House GOP to Propose Short-Term Debt Limit Increase
Published at
iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — House Republican leaders are coalescing around a plan to provide a six-week extension of the debt limit — putting off the threat of default until early December and allowing time for negotiations on a broader budget agreement, a House Republican leadership source tells ABC News.
House Republican leaders will present this plan to the rank and file at a meeting of the entire House Republican conference Thursday morning.
This plan involves only raising the debt ceiling and does not fund the government. Under this emerging plan, the government would remain shut down while negotiations proceed on a broader budget agreement.
It is not clear how the White House will react. President Obama has said he would accept a short-term debt ceiling increase, but he has also said he would not negotiate until Republicans remove the threat of default and reopen the government.
The short-term debt limit fix will likely be a topic of discussion when the president sits down on Thursday for private meetings at the White House with the Senate Democratic Caucus and House Republican Leadership.
One day after meeting with the House Democratic Caucus, the president invited all House Republicans to the White House, but House Speaker John Boehner is dispatching only 18 of his members to the meeting.
“President Obama is disappointed that Speaker Boehner is preventing his members from coming to the White House,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday. “The president thought it was important to talk directly with the members who forced this economic crisis on the country about how the shutdown and a failure to pay the country’s bills could devastate the economy.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio