House Leadership Doesn't Like Piecemeal Debt Idea

Some Republicans have voiced support for the idea of raising the debt limit every other month to enable the attachment of spending cuts and budget reforms each time. But House Republican leaders don’t see the idea as a winner, The Hill reports.

The leadership recalls the recent difficulty with adopting stopgap spending bills for the fiscal 2011 budget and doesn’t want to go through the process again.

“We’ve tried that,” one member of the leadership told The Hill. “That was kind of the strategy on the [continuing resolution,] . . . and the stomach got pretty upset after the first one . . . Clearly, at some point, our conference said, ‘We’re not doing this anymore.’ And as soon as we didn’t have those votes on our side to pass it, [Speaker John] Boehner had no more negotiating room.”