House rejects Senate debt bill; Obama wants compromise

A day after the Senate voted down a House-written debt limit increase, the House returned the favor.

By a largely symbolic vote of 173-246, the Republican-led House voted Saturday afternoon to reject the Democratic Senate's proposed $2.4 trillion, debt limit increase — even before the Senate could take up the bill itself.

In the Senate, 43, GOP members signed a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid saying they oppose his plan.

All this comes just three days before the Obama Administration says the government will lose it ability to pay its bills, risking a potential default.

Despite the impasse, a calm President Obama used his weekly radio address Saturday morning to continue his call for compromise.

"The parties are not that far apart here," the president said. "We're in rough agreement on how much spending we need ot cut to reduce our deficit and we agree on a process to tackle tax reform and entitlement reform," Obama said."There's plenty of ways out of this mess, but there's very little time."

Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office has continued to tweak its estimates of the House and Senate plans, and said late Friday that they're only $10 billion, apart over the next 10 years,, not accounting for a difference in how to account for the draw-down of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The biggest difference has been the size of the debt limit increase. The House plan would allow only a $900 billion, increase — about six months' worth — unless Congress passes a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution by a two-thirds vote. President Obama and the Senate want an increase until 2013.

Reid introduced his plan in the Senate Friday night, and immediately moved to end debate. But under Senate rules, that requires a one-day waiting period, so the Senate won't be able to vote to move forward until 1 a.m. Sunday.

So unless Reid works out a compromise with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate will debate the Reid measure through the weekend, with a vote possible on Monday.

McConnell urged Reid to move up a vote on the bill so that Republicans can vote it down. "Let's not waste another minute of the nation's time on this reckless piece of legislation that we know won't pass," he said Saturday.

That was part of the House strategy Saturday in pre-emptively voting down the Reid plan.

But Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., noted that Republicans were forcing a vote on the debt limit under the same process they've used to rename post offices — which the House has been doing throughout the process to buy time.

"This process has become a joke. It's a disgrace. It's an insult to the American people," he said. "Now is the time to act like grown ups."

The House adjourned after its vote on the Reid plan, and will hold a skeleton session on Sunday. But "given the critical fiscal and economic situation," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told members they should be prepared to return to Washington on a few hours' notice.