House approves increase in debt ceiling with no strings attached, bill heads to Senate | Fox News
WASHINGTON – The House voted Tuesday to raise the government's borrowing limit, as GOP leaders backed down from a potential confrontation with Democrats by declining to seek any concessions in exchange for the increase.
The debt-ceiling bill passed on a 221-201 vote, and now goes to the Senate for final approval.
The vote comes after Republican leaders backed off their strategy of trying to use the debt limit to force spending cuts or other concessions. In 2011, President Obama yielded to similar demands but has since said he would not negotiate with Republicans over the matter.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, swiftly teed up the vote Tuesday after failing to get enough conservative support for a plan that would have tied the debt ceiling measure to one reversing cuts to military pensions. Another failed proposal had tied the debt cap hike to the Keystone pipeline.
The House, as part of a separate bill, nevertheless voted Tuesday to restore full cost of living increases to pension benefits for younger military retirees. The final vote was 326-90.
But Boehner's decision to move ahead on the debt-ceiling legislation without any concessions signals a potentially new approach on these so-called must-pass bills. His party was bruised last year after Republicans tried to extract changes to ObamaCare as part of a budget bill, resulting in a partial government shutdown that lasted until Boehner finally called a relatively clean budget bill to the floor -- which passed on mostly Democratic votes.
