Debt crisis: Republicans scramble to rewrite plan following figures bungle

Embarrassment for Congress speaker John Boehner after budget office
finds $350bn hole in his original proposal


Graeme Wearden
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 July 2011 10.07 BST
Article history

The US debt crisis has escalated after Republicans were forced to
rewrite their proposal to lift the debt ceiling, because they
miscalculated how much the original plan would cut spending.

In an embarrassing development for John Boehner, the Republican Congress
speaker, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ruled on Tuesday night
that his bill would have only cut spending by $850bn (£517bn)over the
next decade, not the $1.2tn he had aimed for. Republicans are now racing
to rewrite the legislation, and have pushed back a congressional vote on
the plan from Wednesday to Thursday at the earliest.

Although Boehner was already struggling to find support for his package,
the delay increases the risk that Washington will fail to agree a deal
to raise the debt ceiling before 2 August, when the federal government
is expected to run out of money.

- - -
Another one of those well-thought-out blank pages Republican proposals...