trillion in debt because it didn’t tax enough,” said the party’s leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Obama placed his signature on bill in the privacy of the Oval Office less than two hours after a bipartisan 74-26 vote in the Senate. The House approved the measure Monday night on a 269-161 roll call that also reached across party lines and was sealed by a rap of the gavel by Speaker John Boehner.
The bill allows a quick $900 billion increase in borrowing authority as well as a first installment on spending cuts amounting to $917 billion over a decade.
Without legislation in place by day’s end, the Treasury would have been unable to pay all the nation’s bills, leading to a potential default for the first time in history. Administration officials warned of disastrous consequences for an economy that shows fresh signs of weakness on a near-daily basis as it struggles to recover from the worst recession in decades.
The White House and congressional leaders said legislation was important to reassure investors at home as well as overseas, and also to preserving the nation’s AAA credit rating. This week’s peace pact between the two parties is unlikely to be long-lived.
The bill also sets up a powerful 12-member committee of lawmakers with authority to recommend fresh deficit savings from every corner of the federal budget.
Politically sensitive benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare will be on the table as the panel of six Republicans and six Democrats works against a Thanksgiving deadline. So, too, an overhaul of the tax code. Congress will have until Christmas to vote on the recommendations without the ability to make changes.
As an incentive for Congress to act, failure to do so would trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts, affecting the Pentagon as well as domestic programs.
On Thursday, Aug. 4, President Obama turns 50, and signing the bill gave him his 50th birthday bash after all.
The gray hair sprouting from Obama’s temples is about the only obvious sign of aging.
The 6-foot-1 president is as lanky as he was when he took office. He’s gained no noticeable amount of weight despite a level of job stress that would send most people to the refrigerator for relief on a nightly basis. He has stuck to a regimen of near daily exercise that includes treadmill runs, weight lifting and weekend games of pickup basketball, golf or substitute coaching daughter Sasha’s basketball team.
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