House Of Representatives, House Republicans | featured news

House Republicans are willing to give President Barack Obama a rare win, the chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee said Thursday in outlining a deal that would let college students avoid a costly hike on their student loans.

House Republicans are preparing for another showdown over the debt ceiling this summer. The House Ways and Means Committee passed a bill Wednesday to protect Social Security recipients and investors in Treasury bonds if the government hits the limit of its borrowing authority.

House Republicans staked out what they cast as a middle-ground option, pushing an approach that could include legalization but not a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The White House says a House Republican bill to extend the government's borrowing authority for three months still faces concerns in Congress but press secretary Jay Carney says that if it reaches President Barack Obama's desk, "he would not stand in the way of the bill becoming law.

Backing down from their hard-line stance, House Republicans said Friday that they would agree to lift the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit for three months, with a requirement that both chambers of Congress pass a budget in that time to clear the way for negotiations on long-term deficit reduction.

Obama told Jennifer Jacobs of the Register, "If the majority of the American people have said, 'This is the direction we need to go,' and the Republicans in Congress say, 'No, we're going to go in the exact opposite direction,' that's probably not going to leave them to keep that (congressional) majority too long."

The emerging legislation stands in sharp contrast to previous occasions when House Republicans used the leverage of a spending deadline to insist on deep spending cuts.

House Republicans have now voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 33 times. Every time they take this vote, it’s time they could be spending on other issues... But though they’ve found the time to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act on 33 separate occasions, they have voted to replace the Affordable Care Act exactly … never.

The lack of a decision so far by House Republican to hold a vote on overhauling postal operations means lawmakers are once again likely to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to shore up postal finances, but not address longer-term structural and financial concerns, congressional aides and industry observers said Thursday.