The Senate will vote at noon on Tuesday on a historic measure pairing an increase in the government's borrowing limit with promises of more than $2 trillion of budget cuts over the next decade.
A crisis-conquering deficit-reduction agreement struck by the White House and congressional leaders after months of partisan rancor picked up momentum in the Senate Monday, as a member of the Republican leadership predicted at least 30 GOP votes.
Hours before a crucial vote, Republican leaders pleaded with their fractious rank and file Thursday to support a House plan to stave off an unprecedented government default. The vote would bring President Barack Obama and congressional leaders a step closer to endgame efforts before Tuesday's deadline.
Six days away from a potentially calamitous government default, House Republicans appeared to be coalescing Wednesday around a work-in-progress plan by House Speaker John Boehner to increase the U.S. borrowing limit and chop $1 trillion in federal spending.
Budget analysts said Wednesday that a Senate Democratic plan to reduce the deficit and increase the nation's borrowing authority would save $2.2 trillion over a decade, more than a rival House Republican proposal but less than promised.
House Speaker John Boehner predicted Thursday that a majority of House Republicans will end up supporting some kind of compromise as the Senate began debating a House-passed effort to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to conservative demands for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
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.
The top Democrat in the House reacted positively to a new bipartisan budget plan emerging in the Senate, even as a top House GOP military hawk said it would cut defense way too much.