Capitol Hill Focus To Return To Budget Issues And Raising Debt Limit
Meanwhile, Republicans' efforts to recruit Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to run for speaker of the House continues to draw headlines, speculation and analysis. And the Planned Parenthood controversy continues.
Politico:
CBO: Debt Limit Must Be Raised In Next 30 Days
Lawmakers must raise the debt limit in the next 30 days, the Congressional Budget Office warned Wednesday. The nonpartisan agency said the Treasury Department will run out of the accounting maneuvers as well as the cash reserve it's used to stave off default "sometime during the first half of November." (Faler, 10/14)
The New York Times:
Devotion To Fiscal Policy May Keep Ryan From Taking House Speaker’s Job
Each one could be called the Ryan Plan, for short, or the Ryan Budget: a single-minded — Democrats would say absurdist — quest by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, to drastically cut federal spending and taxes, transform Medicare essentially into a voucher program, partly privatize Social Security. ... Those sweeping budget proposals, the product of a young, heavy-metal-loving policy wonk’s obsession with transforming American fiscal policy, catapulted Mr. Ryan to prominence within the Republican Party. ... Republicans, on the other hand, passionately embraced them, and Mr. Ryan came to be seen as one of his party’s most influential thinkers on fiscal issues. His budget proposals showcase the thinking and philosophy of a lawmaker who many Republicans believe is now their best choice for speaker of the House... But Mr. Ryan’s personal dedication to fiscal issues could mean he might prefer to remain in the powerful, more policy-oriented post of chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee (Herszenhorn, 10/14)
The Associated Press:
GOP Lawmaker Obtains Planned Parenthood Videos
Anti-abortion activists have given Congress lengthy, unedited videos they recorded showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing their retrieval of fetal tissue, a Republican House committee chairman said Wednesday. Democrats complained that the recordings seemed to be copies and not originals. That could mean they wouldn’t help resolve conflicting claims about whether the videos — including shorter versions that abortion foes began posting online this summer — were misleadingly edited. (Fram, 10/14)
The Washington Post:
Meet The Millennial Who Infiltrated The Guarded World Of Abortion Providers
Daleiden, 26, is the antiabortion activist who masterminded the recent undercover campaign aimed at proving that Planned Parenthood illegally sells what he calls aborted “baby body parts.” He captured intimate details of the famously guarded organization, hobnobbing at conferences so secretive that they require background checks and talking his way into a back laboratory at a Colorado clinic where he picked through the remains of aborted fetuses and displayed them luridly for the camera. (Somashekhar, 10/14)