progress. democratic senate leader harry reid and republican senate leader mitch mcconnell on the senate floor moments ago. look. today the speaker republican leader held a press conference to announce they re in talks with the president and that a bargain to raise the debt ceiling is in the works and is close. in president, members of the senate, that s not true. i just spent two hours with the president, vice president, and leader pelosi, and it s fair for me to say that the engagement there is not in any meaningful way. the speaker, republican leader should know that merely saying we have agreement in front of a few television cameras doesn t make it so. the fact of the matter is that the only way we re going to get an agreement before tuesday is to have an agreement with the president of the united states. and the only person in america of the 307 million of us who can sign something into law. and i m more optimistic than my friend, the majority leader. we ve both tal
for the first time in the history of our country unless there is a compromise or they accept my bill, we re headed for economic disaster. it s time for republicans to step forward. there s been some movement today. as i indicated on the floor, i was having a meeting in my office this afternoon with some splun and that fell through. as they were walking into a conference, three republican senators said they were interested in my bill, interested in compromise. they need to step forward. muns are blocking republicans are blocking their ability to kproomize, refusing to negotiate with us. all they do is talk, enough to get done. the house will hold an up or down vote i m told on my proposal. we should be allowed to do the same. that s all we re asking. it s time for us to be adult. it s time to come together and compromise. it s what the american people want and what we need to do. senator durbin? i m sure you recall the speech that was given to the american people on mond
ridiculist tonight. breaking news everyone. tonight right now in that building over on the senate side according to democrat harry reid who spoke last hour, nothing is going on. the senate is now adjourned. but the clock is still ticking and the government is running out of money to pay the bills at this moment because the debt limit was not raised back in may, the united states treasury has less cash on hand than apple computer. on wednesday the government will have $23 billion in social security checks to send out and not enough cash to cover them unless it doesn t send out a whole lot of other checks. now, earlier this evening after a string of delays the house narrowly passed speaker john boehner s version of a debt reduction bill. i stuck my neck out a mile to try this. to get an agreement with the president of the united states. i stuck my neck out a mile. and i put revenues on the table. in order to try this. to come to an agreement to avert us being where we are.
a string of delays the house narrowly passed speaker john boehner s version of a debt reduction bill. i stuck my neck out a mile to try this. to get an agreement with the president of the united states. i stuck my neck out a mile. and i put revenues on the table. in order to try this. to come to an agreement to avert us being where we are. a lot of people in this town can never say yes. a lot of people can never say yes. this house has acted. and it is time for the administration and time for our colleagues across the aisle, put something on the table! tell us where you are! [ cheers and applause ] well, the bill which had new language requiring congress to pass a balanced budget amendment before the debt ceiling is raised was quickly rejected on the senate side. then lawmakers took up majority leader reid s debt proposal after a question from minority leader mcconnel senator reid try this. ed to get a vote on it tonight by a simple majority. minority leader mitch mcconne
and there s that clock that we speak of. just under two days away from a time when we re told by the treasury, this country will not be able to pay all of its bills. so let me give you the rundown of what s happening today. the house gets to work around noontime today. that s just about two hours from now. after some debate, they ll vote on a proposal from senate majority leader, harry reid. that proposal is expected to fail. then on the senate side, they open debate on that same reid bill at 1:00 eastern time this afternoon. the debate there could go on for some 12 hours. now, it may not be until a lot of us are asleep that the senate gets to vote on that reid bill. the senate has moved on to the reid bill after deciding not to vote on the bill from house speaker john boehner. the nays are 210, the bill is passed. without objection to motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. what you re seeing there is that speaker boehner s bill actually passed. it finally passed th