Obama Weighs Competing GOP Plans to End Standoff - Wall Street Journal

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Updated Oct. 11, 2013 4:30 p.m. ET
President Barack Obama on Friday was considering proposals from both House and Senate Republicans to end the standoff that closed the federal government 11 days ago.
The two GOP proposals give the White House a range of ideas to consider as possible options for easing the impasse. The plans differ in key details and it isn't clear whether either proposal can draw the support it would need to clear Congress should the White House get behind one of them.
The offer made by House Republicans, conveyed Thursday in talks at the White House, would extend the nation's borrowing authority for six weeks and end the partial government shutdown, in exchange for broader budget talks in which they would seek cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits, GOP officials said. The proposal held open the possibility of reopening the government, but the length of time agencies would be funded and other terms of a funding package remained unclear.
Mr. Obama called House Speaker John Boehner on Friday and the two sides agreed to keep talking about the plan, according to an aide to Mr. Boehner.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president has some concerns with the House plan, but hasn't outright rejected the proposal. But Mr. Carney said tying a six-week extension of the debt limit to budget negotiations is "not the appropriate way to go" because it creates the same dynamic that has led to the current stalemate.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have been working on a proposal by Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) that would restore government operations for a longer period, perhaps six months, at current funding levels, and give agencies more flexibility in deciding how to adjust operations under reduced funding. Some provisions are still being negotiated, but it also would repeal or delay the health law's medical-device tax and lift the debt ceiling until the end of January.
Some Senate Republicans returning from a White House meeting with Mr. Obama on Friday said the president appeared to be backing away from embracing a short-term increase in the debt ceiling.
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Senator Ted Cruz (R, Texas), right, arrives with other members of the Senate Republican Caucus for a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington on Friday. Reuters

Taken together, the comments from Senate Republicans suggested that Mr. Obama may be seeking both a long-term extension of the borrowing limit and a forum for negotiating a broad deal on deficit-reduction and other fiscal issues. Lawmakers said they discussed both short-term and long-term plans with the president.
"He is very concerned about having the debt limit taken care of, but he'd like a long-term debt limit," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah).
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) echoed the point, saying that Mr. Obama "wants to extend the debt limit probably longer than I would agree to." Mr. Graham said he would agree to increase the borrowing limit for "longer than six weeks, but certainly not a year."
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Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. Getty Images

Democrats argue that they shouldn't have to make concessions in order to reopen the government or lift the debt ceiling. Republicans believe they are playing an increasingly weak hand, as public-opinion polls show they are bearing the larger share of blame for the government shutdown.
Markets remain nervous about the approaching deadline for raising the debt limit, which the Treasury says must be done this month so that it can pay all the nation's bills.
The House Republican proposal calls for setting up talks to negotiate spending levels for the coming year—without saying whether or not those talks would ease or replace the across-the-board spending cuts known as a "sequester." The GOP requests in those talks would include: means-testing Medicare, slowing the growth of benefits for Social Security, changing the retirement plans for federal workers and adopting a framework for altering the tax code, according to an outline of the offer.
House Republicans say the proposed cuts in Medicare and other entitlement programs they are advancing in their plan are versions of proposals included in the president's own budget, aimed at curbing the growth of spending. They say one goal of the talks would be to reach agreement to raise the debt ceiling through 2014.
The proposal also calls for setting up a framework for overhauling the tax code and requiring federal employees to pay more of the cost of their retirement programs. The Medicare proposal would require upper-income people to pay more for their coverage.
Perhaps the most controversial proposal is one to change the formula for calculating cost-of-living increases in Social Security and other federal benefit programs—a cost-saving change that Mr. Obama has backed but which is strongly opposed by many Democrats.
"Any House vote on a short-term debt limit bill is contingent on the White House and House Republicans agreeing to negotiations on a larger fiscal framework," said Michael Steel , a spokesman for Mr. Boehner (R., Ohio). "There is no agreement at this point on what that framework would involve, and we don't plan to comment on the details of these discussions."
WSJ's Janet Hook explains that matters are so dire in Washington that the idea of pushing off the debt ceiling by six weeks -- even as the government remains closed -- is considered big progress these days.


With the government shutdown heading into a third week and the debt ceiling deadline approaching, Congress could be warming to a short-term deal to avoid default. But has the GOP, blamed for the dysfunction, already done long-term damage to itself.


Democrats object to keeping current spending levels for the full year, because it would lock in the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester. One of the principal goals for Democrats in this round of budget talks is to roll back sequestration.
Ms. Collins, as well as Sens. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Lamar Alexander (R.,Tenn.), are among the Republicans who have reached out to Democrats, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), in search of a compromise.
Republicans also have begun meeting with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who has begun hosting discussions among Republicans exploring budget alternatives.
Some lawmakers believe that if talks with the House collapse, the way out of the budget impasse will come from the Senate, where bipartisan compromise is easier to craft. It isn't clear, however, what compromise senators could craft that could pass the more-partisan House, unless Mr. Boehner eventually is willing to allow a measure to pass that relies on Democratic votes.
The maneuvering to end the budget impasse came as a new poll showed that Republicans were bearing the brunt of public outrage over the budget impasse. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 53% of Americans blamed the GOP for the shutdown, compared with 31% who blamed Mr. Obama. The Republican Party's image has slumped to its lowest level in Journal/NBC polling, which dates to 1989, with more than twice as many people holding a negative image of the GOP as a positive one.
The Treasury has said lawmakers must raise the debt ceiling this month or it will be unable to pay all the nation's bills. A landmark comes Oct. 17, the day the Treasury says it will have exhausted emergency measures and be left with $30 billion on hand, which would last a week or two.
—Kristina Peterson contributed to this article.
Write to Patrick O'Connor at [email protected] and Janet Hook at [email protected]

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