White House Still Pressing GOP To "Compromise"

White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Thursday that he is confident lawmakers will reach agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling before next Tuesday.

August 2 is the date by which the Treasury Department says the roughly $14.3 trillion borrowing cap must be raised. Officials say that failure to do so could result in the nation either deafulting on some of its debt, or having its Triple-A credit rating downgraded.

“We remain optimistic that cooler heads will prevail,” Carney said. He then scolded House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for holding a vote on a two-part debt limit bill today that the White House has labled “DOA” in the Senate.

Instead, Carney called on GOP leaders to compromise, meaning they should support a plan put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), which cuts more in spending and gives the Treasury Department enough borrowing authority to get the U.S. through the end of 2012. Boehner’s plan, meanwhile, would require another vote to raise the debt limit six months from now. The spending cuts in both plans are mostly backloaded, and both proposals would create a bipartisan, bicameral commission to target further cuts to spending. However, Reid’s plan counts roughly $1 trillion in savings from winding down the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, something Republicans say is already in the cards and thus, should not be counted as new savings.

Carney said that the White House supports the Reid plan, but would still prefer it if lawmakers would strike a “grand bargain.” He admitted, however, that the chances of that happening at this point “aren’t great.”

Earlier in the day, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), a key member of the so-called “Gang of Six,” said he doubts whether the Reid plan could survive a filibuster by Senate Republicans. Warner questioned why the White House and other lawmakers aren’t throwing more of their support behind his group’s plan, which would reduce the debt by $4 trillion over the next decade through a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.