“The debt limit vote sucks,” Cantor said, according to an attendee of the closed meeting. Cantor to GOP: Quit whining and vote

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) delivered a blunt message to the Republican Conference Tuesday morning: Quit the “grumbling” and “whining” and come together to rally behind Speaker John Boehner to pass his debt ceiling plan.

Cantor’s heavy rhetoric came out in a closed session at the Capitol Hill Club as the GOP majority tried to whip up support for Boehner’s latest deficit package. Cantor summed up what he knew many Republicans were thinking as they head into another critical vote.


“The debt limit vote sucks,” he said, according to an attendee of the closed meeting. But Republicans have three options, Cantor said: risk default, pass Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) plan — which he thinks gives President Barack Obama a blank check — or “call the president’s bluff” by passing the Boehner plan, which not only cuts deeply into domestic spending but calls for a bipartisan commission to find more savings.

Cantor also announced that the House will hold a vote on a balanced budget amendment Thursday, a nod to vocal conservatives in the conference.

House Republican leaders will spend Tuesday and Wednesday cobbling together votes to pass Boehner’s plan to hike the debt ceiling by $1 trillion and cut federal spending by a greater amount. Treasury says that the nation will run out of the ability to borrow money on Aug. 2.

Boehner told reporters after the closed meeting that his proposal, which he says is the product of bipartisan negotiations, “is enough” to quell market concerns about the debt ceiling.

Cantor, who has split with Boehner during this debate, reiterated a message he delivered to colleagues Monday, saying he is behind the speaker “150 percent.”

Boehner, who is in an epic stare down with the president over the debt ceiling, said he stuck his neck out and needs 218 votes to get this bill passed into law. He got a standing ovation, according to sources present, and House Republican Conference Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) played snippets of the prime time speech the speaker gave Monday night.

“It comes down to the people in this room,” Boehner said, according to a source present. “It comes down to the willingness to stand together. This is the path to victory for the American people.”

Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), a former professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles, told the conference he is behind Boehner — a reassuring message from a 6-foot-7 former offensive tackle.