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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has revised his plan to raise the debt limit in a last-ditch bid to attract Republican support. The biggest change is that Reid would give the president almost unilateral power to raise the debt limit, borrowing an idea introduced by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Reid would have President Obama request a $2.4 trillion debt-limit increase in two installments of $1.2 trillion each. The requests would be subject to congressional resolutions of disapproval, but these would do little to restrict the president.

House Republicans will bring up Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s debt limit package Saturday just to vote it down, an attempt to show that the legislation is dead in the lower chamber, according to GOP leadership sources. Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) debt limit package passed the House Friday with 218 votes. The Boehner plan would raise the debt limit by $900 billion, requiring another vote to boost the government’s borrowing authority early next year by another $1.6 trillion. Reid and other Senate Democratic leaders have already declared the Boehner plan dead-on-arrival in the Senate. In order to show Reid’s package...

The House plans on voting on Speaker John Boehner's debt limit plan this evening, but with its demise imminent in the Senate, some Senate Republicans are considering getting behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's alternative plan. "I voted for cut, cap, and balance,'" Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts said today, in reference to the House Republicans' initial debt limit plan. "I'll vote for Boehner, and I'll vote for Reid. I've already said that. We need to move our country forward. It's time." Senate Democrats have promised to reject Boehner's plan, which would only extend the nation's borrowing authority for...

The Senate will take up, and vote down, House Speaker John Boehner’s bill to raise the federal debt ceiling immediately after its anticipated House passage Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. “As soon as the House completes its vote tonight, the Senate will move to take up that bill. It will be defeated,” Reid said, citing a letter sent last night to Boehner in which all 53 Democratic Caucus members vowed to vote against the measure if it passes. “No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy at risk and put the...

Fifty-three Democratic senators have signed a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner saying they intend to vote against his plan for an increase in the debt ceiling, virtually assuring its defeat in the Senate even as the speaker lines up Republican votes to pass it in the House on Thursday. Votes are not final until they are cast. But if the Democrats hold to their promise in the letter, Mr. Boehner’s plan for a six-month increase in borrowing authority will not make it to President Obama’s desk.

Updated as amendment, must read both for complete bill: Original "Boehner Bill": Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute — Budget Control Act of 2011 (Acrobat PDF) Revised Amendment to the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute (Acrobat PDF) Source, House Committee on Rules, S. 627 Faster FOIA Act of 2011 (Budget Control Act of 2011)

After aggressively whipping votes, the office of House minority whip Steny Hoyer now believes that not a single Democrat will vote for John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan, delivering a blow to GOP hopes for getting it through the House, a top Democratic aide tells me. “Hoyer has been whipping against the Boehner bill very hard,” says the aide, who is close to Hoyer’s whipping operation. “No Democrats will vote for it.” If this bears out — and it’s important to emphasize that nothing is ever certain in the alternate universe otherwise known as the United States Congress — it could...

Speaker John Boehner’s proposal includes a balanced-budget amendment and a raise in the debt ceiling by $1 trillion. The proposed plan would save $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Fox News reported: The approach was received from a senior GOP leadership aide and reads as follows: Two-Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable Republicans insisted if the President wants his debt ceiling increase, the American people will require serious spending cuts and reforms. This two-step approach meets House Republicans’ criteria by (1) making spending cuts that are larger than any debt ceiling increase; (2) implementing spending caps to restrain future...