Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, mocked the bill as “duck, dodge and dismantle.” The formal White House veto statement took an almost lecturing approach: “Instead of pursuing an empty political statement and unrealistic policy goals, it is necessary to move beyond politics as usual and find bipartisan common ground.” 
 
 The measure was filed only on Friday, and the fast-paced maneuvering has caught some rank-and-file House Republicans off guard. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) have been making quiet progress on a last-resort deal to allow the debt ceiling to be raised in return for about $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. And as part of the RSC’s bargain with the leadership, the bill also makes any debt ceiling increase contingent on Congress first approving a balanced-budget constitutional amendment designed to make it harder to raise taxes in the future.
– Exasperation is high on Capitol Hill, as the House and Senate barrel ahead with unrelated debt ceiling plans, neither of which resemble the “grand bargain” President Obama wanted. Today, John Boehner will hold a vote on his so-called “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill, which calls for $5.8 trillion in unspecified cuts and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and making it harder to raise taxes. The White House mocked the bill as the “duck, dodge, and dismantle” measure, Politico reports, and has vowed a veto. The Senate is working on a bipartisan bill, but even there, nerves were fraying. “What will it take,” Harry Reid demands, “for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the fact that they’re playing a game of political chicken with the entire global economy?” Even if all goes according to plan, the Senate won’t vote on its compromise until July 29, giving the House just four days to pass it before Aug. 2—and there’s no guarantee it will, the Washington Post reports. Things are getting “very, very scary,” one top Senate Democrat said, even for those “who believe government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub.”