Senate Republicans are meeting today with President Obama at the White House in an effort to break up the logjam to extend the nation’s borrowing authority and to possibly end the 11-day-old partial federal government shutdown. The president is hosting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Senate Republican Conference this morning at the White House. In the Senate, top Republicans have begun crafting a proposal that would reopen the government and raise the federal debt limit for as long as three months. The Treasury Department is at risk of running short of cash to pay the nation’s bill as soon as next week if the debt limit is not raised.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are pressing ahead with their preferred plan, which would push the next debt-limit fight into 2015 with no policy conditions. Democrats, who control 54 seats in the 100-member Senate, would need the support of at least six Republicans on procedural votes to pass the bill.
Talks occurred yesterday between the president and 20 House Republicans regarding a Republican-lead plan to lift the debt ceiling through late November to avert the first-ever default on the national debt in exchange for an agreement that the president negotiate on a broad range of budget issues. However, the two sides remained at odds over how and when to end the partial federal government shutdow. The group of 20 House Republicans meet with President Obama, Vice President Biden, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and other senior officials. The White House did not accept or reject the House Republican plans for a short-term increase in the debt limit.
Both the White House and GOP lawmakers described yesterday’s 90-minute talks as a “good meeting” and staff members for Obama and Boehner worked into the night yesterday. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) declined the offer to bring all 232 GOP lawmakers to the White House. Any possible deal faces questions, including whether Boehner can make a deal without losing the support of his hard-line members.
The first-step back from the brink triggered the biggest rise in U.S. stocks in nine months. The Dow Jones industrial average soared more than 300 points yesterday on signs that the impasse on the debt limit may be resolved, recovering most of the value it had lost since the federal government shutdown began on October 1.
