House Passes Measure Suspending Debt Limit Until March 2015

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House Passes Measure Suspending Debt Limit Until March 2015

Laura Litvan and Michael C. Bender, ©2014 Bloomberg News

Published 4:39 pm, Tuesday, February 11, 2014

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(Updates with Cruz on Senate vote in seventh paragraph.)

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The House of Representatives voted to suspend the U.S. debt limit until March 2015, giving a win to President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress who insisted that the ceiling be lifted without conditions.

The measure passed today 221-201.

The plan goes to the Democratic-led Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said the chamber will act as soon as possible. Obama and Senate Democrats had refused to negotiate on raising the debt limit, and U.S. companies sought assurance that the government wouldn’t exhaust its borrowing authority.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said the issue comes down to whether the U.S. will make good on its obligations to debt-holders and provide stability by boosting the limit.

“Will America pay its bills?” Hoyer said on the House floor before the vote. “Will it give confidence to the business community? Will it give confidence to its own citizens? Will it indeed give confidence to the world?”

Republicans have been divided over spending issues. Fewer than half of House Republicans voted last year for measures that averted spending cuts and tax increases, assisted victims of domestic and sexual violence and provided aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy. Republicans needed Democratic votes to pass a budget deal in December and a farm bill last month.

Ted Cruz

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said he will insist on requiring at least 60 votes to advance the debt-limit measure instead of a simple majority of the 100 senators.

Responding to criticism that he was forcing five Republicans to join Democrats in passing the bill, Cruz told reporters, “Republicans in the Senate and House should stand united” to “stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper.”

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, asked whether that chamber would have 60 votes to advance the measure, said, “I think so, if 60 votes are required.”

Two House Democrats, Jim Matheson of Utah and John Barrow of Georgia, joined most Republicans in voting against the measure. Among the 28 Republicans supporting it were Boehner of Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan and Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky.

“Our members are also very upset with the president,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters today. “He won’t negotiate. He won’t deal with our long-term spending problems without us raising taxes, won’t even sit down and discuss these issues. He’s the one driving up the debt.”

218 Votes

Boehner, asked whether advancing the bill was a recognition that Republicans lack political leverage after October’s 16-day partial government shutdown, said, “It’s the fact that we don’t have 218 votes. And when you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing.”

Republicans said after the shutdown that they wouldn’t again risk breaching the debt limit and wanted to move on to other issues after public opinion polls largely blamed them for the impasse. House Republican leaders are emphasizing their opposition to Obamacare leading up to the November election.

A suspension of the U.S. debt limit enacted by Congress in October expired Feb. 7. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said last week that borrowing authority may not last past Feb. 27.

Muted increases in Treasury bill rates this month signaled that investors saw little risk that U.S. lawmakers wouldn’t raise the nation’s borrowing limit on time.

Treasury Bills

One-month bill rates slid to 0.05 percent from a high of 0.14 percent at the beginning of the month. The rates surged as high as 0.45 percent in October before lawmakers agreed to suspend the debt limit.

Last night, Republicans said they would move a debt-limit increase that would include benefits for military retirees. The House passed the benefits proposal as a separate measure today, and the Senate is considering a different version.

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end quote from:

House Passes Measure Suspending Debt Limit Until March 2015

Though I think this is a really great idea for now solving our government's problems I think it is also a horrific idea to take up so close to the next Presidential election  in 2015 and likely will haunt both Democrats and Republicans that they chose to do it this way.