House votes to lift debt ceiling, paving way for supplemental

In a surprise move Thursday night, the House approved a free-standing, $450 billion increase in the debt limit--allowing the legislation, which passed the Senate a few weeks ago, to be sent to the president. Approval came on a tense, 215-214 vote, the second one-vote floor margin won by House Republicans in two days, following the dramatic trade vote a day earlier.

The debt ceiling extension also appeared to clear the way for action on the fiscal 2002 homeland security and defense supplemental, which had been paralyzed for weeks by a standoff over whether to join it to a debt ceiling increase. It probably will be finished the week after the July Fourth recess.

The debt limit move was a surprising one for House Republicans, who until Thursday resisted efforts to pass a clean debt-limit bill, prefering to see it attached to the supplemental to avoid a tough political vote for Republicans in vulnerable districts.

But with the combination of a growing number of Republicans clamoring to put the issue behind them, signals that some Democrats would support the bill and the stock market safely closed in case the vote failed, the leadership decided it was time to finish the debt limit bill.

In the final vote, 212 Republicans voted for the bill, with 206 Democrats opposed. Six Republicans opposed the legislation, as did both Independents. One Republican voted present and three Democrats voted for the bill.

The debate on the floor focused on Democrats' attempts to blame the debt increase on the tax cut pushed last year by President Bush and approved by Congress, as well as criticisms that Republicans would not own up to projections of future budget deficits.

"All we want to know is what you did with the money and how are you going to spend the extra money you're going to borrow," said Ways and Means ranking member Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

Republicans defended their vote by saying it had to be done to prevent a government default. "If we don't do it, we get criticized. If we do do it, we get criticized," lamented Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.

With the debt limit out of the way, the 2002 supplemental bill should progress more quickly. Senate Democrats had said the only way they would allow House Republicans to attach the debt limit increase to the supplemental was if the House conceded to Senate demands for more spending in 2003--a deal that many House conservatives said was unacceptable.

Without that leverage, the supplemental debate now will focus on the basic numbers of the bill. Sources said appropriators had agreed to a total for the bill of about $30.4 billion, though not all the details have been worked out.

As for a 2003 spending cap, hopes for a bicameral limit faded Thursday. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said in an interview earlier in the day that the Senate would "deem" a budget number of $768 billion sometime after the recess and try to extend budget enforcement disciplines.

"We can do that by resolution," Byrd said.