public is sharply divided along
partisan lines; Democrats and independents are open to a
number of different approaches because they think a failure
to raise the debt ceiling would cause a major crisis for the
country. Republicans, however, draw the line at tax
increases, and a narrow majority of them oppose raising the
debt ceiling under any circumstances.

CNN's Ted Barrett, Kate Bolduan, Gloria Borger, Keating
Holland, Brianna Keilar, Jeanne Sahadi, Xuan Thai, Jessica
Yellin, Athena Jones, Lisa Desjardins, Dan Lothian and
Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

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The debt debate through historical lens
updated 2011-08-01

The debt debate through historical lens

click the sprinkle on the right to watch the video.
Source: CNN

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Not all satisfied with depth deal
updated 2011-08-01

Not all satisfied with depth deal

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Source: CNN

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Winners and losers of the depth deal
updated 2011-08-01

Winners and losers of the depth deal

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Source: CNN

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Huffpost: House Passes Debt Limit Deal
updated 2011-08-01

Huffpost: House Passes Debt Limit Deal

Huffpost: House Passes Debt Limit Deal

WASHINGTON -- The House passed a bill on Monday evening to
cut spending by $2.1 trillion and raise the debt ceiling
until 2013, just one day before the Aug. 2 deadline for the
government to begin defaulting on its loans.

The deal passed mostly on the back of House Republicans,
with 269 votes for the deal and 161 against it. Among the
240 Republicans, 174 supported the bill.

House Democrats were furious, with some members calling the
bill a "Satan sandwich" and most of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus vowing to vote against it.
In the end, however, 95 Democrats voted to support the bill,
including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who is
recovering from a gun shot wound.

By approving the bill, which should easily pass the Senate
on Tuesday, the House allowed the government to avoid a
historic default on the nation's loans. But first, it had
to anger plenty of progressives on the left and Tea Partiers
on the right, both of whom opposed the deal.

Leadership on both sides insisted that though the deal was
not perfect, it made the best of a difficult situation. With
the House led by Republicans and the Senate and White House
led by Democrats, Congress was gridlocked for months over
how to raise the debt ceiling, with congressional
Republicans walking away from the negotiating table multiple
times.

By Sunday, when a deal had been cemented, House Speaker John
Boehner (R-Ohio) faced a tough task: selling the bill to his
conference, many of whom have opposed raising the debt limit
unless tied to passage of a balanced budget amendment.
Conservative members of the House GOP conference revolted
against a debt ceiling plan presented by Boehner last week,
forcing him to revise the bill's provision on the balanced
budget amendment at the last minute to win more votes.

The final deal includes a requirement to vote on the
balanced budget amendment, making it more like the original
Boehner bill. But he insisted to his members that it brought
them closer to passage of the amendment than ever before.
"This gives us the best shot that we've had in the 20
years that I've been here," Boehner said at a press
conference Monday.

House Republican leaders also said the bill was a "big
win" because it does not include revenue-increasing
measures, such as tax hikes for the wealthy or closing
loopholes for corporations.

"I think the big win here for us and for the American
people is that there are no tax hikes in here," House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.

Democrats, meanwhile, worried the bill was going too far by
cutting spending and putting economic recovery at risk.
Hours ahead of the vote, scores of Democrats left a caucus
meeting fuming about the deal not reflecting any of their
priorities, namely preserving entitlement programs and
closing corporate tax loopholes.

"We ceded the whole moral ground on billionaires
paying their fair share," said Rep. Eliot Engel
(D-N.Y.).

Engel questioned why any Democrats should vote for a deal
that could ultimately "decimate Medicare" and
that hands big wins to Republicans while "taking for
granted" Democratic votes. The bill will establish a
"super Congress" that will be tasked with
finding savings from entitlement programs, risking major,
filibuster-proof changes to those programs.

"You know what we got? We avoided default. I'm glad
we avoided default," said the New York Democrat.
"But if you had told me that this would be the package
a month ago, I would have asked you what you had been
smoking."

Asked what she thinks of the deal, Del. Eleanor Holmes
Norton (D-D.C.) replied, "I don't think. I
cry."

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) called the bill
"terrible" and predicted it would lead to
another 1 million private sector jobs lost. The bill cuts
$917 billion from the deficit over the next decade, with
billions coming in the first two years.

At the same time, Democrats said they struggled with wanting
to support Obama's efforts. "It's our conscience
versus our president," said Rep. Steve Cohen
(D-Tenn.). "It's a bitch."

By and large, Democrats headed into the vote ready for
Boehner to take responsibility for securing votes since the
bill was largely driven by extremist lawmakers in his
party.

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it
was up to Boehner to whip his members into passing the bill.
Asked if she though the House had the votes, Pelosi told
reporters, "You'll have to ask the Speaker. He's in
the majority."

In the end, however, Pelosi held her nose and voted for the
bill, along with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

In the Senate, many Democrats are expected to do the same.

"It's a very hard compromise for people, but we
recognize, I think a majority of us, the alternative is
calamitous," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
summing up the thinking of many of her colleagues after
Biden made his pitch to them. "I think this becomes a
settlement of necessity rather than a settlement of
favor."

Still, some members of the caucus remained adamantly opposed
even after Biden's visit.

"There is deep disappointment by the American people
that at time when the rich are becoming much richer and
there are corporations making billions in profits and not
paying a nickel in taxes that deficit reduction is taking
place on the backs of children and the elderly, the sick and
the poor," said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. "I
think that that is a very unfortunate circumstance and I'm
certainly not going to vote for it."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he'd vote against the
bill, arguing that its cuts would inevitably come from
programs that help the poor put food on the table and heat
their homes, or would be aimed at federal agencies that
Republicans don't like, such as the EPA.

"The people who are really in a position where mercy
is required … those are discretionary things that will be
cut in the next budget cycle," Lautenberg predicted.
"To see that as helpful to our country is something I
don't understand."

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Giffords Return Marks Moment of Unity
updated 2011-08-01

Giffords Return Marks Moment of Unity

Giffords Return Marks Moment of Unity

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, SARAH WHEATON and JEFF ZELENY
The clock was running down, and the debt ceiling compromise
did not yet have enough Yeas to pass. Then, slowly, applause
started trickling through the House chamber. The clapping
grew over the next half minute, until finally, the person
who somehow managed to draw universal admiration from the
frayed body came into view.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords made a surprise appearance
Monday evening on the floor of the House of Representatives,
the first time she has returned to Washington since she was
shot earlier this year in Arizona.

With two minutes remaining on the voting clock, Ms. Giffords
entered the chamber through a side door. Her arrival
prompted a standing ovation that lasted throughout the
remainder of the vote on the compromise to raise the debt
ceiling. She was among one of the last representatives to
cast her ballot, voting yes on the measure as other
affirmative votes put the bill over the top.

“Gabby is voting to support the bipartisan debt-ceiling
compromise,” said a post on her Facebook page. “This is
a huge step in her recovery, and an example of what we all
know–she is determined to get better, and to serve CD8 and
our nation. This vote–expected to be very close–was
simply too important for her to miss.”

Ms. Giffords waved and quickly was surrounded by her
Democratic colleagues. Some Republicans crossed the aisle to
see her, too, as she rose to wave again.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority
leader, hailed the return of Ms. Giffords, saying: “There
isn’t a name that stirs more love, more admiration, more
respect, more wishing for our daughters to be like her than
the name of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Thank you,
Gabby.”

The dramatic arrival capped a day of anticipation on Capitol
Hill. She was accompanied by her husband, the astronaut Mark
E. Kelly. She left the chamber, walking slowly, but under
her own power. Her Twitter account, which has featured
dispatches from her staff since she was shot in the head at
a Tucson political event in January, finally featured a
message from its owner:
"The #Capitol looks beautiful and I am honored to be
at work tonight."
Mon Aug 01 23:12:40 via HootSuite
Gabrielle Giffords
Rep_Giffords

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip,
said he learned of Ms. Giffords arrival about 30 minutes
before she walked onto the House floor. He said that he
believed she flew on a government plane to Washington.

“It was very heartening to see her,” Mr. Hoyer said.
“She wanted to be with her colleagues as she was at the
beginning of the year.”

Ms. Giffords smiled as she moved through a crowded hallway.
She did not answer questions, but raised her hand to wave as
she walked into a waiting elevator. She wore a teal shirt
and thick glasses, her brown hair cropped short — a
contrast from the longer hair she wore before the shooting
— but her smile was remarkably similar to how she looked
before the shooting seven months ago.