Boehner: Neither Side Close To Debt Limit Agreement

By Philip Bunnell

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Friday that no further progress between Republicans and Democrats on raising the nation’s debt limit had been made in the past 24 hours.

“We are not close to an agreement,” Boehner said to reporters after a meeting between GOP lawmakers.

Boehner said that “the House has done its job,” referring to the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,” which passed earlier in the week along party lines.

The Senate, however, voted 51-46 this morning to “table” the measure, effectively killing any hope the GOP may have had about sending the bill to President Obama’s desk.

Boehner, who described himself as a “happy warrior for Cut, Cap, & Balance,” and other House Republicans were quick to point the finger at Democrats in the upper chamber. 

“What has the Senate done?” asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “The House is done,” declared Candice Miller (R-Mich.).

Boehner is scheduled to go to the White House today for yet another round of talks with President Obama and other Congressional leaders.

Christian Leaders Move To Protect Poor In Debt Negotiations

Christian leaders came together Thursday to defend the poor from potential cuts in Medicaid and Social Security should Congress fail to reach an agreement in current debt ceiling negotiations.

The leaders announced that they’ve already met with President Obama to warn him against cutting entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Social Security, saying the country had a moral obligation to help those in most need.

David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, warned that even if President Obama resisted making severe cuts to the programs, “there’s another tier of decisions that get made at the state level… a second round of cuts.”

Several of the speakers pointed out with some cynicism that much of the debate involving the nation’s debt limit revolves around increased taxes that would potentially be imposed on the wealthiest Americans.

Jim Wallis, president of The Sojourners, was concerned about the impoverished being left in the dust. Wallis said that it was “once respected in the past by both parties that, no matter what happens, you don’t make the poor suffer more.”