Tonight the House will vote on a bill to lift debt ceiling. It's full of "poison" - The Full Vitter, etc that will stop Dems for voting for it. After it fails, maybe a bill can be voted on, tonight or tomorrow that will avoid a default. BELOW, TIMELINE OF EVENTS........FIRST, WHAT IS THE FULL VITTER?
FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC
Regardless what happens Tuesday night on the Hill, the true dark-comedic nadir of the Big Beltway Brouhaha of 2013 was reached at 2:51 on Tuesday afternoon. That is when the National Review’s estimable Robert Costa reported that the House Republicans’ final proposal to reopen the federal government and avert a national credit default had been tweaked one last time. The proposal no longer included the repeal of the medical device tax—Republican leaders had added that earlier in the day, but some conservative members, to their credit, rightly decried the repeal as the crony capitalism that it is. This left House Republicans with one major final demand: to force a huge pay cut on their own staff.
Do I jest? Not at all. There is no better way to describe the “full Vitter,” which refers not to some workplace colloquialism in the escort services of Washington, D.C. and Louisiana, but rather to Senator David Vitter’s proposal to do away with the “Obamacare exemption” for Washington officials including members of Congress and most of their staff. The proposal polls great—why should congressmen get a special break? There’s just one problem: the exemption doesn’t actually exist. That Republicans have continued to milk it for cheap political points has been deeply depressing to watch. But it’s also symbolically perfect that the great charade of this whole chapter in Washington should in the end come down to a demand that is so cynical and hollow that its only real impact is to force a pay cut upon members’ own loyal and hard-working aides.
To recap, quickly: When the Affordable Care Act was being drafted, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, offered an amendment requiring that members of Congress and their staff be required to get their coverage in the new “exchanges” being created by the law. This made little sense—the exchanges are intended for individuals without employer-provided health insurance and small businesses, not for people already covered by large employers. But Democrats took Grassley’s bluff, to deprive Republicans of a talking point. Only later did Congress confront the consequences of this grandstanding: The law forced members and Hill staff to buy coverage in the exchanges, but did not lay out a way for their employer—the government—to continue paying its share of the premiums, as most other large employers do. Hill staff were going to be stuck with vastly higher health insurance costs—that is, a big pay cut.
To deal with this consequence, the Obama administration devised a workaround so that the federal government would continue picking up roughly the same share of the tab for Hill employees’ coverage, while still requiring them to buy coverage on the exchanges. Click-happy Beltway media—one in particular—seized on this as an “exemption” from Obamacare, an irresponsible distortion that predictably fired up the conservative grass-roots. The Wall Street Journal editorial board fed the flames withexceedingly cynical calls to arms about Congress’ “carve-out” from the law, its “ad-libbed decision, at the 11th hour and on the basis of no legal authority, to create a special exemption for themselves from the ObamaCare health coverage that everybody else is mandated to buy.” This was flatly false – “everybody else” is not mandated to buy ObamaCare health coverage – tens of millions of people already covered by their employers are going to keep those plans; the singular treatment of the Hill was the requirement that it give up its coverage and go into Obamacare.
It was left to a few lonely voices to set the record straight, such as a persistent Wall Street Journal reader from Verona, N.J. and, impressively, an assistant editor at theNational Review. But to no avail. By the time the great showdown arrived last month, the Obamacare exemption was the go-to talking point of congressional Republicans. Jim Jordan, the head of the House Republican Study Committee, made clear he had not spent much time studying this, decrying the “special treatment of congressional staff under Obamacare.” House leaders went along with the canard even as it emerged that Speaker John Boehner had been quietly cooperating with efforts to get the employer subsidies for staffers’ health care restored.
The exemption talk seemed to quiet down a bit of late as it dawned on more and more commentators just how much of a canard it really was. Vitter’s proposal had by Tuesday morning been winnowed down to a demand that simply actual members of Congress and top administration officials be forced to go without any employer contribution to the cost of their health coverage. But this afternoon, the “full Vitter” was back in full force, affecting staffers as well as top officials, reported Costa: “Conservatives…are now asking the leadership to expand the language. The leadership is expected to comply as a way of winning support.”
So here we are. David Vitter may want to enlist a soup-taster in the weeks ahead. Congressional staffers can now rest assured that their bosses’ cynicism makes no exemption for them. And the rest of us finally have an answer to Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s famous declaration days into the shutdown: “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.” Republicans did get something out of this: the everlasting scorn of tens of millions of Americans. Including many of the very people who work for them.
From The Gurardian
Here it is, a draft of the continuing resolution the House plans to vote on. Dave Weigel flags an important bit:
See section 145, page 21.
What have Republicans been fighting for? Apart from the straightforward fund-and-raise provisions, the emerging House GOP legislation appears to contain the Vitter amendment and – according to House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer – a provision to strip the Treasury of its ability to deploy emergency measures to avoid default.
There may be more or less in the House bill. We won't know until we see it (update: we have it; see next post). For the moment the battle cry appears to be:
Updated
In her remarks outside the White House, we should note, Pelosi said she was still "optimistic" that a default can be averted. Reuters reports:
She called a vote on the House plan "a vote to default" when the United States hits its borrowing limit on Thursday.Pelosi said the House Republican plan may be Boehner's attempt to give conservative Tea Party members "one last chance to resist," and that she believed House Republicans will end up averting a debt default but that they must go through various contortions ahead of time."We're still optimistic that there is a path to lift the debt ceiling in time," she told reporters.
Updated
Hoyer: emerging House bill 'very damaging'
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders are speaking at the White House after a meeting with President Obama.
Pelosi signals that Democrats in the House don't expect to support the legislation Republicans in the House are currently crafting. She said Democrats would like to see the House pass a "clean" resolution to fund government and raise the debt ceiling.
"We stand ready to supply the votes, but if they go on the path they're on, they'll be 100% Republican votes," Pelosi said.
Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said the meeting with the president was productive, but he said the nascent House bill contains unacceptable provisions:
One of which we think is very, very damaging to the USA and that is taking away from the president and the secretary of the Treasury the ability to manage the payment of our debts.
He's referring to the "emergency measures" the Treasury has used to keep government solvent since it blasted through the debt ceiling in May.
"We now have 48 hours to make sure our country remains solvent," Hoyer said.
Updated
Why fund the government through only 15 December, as the House bill reportedly would do, instead of 15 January, as the Senate deal reportedly would have done?
Republicans like the base spending levels in the current funding bill – sequester funding – and would seem to want to lock in those levels for longer, not shorter. Plus a fight in the middle of December would muck up the holidays.
NBC News notes that a December fight would be another chance for Republicans to take a whack at the Obamacare individual mandate, which requires people to hold health insurance or face a fine.
Update: Moderate GOPer Devin Nunes tells CNN there’s a new House Republican bill in the works — an almost clean debt-ceiling hike until early February and a bill to fund the government until December 15, setting up an exciting second shutdown just before Christmas. (In theory. In practice, Boehner won’t want to re-live this nightmare.) I say “almost clean” because the one concession Nunes mentioned for raising the ceiling is passing the Vitter amendment denying subsidies to Congress and staff. Reid won’t like that, but whether he’s prepared to force a default over making sure his aides get taxpayer money for their health care is a separate question.
Shutdown Live-Blog:House GOP Scrambles to Put the Pieces Back Together
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
It's Day 15 of the government shutdown. T-minus-2 days until Oct. 17, which Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has marked as the day the U.S. government will reach its borrowing limit. A bipartisan deal to turn the government's lights back on and to avoid default—at least temporarily—continued to emerge in the Senate this morning, but there's little to suggest that the conservative House Republicans who prompted this showdown are ready to call it quits just yet.
John Dickerson, Dave Weigel, Matt Yglesias, and the rest of Slate will continue to bring you in-depth analysis from Washington. But below you'll find a running list of today's incremental action, rumors, links, and theories floating around inside the Beltway and out of it.
A small sampling of Slate's more recent shutdown coverage:
4:40 p.m.: House Will Vote Later Tonight, via Boehner spokesman Michael Steel (by way of WaPo):
"The House will vote tonight to reopen the government and avoid default. After listening to members at conference this morning, House Republican leaders will bring a plan to the floor which will end the Obamacare subsidies for elected officials and staff in Washington, D.C., and pressure Senate Democrats to accept more sensible dates for the CR and the debt limit."
4:04 p.m.: For Those Just Joining Us, a Quick Recap, via NYT:
Negotiations to reopen the government and avert a possible default just two days away were temporarily suspended Tuesday, and Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door lunch saying they had to wait to see if their struggling House counterparts could still come up with their own plan.
House Republican leaders, who had appeared stymied in their efforts earlier in the day, rushed out a new proposal Tuesday afternoon that would reopen the government through Dec. 15, extend the government’s borrowing authority until Feb. 7 and eliminate government contributions to lawmakers, White House officials and their staffs for their purchases of health insurance on the new insurance exchanges. ... Speaker John A. Boehner was hoping to bring a bill to a vote as early as Tuesday evening.
The continuing efforts by the House to reach agreement on a proposal put a halt to talks in the Senate after negotiators had appeared to be closing in on a deal. ... At this point, the arguments have devolved from a major partisan showdown over the fate of Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achivement to issues reduced in scope: whether White House and Congressional staff members be denied employer contributions to purchase their health care; whether a tax on medical devices, opposed by lawmakers in both parties, should be repealed, delayed for two years, or left alone; and whether a tax on self-insurers — large businesses and unions — that enter the health insurance exchanges should remain in force. But if the issues seem small, the fights — largely now within the Republican Party — seem to be raging unabated.
3:20 p.m.: Boehner Still Hoping to Hold a Vote, via Politco:
House Republican leaders are moving forward with a bill Tuesday to lift the debt ceiling, reopen government and enact a host of other policies.
The bill is expected to be marked up in the House Rules Committee late Tuesday afternoon, and will make its way to the floor Tuesday evening. Republican leadership has not formally whipped the bill, and they are not sure it will pass the House. If it does, Senate Democrats have made clear the measure has no chance on the other side of the Capitol. It’s unclear whether the two chambers will be able to agree on a budget deal before the U.S. exhausts its borrowing authority on Thursday.
2:04 p.m.: The Republican Rank-and-File's Lengthy Wish List For the Next House Bill, viaWaPo:
One concern, several said, was that House Republicans were proposing to eliminate employer health-care contributions for White House staff and members of Congress, but not Congressional staffers. Some conservatives believed it would be more fair to apply the measure to Congressional staffers.
Others wanted the bill to include spending cuts or entitlement reforms. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said some members were seeking to add the “conscience clause” to the proposal — removing a provision under the federal health care law that requires insurance plans cover contraception. And other members objected to accepting the key Jan. 15 and Feb. 7 dates envisioned in Senate negotiations.
12:52 p.m.: House Confusion Is Now Slowing Down the Senate Plan Too, via Politico:
Fast-paced Senate talks to reopen the government and avert a default came to a temporary halt Tuesday as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell waited to see whether House Republicans could pass their latest proposal [which still hasn't been finalized after this morning's setback]. ...
If the House fails to adopt the plan Tuesday evening, then the McConnell-Reid negotiations would resume. House Speaker John Bohener’s failure would strengthen McConnell’s ability to sell the Senate proposal as the last, best possible deal for his party to end the fiscal crisis. But if the House passes its bill, then McConnell is in a far trickier position. He could demand passage of a House GOP bill Reid and the White House strongly oppose — or he could try to cut a bipartisan deal that many House conservatives are already balking at.
11:40 a.m.: So Much for the New House Plan, via NYT:
House Republican leaders struggled on Tuesday to craft a new proposal to re-open the government and alter parts of the president’s health care law after a plan presented behind closed doors to the Republican rank-and-file failed to attract enough support immediately to pass. After more than two hours, Republican leaders walked back from a plan that had emerged this morning. Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters there are “no decisions about what exactly we will do.” ...
The apparent disarray left Mr. Boehner with a crucial decision as time ticked down toward a possible default on government obligations on Thursday. Does he accept whatever bipartisan plan emerges from the Senate, likely on Tuesday, or does he continue to try to get his troops in line behind a counterproposal that still does not exist?
11:15 a.m.: White House Isn't Biting on House Plan, via Washington Post:
It sounds like the White House is not on-board with the House GOP’s proposed changes to the Senate package. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage labels the House’s proposal another “ransom.”
“The president has said repeatedly that members of Congress don’t get to demand ransom for fulfilling their basic responsibilities to pass a budget and pay the nation’s bills. Unfortunately, the latest proposal from House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group of Tea Party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first place,” Brundage said. “Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been working in a bipartisan, good-faith effort to end the manufactured crises that have already harmed American families and business owners. With only a couple days remaining until the United States exhausts its borrowing authority, it’s time for the House to do the same.”
10:55 a.m.: More on the House Plan, via the New York Times:
Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said the House proposal would include a two-year delay of a tax on medical devices and would eliminate subsidies for health care coverage for members of Congress and the president, but, notably, not for Congressional staff, as some conservatives have pushed for.
“We think we’ve enhanced it in a number of ways,” Mr. Issa said, referring the Senate plan. He added that he believed House Republicans were solidly behind the new bill, telling reporters that they opened their meeting Tuesday morning by singing “Amazing Grace.”
But it was far from clear whether enough House Republicans, a group that is deeply divided over raising the debt ceiling at all, would get behind the plan.
9:55 a.m.: The House's Counter Offer, via Politico:
House Republicans will move their own debt ceiling and government funding bill, GOP leaders announced in a closed meeting Tuesday. The bill will delay Obamacare's medical device tax for two years, install income verification for Obamacare subsidies and have language to cancel health insurance subsidies for members of Congress and the presidential Cabinet. Government funding will run until January 15 and the debt ceiling will be lifted until February 7.
9:40 a.m.: The House Revolt, via National Review's Robert Costa:
House conservatives are bashing [the emerging Senate deal] behind the scenes, and they’re pushing leadership to reject the compromise. A flurry of phone calls and meetings last night and early this morning led to that consensus among the approximately 50 Republicans who form the House GOP’s right flank. They’re furious with Senate Republicans for working with Democrats to craft what one leading tea-party congressman calls a “mushy piece of s**t.” Another House conservative warns, “If Boehner backs this, as is, he’s in trouble.”
But that’s unlikely to happen. As of 8:30 a.m., House conservatives believe the leadership is well aware of their unhappiness, and they expect Boehner to talk up the House’s next move: another volley to the Senate, which would extend the debt ceiling, reopen the government, and set up a budget conference, plus request conservative demands that go beyond the Senate’s outline.
9:33 a.m.: What's Happening in the Senate, via Washington Post:
The Senate’s Republican caucus is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. Tuesday to consider an emerging deal to raise the federal debt limit and end the two-week-old government shutdown, just days before the Treasury Department exhausts its ability to borrow.
The agreement — which, if finalized, could be formally presented on the Senate floor as soon as Tuesday afternoon — would extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority until Feb. 7, reopen the government and fund federal agencies through mid-January, according to aides and lawmakers familiar with the negotiations.
In the meantime, policymakers would launch a new round of talks over broader budget issues in hopes of developing a plan to replace deep automatic spending cuts known as the sequester before Jan. 15. That is when the next round of sequester cuts is scheduled to slice an additional $20 billion out of agency budgets, primarily from the Pentagon.
9:15 a.m.: This Can't Be a Good Sign For a Still-In-The-Works Senate Deal, via Roll Call:
Sen. Ted Cruz met with roughly 15 to 20 House Republicans for around two hours late Monday night at the Capitol Hill watering hole Tortilla Coast.
The group appeared to be talking strategy about how they should respond to a tentative Senate deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling without addressing Obamacare in a substantive way, according to sources who witnessed the gathering. The Texas Republican senator and many of the House Republicans in attendance had insisted on including amendments aimed at dismantling Obamacare in the continuing resolution that was intended to avert the current shutdown.
Sources said the House Republicans meeting in the basement of Tortilla Coast with Cruz were some of the most conservative in the House: Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve King of Iowa, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, Steve Southerland II of Florida, Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Justin Amash of Michigan. The group is a collection of members who have often given leadership headaches in recent years by opposing both compromise measures as well as packages crafted by fellow Republicans. And, it seems, leadership unwittingly became aware of the meetup.
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