House Does It's Job, and In the True Spirit of Obama the Senate Votes "Present"

John Boehner has thrown the ball into the Senate's court:

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at just concluded press conference that it was now up to the Senate to pass its own plan to raise the debt ceiling.

“The House has done its job," Boehner said. "We’ve given the president an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion, which would take us at least the next 18 months. For that, we’re asking for real cuts in spending and a balanced budget amendment. So the House has done its job, and I hope that the Senate will do theirs.”

As he was holding his press conference, the Senate was voting to table the Cut, Cap and Balance plan passed by the House this week.

“If they don’t like our version of Cut, Cap and Balance that two-thirds of the American people support, then what’s their plan?" Boehner said. "They can make amendments to it and send it back over.”

The Senate hasn't passed a budget in over 800 days and has never offered a plan to handle the debt ceiling situation. Instead they have voted "present".

Harry Reid plans to stay in session this weekend. Doing...what? They just tabled the Cut, Cap and Balance Act and that's the only plan on the table right now. I guess Harry just gets lonely on those long weekends and wants to see Barbara Boxer every day.

And it looks like Obama himself has ruled out the possibility that he's a dictator with unlimited power (from Mark Knoller at CBS):

Pres Obama says his lawyers have told him that ignoring debt limit or raising it himself is "not a winning argument."

However, it would be easier if he was a dictator (from SE Cupp)

Obama: "This would be easier if I could do this on my own." Oh, if only America were a dictatorship.

UPDATE - just in, Harry cancels the weekend Senate session:

So much for that weekend session.

A day after criticizing House Republicans for leaving town this weekend, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced there would be no more business in his chamber until Monday. Reid said since House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Barack Obama were working on a broad deficit deal to avert default on Aug. 2, it made no sense to move forward this weekend on a “fallback” plan that he was privately drafting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

And in a striking admission for a Senate majority leader, Reid announced he wasn’t in the loop in the Boehner talks.