Speaker John Boehner just got off the phone with Republican lawmakers.
Boehner told them that, “The GOP must protect the country from what the president is trying to orchestrate… GOP must stop him.”
Boehner announced this afternoon that House Republicans would not release a plan today. Meanwhile, Obama invited Minority Leader Pelosi and Harry Reid to the White House for meetings tonight. Democrats have still not released their own debt plan.
FOX News reported:
Unable to find common ground, Republicans and Democrats worked Sunday to prepare separate fallback plans for raising the debt ceiling as they tried to provide some assurance to the global financial markets that the country will not default on its obligations.
Party leaders were huddling in their respective camps late Sunday as they weighed what can reasonably be accomplished before an Aug. 2 deadline.
“This is about what is doable at the 11th hour,” House Speaker John Boehner told “Fox News Sunday.”
As Boehner hosted a conference call with House Republicans, the White House invited House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to the Oval Office for a meeting Sunday evening.
Back-channel talks have been rocky all day, and a Senate Democratic aide told Fox News that while those talks continue, Reid is now working on a separate fallback proposal. The plan would call for at least $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction — without revenue increases — and would extend U.S. borrowing authority until 2013. This would fulfill a White House demand that the debt ceiling be increased to last through the next election.
However, Boehner said Sunday that he wants a two-stage process. While he would not publicly detail what that entails, others have said it involves roughly a $1 trillion debt-ceiling increase now, coupled with commensurate spending cuts, and another set of votes early next year.
UPDATE: It looks like Reid is folding.