WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has taken up tea party-backed House legislation tying an increase in the government's borrowing authority to a series of conservative demands including a constitutional balanced budget amendment.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called up the measure to placate Republicans demanding a vote. But he said it "doesn't have one chance in a million of passing the Senate."
Democrats argue that the so-called "cut, cap and balance" measure would impose untenable spending restraints and set spending levels, as a percentage of the overall economy, on par with the mid-1960s — before the advent of Medicare and automatic Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.
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