Stop 'governing by crisis,' warns Obama as the debt crisis ends with approval in both House and Senate, and Republicans suffer stinging defeat

'We've got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,' President Obama told reporters after the Senate green-lighted a Democratic compromise that will reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling for a few months

President Barack Obama told reporters Wednesday night that the United States must 'get out of the habit of governing by crisis,' after the U.S. Senate passed a debt limit bailout bill following a crushing defeat for Republicans, and just an hour before the House followed suit with its own vote that beat a midnight debt-ceiling deadline.
Obama spoke just before 8:30 p.m., moments after the Democrat-led bill passed in the Senate by an 81-18 vote. By 10:20 p.m. the House had heard and approved the measure 285-144.
In each tally, Republicans were the only dissenters.
Both halves of Congress were racing to beat a midnight deadline imposed by the Treasury Department, which declared that unless it had a larger global credit card, the U.S. would no longer have enough cash on hand by Thursday to pay interest to its creditors.
The result will reopen on Thursday the minority of federal agencies that have been closed since Oct. 1, funding the government through at least mid-January. And the U.S. debt ceiling will get a lift until at least the end of February's first week.
Obama lamented the last-minute nature of the emergency economic legislation, saying, 'hopefully next time it won't be in the 11th hour.'
'Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,' the president said during a five-minute speech in the press briefing room. 'We will begin reopening our government immediately.'
Obama signed the bill into law on Thursday morning, shortly after midnight.
The longer road ahead, however, will feature a two-month window in which a bipartisan congressional committee with members from both the House and Senate must craft a federal budget that doesn't run the risk of driving America to the brink of debt default.
Reporters sensed the lingering uncertainty, with one asking Obama, 'isn't this going to happen all over again in a few months?'
'No,' he said, to scattered press-room laughter.

High-fives: Democrats and moderate Republicans breathed sighs of relief barely 90 minutes before the zero hour, after a measure raising the debt ceiling through early February won passage in the House

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (L) and New York Sen. Chucl Schumer (R) ran through the terms of the debt agreement before a landslide victory sent the measure to the House of Representatives for a second green-light

Obama said that when the dust settles, he wants to see a 'sensible budget that is responsible, that is fair.'
A few minutes before 11:00 p.m., as the president was waiting for the bill to arrive in the Oval Office, his budget office issued notice that the government would again be open for business.
'Now that the bill has passed the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, the President plans to sign it tonight,' said Office of Management and Budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 'and employees should expect to return to work in the morning.'
While Obama urged Americans to 'put the last three weeks behind us' and House staffers scrambled to arrange a vote on the 35-page bill, leading Republican legislators were licking their wounds.
House Speaker John Boehner and Texas Senator Ted Cruz dramatically caved in to pressure earlier in the day, paving the way for a Democrat-led bill to pass before a midnight deadline to ensure the country doesn't crash through its debt ceiling and cause global chaos.
Boehner and his party's right wing walked away humiliated after a month of brinkmanship in which President Obama accused the GOP of holding the White House for ransom over Obamacare and their desired spending cuts.
The speaker made his capitulation official after a closed-door meeting with his caucus Wednesday afternoon, saying he would 'absolutely' navigate the bill quickly through the House, even if he had to rely on Democrats to pass it.
He would need them. Only 87 of the 234 House Republicans voted for the bill, underscoring the friction that greeted Boehner a day earlier when he faced a near-revolt in the GOP caucus.

The press room that never sleeps: Reporters collected at the White House for a rare evening statement from President Obama, who said he was looking forward to signing the Senate bill 'immediately' after the House passed it

Why is Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell smiling? His state of Kentucky will get a $2 BILLION carve-out in the debt bailout bill that he negotiated with Democratic Leader Harry Reid

Marked man: House Speaker John Boehner arrives on Capitol Hill today moments before he announced that he would take the highly unusual step of allowing the House to vote first on a bill brought by Senators

In the end, Boehner's Republican contingent hailed him as a tough fighter, even as they decided to vote against a plan he presented to them.

'He hung in there with us,' Rep. John Fleming told National Review about Boehner. ' He's been reluctant to go to these fights and now that we have stood up and fought for our values and he’s been there with us, leading, I think his stock has risen tremendously.'
Majority Leader Eric Cantor focused on presented a unified front, reminding the caucus that 'we all agree Obamacare is an abomination. We all agree taxes are too high. We all agree spending is too high. We all agree Washington is getting in the way of job growth. We all agree we have a real debt crisis that will cripple future generations. ... The differences between us are dwarfed by the differences we have with the Democratic party.'
Paul Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate who will co-chair a bipartisan committee of House and Senate members charged with sorting out a long-term budget and debt solution, said Wednesday evening, 'The next fight is over spending cuts.'
He will share duties with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, a liberal known less for fiscal restraint than for taxing exuberance.
Ultimately, reaching a deal that stretches for a year or more will come down to well-worn political themes casting Republicans' urge to cut spending against Democrats' desire to raise taxes.
Or, in the current vernacular, to 'raise revenue.'

Meanwhile, Republicans' fight against the Obamacare law 'will continue,' Boehner said. 'But blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us.'

'Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately' Obama promised during a five-minute speech to reporters. 'We will begin reopening our government immediately'

THE DETAILS: What's in the Democrats' victory bill?

Senate leaders have hashed out a deal that will raise the debt limit until Feb. 7, and fund the government through Jan. 15.
A joint committee led by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray will seek a longer-term budget and spending solution by Dec. 13.
Republicans have secured an anti-fraud Obamacare provision that will verify the income levels of Americans who claim health insurance subsidies. That measure is in the Obamacare law, but the president waived it for one year. They also blocked cost-of-living pay raises for members of Congress.
Federal government employees on furlough will be reimbursed at their regular pay rate. Also compensated will be states that paid those employees on their own, or paid to keep national parks or other federal facilities open, during the partial shutdown.
Colorado will receive up to $450 million in emergency transportation aid to help clean up after recent flooding, and extra money will be spent to launch two U.S. weather satellites.
The widow of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died after amassing a fortune valued between $55 and $116 million, an extra $174,000 death benefit payment.
And a dam in Kentucky will increase its federal funding stake from $775 million to $3 billion. Kentucky is the home state of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican most directly involved with the bill's negotiation.
A proposal to make government executives and their staffers enroll in Obamacare without subsidies ended up on the cutting-room floor, as did a move to repeal or delay an unpopular Obamacare tax on medical devices.
But Republicans have, at least for now, ensured budget cuts stay in place because of the so-called 'sequester,' which slashed spending in many federal agencies.
The Democrats had threatened to try and loosen them, and will likely try in the coming budget negotiations.

Cruz, the now-weakened Texas tea party senator who has opposed any deal that didn't gut the Affordable Care Act, was asked Wednesday afternoon if he would block the compromise bill. 'Of course not,' he told reporters.
But the Texas firebrand went down swinging, offering a pre-vote floor speech calling House conservatives' stand against Boehner 'a profile in courage' and complaining that the Senate deal 'embodies everything about the Washington establishment that frustrates the American people.'
'I am encouraged by the millions of Americans who want to get back to our free-market principles, get back to the Constitution and stop this train-wreck of a law that is the biggest job-killer in this country,' a fired-up Cruz continued.
News of a deal saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring to finish 205.82 points ahead, a 1.36 per cent gain.

U.S. Treasury bond yields, which rose through the morning, headed downward again after Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell announced their compromise, signaling at least a temporary relaxing of global market fears.
McConnell faced new criticism after the bill's full text was released at dinnertime Wednesday. A little-noticed earmark, in the legislation will increase federal funding for the Olmsted Lock, a dam in his home state of Kentucky, from $775 million to nearly $3 billion.
'In exchange for funding Obamacare and raising the debt limit, Mitch McConnell has secured a $2 billion earmark,' the Senate Conservatives Fund griped, calling it the 'Kentucky kickback.'
A McConnell spokesman insisted that 'it's not our project,' and that the earmark request 'did not come from here.'
The bill will not only raise the debt-ceiling through to February 7, but the partial shutdown of government will also be lifted.
In Washington, though, the blame-game will begin before ink meets paper, with Boehner and Cruz, the maverick Texan, taking their places in the firing line.
Many Republicans are sniping that the pair carried the nation to the brink of disaster and extracted nothing from Washington, D.C. liberals that they can spin as a victory.
After losing such a high-stakes game of political poker, the GOP will now shoulder the burden of being blamed for the fiasco that led to serious fears of economic catastrophe and dragged America's global reputation through the mud.

Marked man: Sen. Ted Cruz took flak from all directions after he organized House tea-party Republicans to oppose Speaker Boehner's compromise on Tuesday, but he went down swinging with a fiery speech on the Senate floor

  

Carney: There are no winners following shutdown deal

'We are not putting odds on anything,' White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in his afternoon briefing while the bill's passage was still a hypothetical, but he urged both houses of Congress to 'act swiftly' and 'as soon as possible' to avoid economic disaster.
Carney then took questions about President Obama's plans to leverage his new-found political capital in a bid to reform America's immigration system, a move he told the Spanish-language Univision network on Tuesday that he would undertake 'the day after' Congress solved the debt crisis.
Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, said Wednesday that 'all of the Democrats and a big chunk of the Republicans' would vote to support the Reid–McConnell bill. Nunes has been critical of GOP advocates who pushed for a government shutdown in late September, calling them 'lemmings with suicide vests.'
A senior House Republican aide told MailOnline that while the GOP caucus is in disarray, more than enough Republicans will support the Senate-crafted bill to assure its passage in the House.
'Frankly, we're all just tired of this problem and everyone – well, almost everyone – is ready to move on,' the House staffer said.
That comment was a dig at tea party-affiliated Republicans who have held up the process and given the White House endless opportunities to bash the GOP.

Victorious: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged the winner today in his efforts to put together a Democrat-led package that apparently gives no quarter to Republican demands

Finally! Boehner pumps his fist after getting assurances that he will be able to carry the bill through the House following a meeting with GOP members

The Club For Growth, a conservative political action committee that often pressures members of Congress on key issues, sent notices out less than two hours after the Senate deal was announced, urging conservatives to register their displeasure with a 'no' vote.
The Senate plan 'appears to have little to no reforms in it,' the group said.
'There are no significant changes to Obamacare, nothing on the other major entitlements that are racked with trillions in unfunded liabilities, and no meaningful spending cuts either. If this bill passes, Congress will kick the can down the road, yet again.'
Heritage Action, another right-wing group, told members that it 'opposes the Senate-negotiated proposal and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard.'
Those messages mean the groups will punish congressmen and women who vote 'yes' by downgrading their job-performance ratings, which guide decisions about fundraising.
But while conservatives are whining, liberals are crowing.
'Looks like the grownups came to the rescue,' an aide to a Democratic senator told MailOnline shortly after the deal was announced, suggesting that the public would see Republicans as obstructionists who couldn't find their way through a near-disaster.

 

Sen. Cruz says 'This is a terrible deal for the American people'

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (L) and Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray will co-chair a new joint budget committee conference charged with finding a budget and spending solution by Dec. 13

Markets surge after debt deal

The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 200 points on Wednesday after senators announced a deal to solve the debt crisis.

And U.S. Treasury yields ticked lower in the afternoon after a morning-long climb according to Reuters.

Short-term one-month bonds lost more than half their interest rate, falling 0.195 percentage points to a 0.147 per cent yield.

Treasurys on offer for all lengths of time were lower as the foreign markets gained confidence, with even the 30-year rate losing 6 basis points to settle at 3.73 per cent yield.

'If there is a silver lining in this cloud,' said New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, 'it's that hopefully this debacle means that the power of those that favor confrontation has peaked.'

Boehner blinked first by agreeing that the Republican-led House would vote on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown.
When an angst-ridden Ted Cruz spoke, he refocused the discussion on the Affordable Care Act, the health care law that served as the springboard for government-shutdown advocates in the first place.
'Countless Americans all over the nation are being notified their premiums are skyrocketing. Others are losing jobs or seeing their work hours reduced, and thousands upon thousands are losing their healthcare plans altogether. All because of Obamacare,' Cruz said.
'I am saddened to say that today, the Senate did nothing to help them. Washington did nothing.'
His fellow Republicans, however, have already started to complain about actions Cruz took as the debt crisis deepened.
'He's the one who's responsible,' New York Republican Rep. Peter King said on the Fox News Channel, noting that Cruz organized the House tea partiers to oppose Boehner's Tuesday compromise proposals.
Even Cruz's hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, has become suddenly hostile.

Getting along: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell negotiated with Reid on Tuesday night but secured little for Republicans to cheer about

Still work to do: Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi talks to leading members of her caucus. The bill still needs to pass both Houses before the end of the day

A secret plot in a Mexican restaurant, bluffs called, and finally pizza: 48 hours of political drama

The past two days have seen twists and turns in Washington as the White House and both parties in Congress wrangled over a looming debt-limit deadline.
MONDAY:
8:00 p.m. – Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz met with a group of conservative House members in the basement of a Capitol Hill restaurant, reportedly urging them to hold the line and demand changes to Obamacare as Senate negotiators spread news of a brewing debt-limit deal between Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid.
TUESDAY

11:00 a.m. – Speaker John Boehner presented his own proposal in a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, angering Democratic senators. But right-wingers refused to go along.
3:00 p.m. – Republicans scheduled a key committee vote for 6:00 p.m. as Boehner went back to his caucus with revisions he hoped would attract enough conservative votes to hold the plan together.
5:00 p.m. – House right-wingers rejected Boehner a second time and the party canceled its committee hearing, conceding that it wouldn't be able to hold a floor vote. GOPers and their aides had conciliatory pizza.
8:00 p.m. – Reid and McConnell resumed their talks, with insiders saying they were not far away from an agreement.
WEDNESDAY
12:00 p.m. – Reid and McConnell announced a negotiated deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
1:00 p.m. – Tea party star Sen. Ted Cruz said he would not block the Senate bill or throw up procedural roadblocks by objecting to its quick passage
3:00 p.m. – Boehner met with his House Republican caucus, emerging to say he would pass the Senate bill even if Democrats, not his own colleagues, cast the crucial votes.

8:10 p.m. – The Senate passed its bipartisan compromise measure by an 81-18 margin.
8:25 p.m. – President Obama delivered a five-minute speec, telling reporters that America has 'got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.'
10:20 p.m. – About one-third of House Republicans joined all the Democrats in passing the legislation, 285-144.
10:56 p.m. – The Office of Management and Budget announced that federal government employees 'should expect to return to work in the morning'
THURSDAY
12:27 a.m. – The White House announced that the president had signed the bill into law.

When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election,' the paper's editorial board wrote Wednesday morning, 'we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation – that he follow [former Sen. Kay Bailey] Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator.'
'Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem.'
The paper later clarified that it had not withdrawn its endorsement, as some news outlets had claimed.
America's economy hung in the balance as the two houses of Congress scrambled to finalize a deal and avoid crashing through the nation's debt ceiling.

The law gives President Obama new power to run up debts without making any significant changes to his controversial Obamacare health insurance law. The country had risked defaulting on its interest payments to creditors and sparking a global recession if its borrowing authority was extended by midnight.
The deadlock had been driving up the cost of U.S. borrowing as more and more foreign bond holders move their investments to other currencies, hurting the strength of the dollar.
The International Monetary Fund had said failure to come to agreement would risk another global recession.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffet told CNBC on Wednesday morning that it would be a 'pure act of idiocy' if the U.S. defaulted on its bills and damaged the country's reputation for paying its bills that has been built up over 237 years.
Now a joint House/Senate committee with equal numbers of members from both parties will be charged with staving off the next crisis deadline, by agreeing on a long-term solution by mid-December.
The plan will enforce an income-verification measure that Republicans insisted is needed to make sure Americans who claim subsidies under the Obamacare health insurance law actually qualify for the handouts.
But gone is a provision that Obama threatened to veto. It would have required him, the vice president, top-level political appointees and members of Congress – and their staffers – to register in the Obamacare system without financial help from taxpayers.
The Senate aide said Boehner will end up with the most egg on his face after the dust settles.
'This is really bad for the speaker. The conservatives over there really gave him headaches,' he said. 'At this point he just has to put the Senate bill on the floor, collect the Democrats' votes, and leave the tea party crowd on the sidelines.'
The U.S. has defaulted on its debts twice before: once during the War of 1812 and again in a Carter-era 1979 clerical error. In that case, the Treasury had to catch up after failing to pay bond holders their interest for two weeks.
But the federal government had never before come this close to setting off a fiscal feeding frenzy that could tank its entire economy.
Wednesday's events followed a day of high drama on Capitol Hill during which Senators and the Republican-led House played a game of high -stakes poker with the country's economy and its reputation abroad.

 

House to vote on Senate debt ceiling deal

Mortgaged to the hilt: Many Republicans are willing to take the talks to the wire because they want to see the soaring debt-limit cut and for the US to pay its own way

Senate Democrats said Tuesday night that they were back in control after House conservatives torpedoed Boehner's attempt to craft a politically workable proposal of his own.
But House Republicans abandoned a planned Tuesday night vote shortly before dinner after it became clear House Speaker John Boehner wouldn't get enough votes to pass a surprise rival bill he unveiled hours earlier. 
At that point, Boehner's staff found there was nothing to do but order a massive stack of pizzas for dinner.
The surprise announcement of the GOP's rival plan Tuesday morning left Reid stunned and furious. California Senator Dianne Feinstein had lamented that bipartisan talks in the Senate were in disarray.
'It's all fallen apart,' she told Bloomberg News, lashing out as McConnell broke off negotiations with Reid while his House GOP counterparts worked on their own bill.
The Senate started up its processes again after dinnertime Tuesday, following news that Republicans in the House couldn't reach agreement on the terms of their own proposal.

Mocking from abroad: This cartoon ran in the opinion section of the China Daily newspaper

The face says it all: Senator Rand Paul walks to a meeting with Senate Republicans at the Capitol Hill earlier today

'It's game, set, match, I think,' a GOP aide to a centrist Republican House member told MailOnline. 'We should have seen this coming.'
'The only questions left are how much pain Harry Reid will want to inflict, and how much Mitch McConnell will let him get away with.'
'It's all over. We'll take the Senate deal,' another GOP staffer told the conservative National Review.
The GOP was unable to close the deal on its own proposal amid claims that Boehner couldn't satisfy enough of his Obamacare-obsessed caucus to push the deal across the finish line.

Dinner time: An aide brings a cart stacked with pizza to the office of Speaker John Boehner, as movement toward ending the government shutdown was suddenly halted Tuesday night