Rival Democratic and Republican plans to raise the government's borrowing ability have thrust Congress into a standoff just one week away from a potentially devastating debt crisis. President Barack Obama made a last ditch call for compromise, but House Speaker John Boehner said negotiations with the White House had been futile.
"We can't allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington's political warfare," Obama declared Monday in a prime-time address to the nation.
Boehner, in a nationally televised rebuttal, said he had given "my all" to work out a deal with Obama.
"The president would not take yes for an answer," he said.
The extraordinary back-to-back appeals to the public gave no indication that weeks of brinkmanship and sputtering talks over long-term deficit reductions were on the verge of ending. With an Aug. 2 deadline rapidly closing, Congress and the White House had limited options to avoid a potential government default that could send the already weak economy into a damaging swoon.
Both Democrats and Republicans softened previous hardline positions and appeared ready to leave quarrels over entitlement programs and higher tax revenues for later. But continued bickering on Capitol Hill overshadowed any signs of emerging common ground.
Boehner, however, argued at an afternoon news conference that Reid's plan is "full of gimmicks."
The package "doesn't deal with the biggest drivers of our deficits and debt, and that's entitlement programs," Boehner said.
Boehner's plan would require two separate votes by Congress. The first would approve approximately $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade while raising the debt ceiling through the end of 2011, two GOP leadership aides told CNN. Any failure on the part of Congress to enact the mandated spending reductions would trigger automatic across-the-board budget cuts.
The second vote would raise the debt limit through 2012, but only if Congress approves a series of major tax reforms and entitlement changes outlined by a bipartisan committee composed of Senate and House members.
The proposed structural changes -- a focal point of intense ideological conflict in Washington -- would have to generate between $1.6 trillion and $1.8 trillion in savings, according to a House Republican aide familiar with the package.
Boehner's plan, while allowing a total debt-ceiling increase of roughly $2.6 trillion, also would require both a House and Senate vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution between October 1 and the end of the year.
This plan is "less than perfect," Boehner said, but "reflects bipartisan negotiations" conducted with Senate Democrats over the weekend.
Democrats as a whole are vehemently opposed to the idea of holding more than one vote to raise the debt limit through the 2012 election, arguing that such a requirement is politically unrealistic and could prove to be economically destabilizing.
Republicans want to lock in long-term tax and spending changes, and argue that Obama is trying to avoid politically tough decisions in a presidential election year.
Meanwhile, top senators from each party said Monday night that behind-the-scenes talks continue to try to reach a deal that would avoid Congress voting on either the Reid or the Boehner proposals.
As leaders from the two parties continue to bicker, analysts warn that financial markets are growing increasingly nervous about the prospect of a national default. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 100 points almost immediately after opening Monday morning, although it later cut that loss. Most Asian markets were trading higher on Tuesday.
As the debt ceiling debate drags on, a new 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.
As in Congress, the public is sharply divided along partisan lines. Democrats and independents, according to the CNN/ORC Poll, are open to a number of different approaches because they think a failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause a crisis of major problems 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.
Fifty-two percent of Americans think Obama has acted responsibly in the debt ceiling talks so far, but nearly two-thirds say the Republicans in Congress have not acted responsibly. Fifty-one percent would blame the GOP if the debt ceiling is not raised; only three in 10 would blame Obama.
