Boehner: No Debt Ceiling Solution Until After Symbolic Votes Next Week

TPM

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the debt limit fight, the theatrics will continue in the House of Representatives for another week or so.

Scores of House Republicans say they won't vote to raise the debt limit unless a Constitutional balanced budget amendment has been sent off to the states for ratification. And so whatever Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Congressional leaders decide about the real path ahead, he'll hold votes next week on a major spending cut and spending cap plan that includes a hike in the debt ceiling, and, separately, on a balanced budget amendment. The latter would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate and, in its current form, stands little chance of passing either chamber.

The votes themselves will put some political pressure on Democrats to support the nominally popular balanced budget amendment, and will allow Republicans to claim they voted to raise the debt limit in the event that the government runs out of borrowing authority. But the so-called "cut, cap, and balance" approach is dead on arrival in the Senate.

At a Friday press conference after a meeting with the GOP caucus, Boehner let slip, subtly, that the plan will go nowhere...............