Video: In an address Monday night, Speaker John Boehner said Republicans were up to the task of solving the debt crisis, adding that he hoped President Obama would join them in their effort.
“Then what else is there?” he asked. “At that point, honestly, I don’t think there’s any more the House can do. If you don’t use something that’s similar to the cut, cap and balance approach, I don’t think anything else exists. So we can’t do anything more.”
Grimm said he hoped the Senate might take up the idea again, and said he would be open to some alterations in the plan — as long as it still promised caps on federal spending for the next few years.
President Obama told Americans the nation faced a 'deep economic crisis' if Democrats and Republicans could not reach a deal on spending, urging both sides to compromise. (July 25)
Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), another freshman, suggested a plan by which Congress could raise the debt ceiling high enough to allow about two months of borrowing. In that time, he suggested, the House and Senate could sit down in a formal way and hammer out a compromise that pleased them both.
For now, he said, it was difficult to know exactly what he might support, since he didn’t feel enough details were available about what Democrats were insisting on.
“As far as where [Republicans] land, that can’t be determined until there’s a specific plan,” Webster said. “It’s hard to say what the other side wants.”
Despite the absence of a clear path forward, rank-and-file members have expressed firm support for their party’s leaders.
“I am absolutely prepared to support our speaker when that moment comes,” said freshman Rep. Nan A.S. Hayworth (R-N.Y.), who on Thursday hosted a meeting for fellow Republicans with financial analysts to warn of the real dangers of a default. “I think our fundamental principles are so clear that I have trouble imagining they would bring something to us that would violate them.”
But some members, particularly newer members, might reject a short-term solution on raising the debt ceiling — an idea that House Republican leadership has in recent days offered as its preferred option.
“I’m not interested in that,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who joined Congress in 2009 and authored the cut, cap and balance measure, said of a short-term debt-limit increase. “I want a solution, not a deal. That would be a deal.”
Freshman Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) said: “Everybody wants to only go through this pain once.”
Farenthold said that while his preferred option was cut, cap and balance, it was unclear what sort of agreement could win him over instead.
“That’s the home run,” he said of the cut, cap and balance plan. “What I could bring home as a double or a single, you know, I’ve yet to see. There is not a plan on the table.”
Another freshman, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), said that he’s waiting to see what kind of an agreement Boehner brings back, and that while a short-term deal could have its benefits, he takes seriously the leading credit rating agencies’ warnings against one.
“One part of me wouldn’t mind forcing this conversation every six months or year,” Huizenga said. “I think it sharpens the conversation. But I also sat through that Standard & Poor’s presentation” Thursday.
“I’m as concerned, if not more concerned, about what they’re going to say if we come back with anything that’s viewed anemic or short-term or not solving the problems,” he added.
Aside from actually nailing down a plan that can pass the House, there’s also the problem of what kind of support a final deal gets — and whether it ends up receiving the backing of more members of the president’s party than of Boehner’s.
That could be “a real political conundrum,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a five-term lawmaker and one of the House’s most vocal conservative members.
“If he ends up with a deal with more Democratic votes than Republican votes, I think the speaker has a real problem,” King said.
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