Tea Party Nation Targets John Boehner, Mitch McConnell On Debt Ceiling

As contentious negotiations continue on the issue of raising the nation's debt limit in Washington, a Tea Party group is accusing House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of "betraying" the coalition of conservative activists with their actions in the ongoing debate.

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips said in a statement, “Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they’re about to renew Obama’s cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America’s grandchildren with all of the bills.” He warned of efforts on the right to recruit conservative challengers to take on "House GOP RINOs" in primary races in the next election cycle. According to Phillips, the issue of who will be targeted comes down to one simple question: "Did the member vote for the McConnell-Boehner cave-in or for any cheap giveaway of more national debt?”

The AP reports on the state of talks to raise the debt ceiling as of midday Tuesday:

House Republicans pushed ahead Tuesday toward a vote on legislation that would raise the nation's debt limit in exchange for trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and congressional approval of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. But with the measure facing a veto threat from the White House, Speaker John Boehner said he was exploring other alternatives to avoid a government default threatened for Aug. 2.
"I do think it's responsible for us to look at what Plan B would look like," he said at a news conference a few hours before the opening of debate on the legislation backed by conservative lawmakers.

Reuters reports on a contentious proposal to raise the deficit limit put forth by McConnell:

McConnell's plan to avert an imminent U.S. debt default could lead to a day of reckoning for his Republicans as they weigh the prospect of fiscal disaster against the demands of Tea Party activists. With other efforts to raise the federal government's debt ceiling at a standstill, McConnell's "Plan B" to avoid default is increasingly seen as "Plan A" in Washington.
The proposal by the top Republican in the Senate would dump the task into the laps of President Barack Obama and his Democrats, forcing them to back a $2.4 trillion increase in borrowing before the November 2012 elections as recession-weary voters worry about the country's growing mountain of debt.

A small bipartisan group of senators is also working to advance a plan to raise the debt ceiling. According to the Treasury Department, the United States is set to begin the process of defaulting on its debts on August 2.

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Source: Huffington