GOP plan to extend debt limit raises hope of end to impasse

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A photo provided by the Smithsonian’s National Zoo shows a giant panda cub undergoing an exam. The photo was released after the beloved panda cam was turned back on after the government reopened. (Bill Clements / Associated Press)

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Vice President Joe Biden greets Environmental Protection Agency workers with muffins as they return to work after 16 days of a government shutdown. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

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Park Service workers carry a barricade that was used to close the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the morning after the government shutdown ended. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

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Barricades used to close the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial lie dismantled on the morning after the government shutdown ended. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

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House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) walks to the House chamber for a vote on the budget deal. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

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The final vote total of 285-144 in the House of Representatives on the bill to avoid a national default and end the 16-day government shutdown. (C-SPAN / Associated Press)

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House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) pumps his fist after leaving a meeting of House Republicans at the Capitol. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

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The final tally after the Senate voted to avoid a financial default and reopen the federal government. (CSPAN / Associated Press)

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Democratic Sens. Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Patty Murray and Richard Durbin attend a news conference after voting on a budget deal. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

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Activists stage a “die in” outside the federal building in San Francisco to protest the government shutdown and proposed cuts to Medicare, Social Security benefits, as well as child care, food, disability and senior advocate programs. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

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Administration spokesman Jay Carney in the White House Press Room after the announcement of a Senate deal to end the government shutdown and extend the debt limit. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

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House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) after a news conference on Capitol Hill. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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At a Capitol Hill news conference, from left: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Assistant Minority Leader James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles). (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

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A congressional staffer brings in pizzas as talks continue in the Capitol to end the government shutdown. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

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Protesters in front of the White House demand an end to the government shutdown. (Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images)

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A crowd gathers at the World War II Memorial during a rally to demand the reopening of national memorials closed by the government shutdown. The demonstration was supported by military veterans, tea party activists and Republicans. (Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

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House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) walks to his office on Capitol Hill. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) tickles John Griffin, son of Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), outside his office after a House vote. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stands on the Senate steps on Capitol Hill. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, and Army Secretary John McHugh, right, watch an Army carry team move a transfer case containing the remains of Pfc. Cody J. Patterson at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Death benefits for military families were restored Wednesday. A deal with the Fisher House Foundation ensured that military death benefits would be upheld during the government shutdown. (Steve Ruark / Associated Press)

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A supporter of President Obama displays a placard in front of the White House calling for the end of the government shutdown. (Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images)

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Teri McLain wears a President Obama figure during a Capitol rally to urge Congress to end the government shutdown. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

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House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) heads for a House Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka speaks during a protest held by furloughed federal workers outside the Capitol. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

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President Obama speaks on the government shutdown and the budget and debt ceiling debates in Congress during a visit to M. Luis Construction in Rockville, Md. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)

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A Capitol Police officer walks past a statue of Gerald Ford, president during the 1976 shutdown of the federal government, in the Rotunda while the Capitol was closed to tours. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelly Mathov, 79, holds a sign while protesting the government shutdown outside the federal building in Los Angeles. (Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

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A veterans motorcycle group, some holding police line tape, visit the closed World War II Memorial after ignoring barriers surrounding the entrances. (Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images)

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A woman views the Jefferson Memorial from behind barricades in Washington. (Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images)

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A police officer passes in front of the Washington Monument and World War II Memorial in Washington. (Olivier Douliery / McClatchy-Tribune)

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Vicki Maturo of Culver City protests the government shutdown outside the federal building in Los Angeles. (Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

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The White House seen behind a stop sign during the first day of the government shutdown. (Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images)

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Reporters check their smartphones while waiting outside House Speaker John A. Boehner’s office on the eve of the government shutdown. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images)

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A National Park Service employee posts a sign on a barricade closing access to the Lincoln Memorial during the first day of the government shutdown. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

By Lisa Mascaro and Michael A. Memoli

Oct. 10, 2013 6:56 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The federal budget standoff moved toward at least a temporary end Thursday as Speaker John A. Boehner announced that House Republicans would agree to extend the government’s borrowing authority for six weeks, setting up late-night negotiations between the White House and Congress.

In announcing his plan, Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans no longer would insist on any policy changes in return for allowing the government to continue borrowing. But he did not agree to reopen federal programs that shut down last week.

At a late-afternoon meeting at the White House, where Boehner and other House GOP leaders presented their proposal, President Obama told them that he wanted the government reopened in addition to a solution for the debt ceiling, according to administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity. That put Obama in line with Senate Democrats, who have insisted that both issues be resolved together.

In the meeting, “the president didn’t say yes, didn’t say no,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). “We’re continuing to negotiate.”

The issue for negotiators is to find something that Boehner could use to help sell Republicans on ending the shutdown but that Obama could also accept, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) suggested.

“I think it’s clear that he would like to have the shutdown stopped,” Rogers said, referring to Obama. “We’re trying to find out what it is he would insist upon in a CR and what we would insist upon,” he added, using the legislative jargon for a continuing resolution to fund government agencies.

The president’s healthcare law, which Republicans spent weeks trying to block or delay as a condition of approving any funding bills this fall, was “not discussed,” Rogers said.

The House could vote as early as Friday, but both houses planned weekend sessions. The Treasury Department says the debt ceiling needs to be raised by Oct. 17.

Earlier in the afternoon, Senate Democrats emerged from a meeting with Obama insisting that the shutdown end.

“We want the government opened,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Some of the Senate’s more centrist Republicans also expressed support for legislation that would end the shutdown and extend the debt limit.

“We need to do both,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “The country’s disgusted by this shutdown, and so am I. We need to reopen the government.”

“Both of them have to be resolved,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “It’s not rocket science.”

A vote to end the shutdown could be harder for conservatives than one on the debt limit. But some in the House sounded willing to accept the idea that Boehner would bring to a vote a plan to fund the government, which could pass with the help of the chamber’s Democratic minority.

“If they do something like that — and I’m only speaking for myself — yeah, I would hope that would go to the floor,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee and former head of the party’s congressional campaign operation. He added that the House would still insist on “real negotiations” in the future.

The prospect that the standoff would end sent markets sharply higher. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 323.09 points, or 2.2%, for its biggest one-day gain of the year, and other market measures showed similar gains.

For Boehner and his House colleagues, a move to deal with the debt ceiling without concessions would amount to a decision to live to fight another day. Republicans entered this month’s standoff with an ambitious agenda that included blocking or scaling back Obama’s healthcare law, achieving significant changes in environmental and other regulations, and winning spending cuts in retiree-benefit programs.

Boehner and other senior GOP officials and strategists had warned against such sweeping demands, considering them all but certain to fail. But tea-party-backed conservative activists insisted on the crusade.

Ten days after agencies across the government began to close, Republicans find themselves badly divided, at odds with traditional allies in the business community and suffering sharp declines in opinion polls.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey released Thursday evening found that by a 22-point margin, 53% to 31%, the public blames the Republicans for the shutdown more than Obama. Favorable opinions of the GOP have dropped to 24% of the public, an all-time low in the survey, and Democrats have taken a significant lead in a test of which party voters would prefer to see control Congress after the next election.

By contrast, Obama’s approval has ticked up slightly in the survey. Even Obamacare, as the president’s healthcare law is often called, has grown more popular since the budget standoff began, according to the survey, which was conducted by a team of GOP and Democratic pollsters.

In the face of such travails for Republicans, Boehner’s plan would call off the fight in return simply for a promise from Obama to negotiate on budget issues over the next several weeks. Democrats would like to win some easing of the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, which took effect early this year. Republicans would like to reduce spending on Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs but have so far been reluctant to specify particular cuts, all of which would probably carry a political price.

If talks failed to reach an agreement, Republicans could, once again, threaten not to vote for a debt-ceiling increase. But having pulled back from the brink this time, their leverage would be lessened.

Obama and other administration officials have warned that failure to raise the debt ceiling could cause severe economic disruption. Thursday, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned a Senate panel that “it would be chaos” and that he could not guarantee he could avert a default by paying interest on government bonds if Congress failed to act.

Some Republicans have dismissed those warnings as exaggerations. Others, however, said they had decided to go along with Boehner’s plan in part because of fear of economic disruption.

“You don’t want to mess with that,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.). “You don’t want to mess with people’s 401(k)s.”

Not all House conservatives appeared ready to follow that path.

“I think everybody is going to have to take a few hours,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). The notion of approving a short-term debt limit deal without winning policy concessions is “a pretty out-of-the-box kind of idea from where we’ve been,” he said. “It’s going to take everybody kind of noodling on it a little bit.”

But some key outside groups on the party’s right wing indicated they would not oppose the vote, and other conservatives seemed willing to go ahead. Rep. Raul R. Labrador (R-Idaho), a leader among recently elected conservative lawmakers, said the proposal would help Republicans because it would separate the threat of a default from the fight over Obamacare.

For the party’s more centrist members, who have argued all along that the conservative strategy was a loser, Boehner’s proposal came as vindication.

Members of the House were “realizing government by crisis is not good, and we need a focus,” said Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.). “Sometimes you have to work real hard to listen to the quiet majority and not be governed by the loud minority.”

Earlier in the day, the House passed a stopgap bill to restore federal funding for border security. The vote was the latest in a series by House Republicans since the shutdown began to provide money to government functions that they favor.

The Senate, so far, has shelved nearly all such bills, insisting on a full reopening of government services, but unanimously agreed Thursday to one that would ensure families of military troops are paid death benefits. Obama signed it.

The administration also agreed to allow national parks to reopen in states that agreed to pay for park operations.

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michael.memoli @latimes.com

Brian Bennett, Kathleen Hennessey, David Lauter and Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.