Boehner Seeks to Avoid Debt Limit Showdown

Speaker John Boehner “will seek to emerge from a three-day House Republican retreat next week with a diminished opposition inside his party to avoid a showdown in the 11 legislative days that remain before the federal government exhausts its borrowing authority,” the New York Times reports.

House Republicans will begin their retreat “still divided over how to raise the federal debt limit, overhaul immigration laws, challenge President Obama’s health care law, and address privacy issues highlighted by National Security Agency surveillance. But with the passage of a budget in December and a detailed spending bill this month, Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders have the upper hand in the simmering disputes.”