July 26, 2011 12:46 AM UTC

President Obama to Address Nation on Debt Ceiling

•  
• by: c rork

From C-SPAN:

President Obama will address the nation at 9 pm ET tonight. His address comes as the Senate and the House progress on different plans on lifting the debt ceiling.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced a proposal to lift the $14.3 trillion dollar debt ceiling through 2012. It includes $2.7 trillion in budget cuts.  Reid’s proposal does not include increases in revenue or cuts to entitlement programs. It “meets both sides bottom lines,” Senator Reid said.  The savings include $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending and takes into account $1 trillion is savings by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would also create a committee to recommend additional spending cuts in the future.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Senator Reid’s proposal was “full of gimmicks.” He announced his two-step plan, which would raise the debt ceiling two different times and would cut spending by as much as the debt ceiling is lifted. Speaker Boehner said the plan was not “Cut, Cap and Balance” — the deficit reduction plan passed in the House on Tuesday and killed in the Senate on Friday, but “built on the principles” of the failed legislation.

The President has been winning the battle with the public so far, and seizing the bully pulpit this close to the August 2nd deadline probably won’t bode well for the GOP.