House Democrats discard larger debt limit

House Democrats discard larger debt limit: "House Democratic leaders, bowing to their party's deficit hawks, will move the year's final must-pass piece of legislation without a long-term increase to the national debt and without a large boost in infrastructure funding that was aimed at creating jobs.

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday evening that last week's proposal to increase the debt limit by more than $1.8 trillion had been discarded in favor of a more politically acceptable plan to give the Treasury Department a two-month extension on its current limit of $12.1 trillion, which is expected to be hit by New Year's Eve. The plan calls for raising the cap by $300 billion, to $12.4 trillion, according to a source familiar with the decision.

'We're working towards a short-term debt extension,' Hoyer told reporters as he emerged from an hour-plus meeting in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Conservative House Democrats had been demanding, in exchange for their votes to support a large debt-limit increase, a new pay-as-you-go law that would bar Congress from increasing spending or cutting taxes unless the cost is offset by spending cuts or revenue increases elsewhere. Fiscal conservatives in the Senate, meanwhile, led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), had been seeking the creation of a bipartisan commission with authority to force spending cuts or tax increases through Congress."