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Speaker John Boehner
The House Republicans will vote on their bill to increase the debt limit on Wednesday according to the AP. The bill can currently be viewed on the House Committee on Rules websiteand they will hold their hearing on it tomorrow.
Interestingly, the bill unlike previous debt ceiling bills doesn’t increase the limit by a specific amount of money. Instead it allows the Treasury to borrow money as necessary until May 19th. This is a real departure from past norms.
The bill would also require members of Congress to approve of a budget by April 15th or face having their pay suspended. If a House of Congress does not approve a budget by then, their income will be held in escrow accounts until they do pass a budget or until this Congressional term ends.
This strange pay delay rule is meant to try to get around the 27th Amendment which states, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” It is an interesting legal question if suspending pay potentially for over a year should be considered “varying the compensation.”
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ianal but to me it’s obvious “varying the waiting time of compensation” is varying the compensation. Clearly some house members would be forced to either take out a loan or go into funds that might be collecting interest income, easily lowering their rate of compensation
assuming a republican won’t question the bill, if a democrat challenges this provision it will fall
So here are my questions:
What if the Senate passes this but also passes an amendment that raises the time period to say four years? Or strips out the not so hidden insult to them about passing a budget? Does it go to conference?
And what about those budgets. If the House passes one and the Senate passes a totally different one, don’t we end up in conference again.
I’m thinking that conference is where the real work is going to take place. And considering Boehner has already thrown out the Hastert rule… This could be the leadership’s means of screwing the toddlers.
I’m not sure if I need popcorn or a Costco size box of tranquilizers. If it gets us some functioning government without the grand bargains, it is popcorn. Otherwise…
Interesting. Seems the founders realized something this rancor might come up.
It’s also interesting about all the things that can happen after an election.
Like Reid getting off ass and passing the Udall/Merkely? somebody else filibuster bill. His foot dragging is making me VERY nervous.
Maybe now that OB is being hailed as the potential “liberal Reagan” he can start kicking a few senatorial butts…or, letting Biden do it
Let’s see. The Constitution tells us that spending bills and the budget start in the House. So by punting this over to the Senate, are we going to hear from House Republicans that the Senate is usurping their powers?
A three month extension? So they can keep bringing this up over and over again. Do these folks even know what resolving and issue and moving on to the next problem is?
They are up there to waste time and slow government to a crawl….unless it’s their agenda
Suspending pay will only put pressure on those members of Congress who aren’t wealthy enough to do without it.