At New York Times, "Boehner Seems Confident of Passing House Debt Vote."
WASHINGTON — The House and Senate headed for a pivotal showdown on Thursday evening over how to cut spending and increase the debt limit before the federal government loses its ability to borrow.Lots at Memeorandum on this. And also at Los Angeles Times, "Boehner risking much by going to brink over debt."
House Republican leaders convened a closed-door party meeting Thursday and appeared confident of winning over holdouts to pass their plan, which would make $900 million in cuts, raise the debt ceiling for a few months, and come back for more of the same later. But Senate Democratic leaders said that if that happened they would waste no time rejecting the legislation.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Senate Democrats would move immediately Thursday night to set aside the House proposal if it wins passage and then take steps to force a vote on Mr. Reid’s own proposal to raise the debt limit through 2012 in exchange for more than $2 trillion in cuts.
“No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy at risk and put the nation back in this untenable situation a few short months from now,” Mr. Reid said.