With default deadline near, debt-ceiling talks stall

Reporting from Washington —  Efforts to reach last-minute agreement to stave off a potentially disastrous federal default sagged Saturday amid partisan discord and distrust, with the House taking a purely symbolic thumbs-down vote on a Democratic debt-ceiling plan and the Senate paralyzed in the face of the prospective GOP filibuster.

With just days to go until the federal government’s authority to borrow money expires, neither Democrats nor Republicans showed much inclination to bridge their differences and hammer out a deal.

Republicans in the House convened for the simple task of voting down a bill modeled after a debt-ceiling proposal submitted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, even though Reid’s legislation has yet to even clear the Senate.

It was, in a sense, payback for Reid’s decision to have his caucus table a bill sponsored by Speaker John Boehner that narrowly passed the House on Friday evening.

To no one’s surprise, the GOP majority roundly defeated the Reid bill, 246-173, which was sponsored in the House by Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and would raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion and cut spending by $2.2 trillion.

“We are going to let [Reid] know when we defeat it here ... that it is not the plan that can gain broad support in the House and the Senate,” Dreier said before the vote.

But Democrats, a distinct minority in the chamber, were outraged.

“This is a disgraceful moment,” said Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, who said that the House’s action was intended to throw a “monkeywrench” into any hopes for a compromise.

Dreier disagreed, saying showing Democrats that Reid’s bill cannot pass the House would push parties closer to an agreement. But Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Republicans had shown little interest in compromise.

“You have not moved a single centimeter,” Hoyer said.

“The people aren’t looking to us for what we can stop,” he added. “They’re looking to us for what we can do.”

In the meantime, Reid’s efforts in the Senate seemed to be showing little progress. The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, delivered a letter to Reid on Saturday afternoon signed by 43 members of the GOP caucus informing him that they would not support Reid’s bill in a procedural vote scheduled for early Sunday morning—a de facto filibuster.

As he did Friday evening, McConnell called on Reid to hold a vote on his bill immediately.

“Let’s get this irresponsible bill that we know will fail come up for a vote, so we can get down to the real work of negotiating a solution to this crisis,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Saturday, insisting that the White House join the talks.

The president will meet with Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi later Saturday afternoon to receive an update on the talks, a White House official said.

Reid has already modified his legislation to include an idea hatched by McConnell that would raise the $14.3-trillion debt limit in stages subject to a congressional disapproval vote -- and he was expected spend Saturday trying to continue to rework his bill to attract GOP support. He needs the votes of seven Republicans to break the filibuster.

“We welcome compromise,” Reid said on the floor. “As recently as [Friday], I asked my friend, the Senate minority leader, to help make this Senate compromise more palatable, but we have heard very little from Republicans.”

But if Reid is to get a bill through the Senate in time for it to reach the president’s desk by Tuesday’s deadline, he’ll have to have overcome the threatened filibuster by the 1 a.m. Sunday vote or find another procedural path.

That alternative path could involve the Boehner bill that lies dormant in the Senate. Republicans appear to be using whatever leverage they have to make that final vehicle for a debt-ceiling deal.

“We’ve done our job,” said Rep. Steven Palazzo of Mississippi. “It’s time for the Senate to do theirs.”

Peter Nicholas of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.