WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives plans to consider legislation next week to raise the U.S. debt limit as Republicans negotiate over the bill with Democrats, who insist that it be free of unrelated policy provisions. ADVERTISING WASHINGTON — The
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives plans to consider legislation next week to raise the U.S. debt limit as Republicans negotiate over the bill with Democrats, who insist that it be free of unrelated policy provisions.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday that the chamber is expected to address the borrowing limit next week. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has said Congress must raise the debt ceiling by Nov. 3 or risk default.
“I want a debt limit that gets raised, but does something about the debt,” said McCarthy, a California Republican.
Republican John Fleming of Louisiana said he has been told that leaders are working on a so-called clean plan to raise the limit.
Fleming, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he and other Republicans will vote against it, but that outgoing Speaker John Boehner and other party leaders are planning to rely on help from Democrats to get the measure passed.
“They just are going to do a clean” bill and “pass it with a majority of Democrats,” Fleming said he was told. He said he wasn’t told directly by Boehner or other leaders, but “that’s the word being passed around” the Republican caucus. He said in an interview that he doesn’t dispute that Nov. 3 is a hard deadline.
A Republican House leadership aide said Boehner’s office hasn’t made a decision on whether to proceed with a clean debt limit bill. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has said he wants to “clean the barn up” by passing some major measures before he leaves and the likely next speaker, Paul Ryan, takes over.
McCarthy, asked whether leaders are considering a clean bill, said, “My position is the same, you have to do something about the debt going forward and it has to be raised.”
“We are meeting in a bipartisan way to find a path forward,” McCarthy said.
Support from at least 30 Republicans would be needed, if all 188 Democrats supported a debt limit bill, in order for it to pass.
Republicans want debt-limit legislation to include policy language intended to cut government spending, while Democrats and President Barack Obama say the measure must be free of extraneous provisions.
The urgency of acting to raise the debt limit was highlighted by the Treasury Department’s decision Thursday to postpone an auction of two-year notes previously scheduled for early next week. The Treasury said that “due to debt ceiling constraints, there is a risk that Treasury would not be able to settle the two-year note” on Nov. 2.
Second-ranking House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters Friday he was confident that Congress would raise the limit in time because it was “inconceivable” that there wouldn’t be support from 30 Republicans.
