Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. House on Monday passed the debt-ceiling deal worked out by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, sending it to the Senate for consideration a day before the deadline for the government to face possible default.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his chamber will take up the measure at noon on Tuesday. No amendments will be allowed, and approval will require a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, Reid said.
On Monday, the House overcame opposition from liberal Democrats and tea party conservatives for ideologically different reasons to pass the measure by a 269-161 vote.
One of those supporting the plan was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, who cast her first House vote since being shot in the head in an assassination attempt in January.
In an emotional moment, Giffords entered the chamber during the vote and received a prolonged standing ovation from her colleagues. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hugged Giffords as other House members mobbed her, and the commotion diverted attention from the ongoing vote total showing the measure would pass.
The agreement reached Sunday by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties calls for up to $2.4 trillion in savings over the next decade, raises the debt ceiling through the end of 2012 and establishes a special congressional committee to recommend long-term fiscal reforms.
The legislation needs to reach Obama's desk by Tuesday at the latest. If the current $14.3 trillion debt limit is not increased by that point, Americans could face rapidly rising interest rates, a falling dollar and shakier financial markets, among other problems.
A number of Republicans worried about cuts in defense spending and the lack of a required balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Progressive Democrats were livid over the extent of the deal's domestic spending cuts, as well as the absence of any immediate tax hikes on wealthier Americans.
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said tonight that leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate had approved an agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling and cut the federal deficit.
"The leaders of both parties in both chambers have reached an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default," Obama said at the White House.
Congressional leaders are sifting through the details of the tentative bipartisan agreement to raise the debt ceiling, preparing to sell the deal to skeptical Republicans and Democrats ahead of possible votes tomorrow.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed the emerging accord among Republican leaders and the Obama administration even as negotiators were working out the final details. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told senators tonight that the U.S. will not default on its obligations
The framework would raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling through 2012, cut spending by about $1 trillion and call for enactment of a law shaving another $1.5 trillion from long-term debt by 2021 -- or institute punishing reductions across all government areas, including Medicare and defense programs, according to congressional officials.
Across the Capitol, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said she was reserving judgment on the plan until she could see details and discuss them with fellow Democrats, some of whom were already voicing concern that the package calls for steep spending cuts with no tax increases to help shrink the deficit.
"We all may not may able to support it -- or none of us may be able to support it," she told reporters at the Capitol.
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Boehner and Obama had a deal: a $4 trillion cut in the national debt that included cuts in Medicare a program Democrats and almost every American over the age of 60 like very much. But the Obama-Boehner compromise called for elimination of some tax loopholes. That’s called compromise.
The Tea Partyers would have none of it. Said Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann: “I am not fooled by President Obama’s math ... I refuse to be a party to deceiving the American people yet again. I won’t do it. I will vote against any proposal that includes tax increases or raises the debt ceiling.”
So ideological purity was maintained. The Tea Partyers and their leader, Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, forced Boehner to pull out of a $4 trillion cut in the national debt in exchange for a lastminute, $2.1 trillion cut. Go figure. No, for your sanity’s sake, dear reader, don’t. -- Dan Boylan
[Pat Buchanan responds]
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