Support for House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) debt plan built Wednesday as GOP leaders urged their members to fall in line ahead of a Thursday vote on the measure. 
 
 Though it remains unclear whether they have the 217 votes needed for House passage, Boehner and other leaders voiced confidence that the tide was moving in their direction, one day after a negative Congressional Budget Office score forced them to find more spending cuts for the bill. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 Opponents of the Boehner measure, in contrast, sounded less confident that it would be defeated on Wednesday. 
 
 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the conservative head of the Republican Study Committee, said Tuesday that Boehner would not have the votes but declined to repeat that assertion Wednesday. 
 
 “I don’t know about that today,” said Jordan, who came under fire at a closed-door conference meeting for a staffer's email urging conservative groups to lobby specific members against Boehner's plan. “I just know I am against the bill.” 
 
 Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) said he’d now support the measure, and Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) all said they were leaning toward “yes” after the conference meeting. 
 
 The members described Boehner’s plan, now set for a floor vote Thursday, as the best available option before the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline for raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. 
 
 Boehner said he ordered GOP lawmakers to "get your ass in line" behind his debt proposal during an interview Wednesday on a conservative radio show. 
 
 "My goal is to continue to work with all our members so we get them to the point where they say 'yes,'" Boehner said on Laura Ingraham's radio show. 

 'I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me,' Boehner said to House Republicans. Boehner quiets rebellion on right 
 
 A dust up among a major House conservative bloc and the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in new spending cuts has Republican leadership feeling as if it quelled an uprising on the right after struggling to line up votes for much of the week. 
 
 Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California and Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam of Illinois continued their hard sell of a two-step debt-limit package, meeting in Capitol offices to close the deal and avoid a default on the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 In a closed-door Republican Conference meeting on Wednesday, Boehner demanded his wavering members “get your ass in line” to back his proposal, and some members obliged. Michigan Rep. Thad McCotter, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, switched from voting no to yes during the 90-minute session. Reps. Blake Farenthold of Texas, Billy Long of Missouri and Jeff Denham of California are now backing the speaker’s plan, as are Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, Nan Hayworth of New York and Dan Lungren of California. Lungren even got up during the meeting and likened Boehner to Ronald Reagan, the conservative icon who was president during Lungren’s first stint in the House. Other hard “no” voters have flipped to leaning no or even undecided. 
 
 But despite having momentum on their side, Boehner and his top lieutenants don’t have a big margin for error. Few, if any, Democrats are expected to vote for the debt ceiling package, so Republicans must cobble together 217 votes on their own. They can lose just 23 lawmakers and still pass it. As of press time, at least a dozen lawmakers were whipping “no.” 
 
 Indiana Rep. Mike Pence — former House Republican Conference chairman who is running for governor — has emerged as a late-game player, of sorts, in the debt debate. Pence and a dozen undecided Republicans met with McCarthy on Wednesday afternoon with a new request designed to win their support for the Boehner plan — GOP leaders must hold a vote on a “clean” balanced-budget amendment similar to that passed by the chamber in 1995. If that happens, they may throw their support to the Boehner plan, said one of the lawmakers. 
 
 Pence’s position is in contrast to earlier positions of the conservative Republican Study Committee, which he once chaired. The RSC has pushed a balanced-budget amendment that requires a supermajority to raise taxes. Pence’s argument is that GOP leaders should launch a “serious effort” to pass a balanced-budget amendment as part of this debt deal by putting forth a bill that could garner Democratic votes. 
 
 “I cannot vote to raise the debt ceiling if we don’t do everything in our power to send a balanced-budget amendment to the Senate and the states,” Pence said in an interview. 
 
 Wednesday also began some serious internal GOP drama involving the RSC and other Republican lawmakers. The RSC is now chaired by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. 
 
 Wesley Goodman, an RSC aide, sent an email to a network of conservative activists opposed to the Boehner proposal — they don’t think it cuts spending enough — on Tuesday saying now “is the day to kill the Boehner deal.” Goodman said that the RSC needs “statements coming up to the Hill every hour of the day in mounting opposition to the plan.”
– The CBO report that forced John Boehner to delay the vote on his debt ceiling plan may end up working in his favor, reports the Hill. It's still unclear whether he has the magical 217 needed before tomorrow's expected vote, but he's definitely closer. The delay has given Boehner and Eric Cantor more time to twist arms, and the speaker reportedly told GOP lawmakers today to "get your ass in line" and support his plan. Boehner made the case that if it passed the House, it will clear the Senate, too, even though Harry Reid says otherwise. “This is the bill,” Boehner told the closed-door meeting, according to Politico. "I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me.” In another bit of drama, Rep. Jim Jordan apologized because a staffer on his Republican Study Committee sent out emails to conservative groups asking them to pressure GOP lawmakers to oppose Boehner's bill. House Republicans at the meeting chanted, "Fire him, fire him," referring to the RSC staffer responsible.