With less than a week to go before the August 2nd deadline, House Speaker John Boehner is now re-doing his plan to raise the debt limit. The congressional budget office says the Speaker's plan would fall short of the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts it proposes and the specific cuts would be $300 billion less than thought. It comes, as the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal reads, “Boehner plan faces rebellion”. The journal, and others, report that the Speaker is facing backlash from Conservatives in his party about the amount of spending cuts in his bill.
A source tells NBC news that majority leader Eric Cantor tried to rally party members yesterday, telling members of the house republican conference to “quit grumbling and whining" and call the President’s bluff by passing the Speaker’s plan. The White House is also responding to the house plan, saying the President’s senior advisors would recommend that President Obama veto Boehner’s bill. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid says the proposal won’t even make it to the President. He said, "Boehner's plan is not a compromise. It was written for the Tea Party, not the American people. Democrats will not vote for it." Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Minority leader Mitch McConnell was supportive of Boehner’s plan, but later in the day, was more candid about the proposal. He said, "I am prepared to accept something less than perfect because perfect is not achievable."
This morning on "Morning Joe", Joe Scarborough weighed in on the debate in Washington saying "You’ve got a Democratic President, you’ve got a Democratic Senate, and you have a divided house caucus, so the question is how do we get over the finish line in the next week? We’ve got 9.2% unemployment, our economy is getting ravaged, this is not what a patient on life support needs."