Congressional Republicans itching for a fight over increasing the debt limit might get their wish, outgoing House speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) suggested on Tuesday.

Boehner acknowledged the difficulty of getting the 218 votes needed to pass a bill that would increase the debt limit without including conservative fiscal reforms. “I don’t like the idea of doing a clean debt-ceiling [increase],” he said on Fox News Tuesday evening. “We’re going to talk to our members and we’ll find a way forward here in the next couple of days.”

That statement comes as conservative lawmakers in the House and Senate have unveiled a suite of reforms that might be demanded in exchange for a debt-limit increase. The suggestions have emanated both from the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), a relatively small-but-influential group of conservatives, and from the broader Republican Study Committee. The component policies of the legislation could function as bargaining chips in talks with President Obama — potentially setting up a fight over increasing the debt limit much like the one that occurred in 2011.

Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who is coordinating with HFC members, admitted readily that he hopes to establish a maximalist negotiating position designed to influence the debt-limit talks.

#share#“I think it’s important that we use this leverage,” Paul told reporters during a Monday press call. His proposal: the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2015, which would cut federal spending by $207 billion this year, cap future spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product, and require Congress to pass a balanced-budget amendment and send it to the states for ratification. He is also pushing the Default Prevention Act, a bill designed to remove the possibility of a default in the event of future debt-limit standoffs by mandating that the Treasury Department use incoming tax revenue to pay debts and other high-profile bills.

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“In 2011, we passed this bill, or a similar bill, in the House and then it stalled in the Senate. But there was, I think, an in-between that came about because of this battle,” Paul said. “That in-between is called the sequester . . . the only good thing that had probably happened in years up here.”

Republican Study Committee chairman Bill Flores, who leads a group of about 170 members, has another set of proposals, including rules changes to force appropriators to stay within budget limits, a 21-month freeze on “all significant federal regulation,” and — perhaps most notably — a change to the Senate filibuster rules. The legislation would bar senators from blocking debate on an appropriations bill, although they would retain the power to filibuster the final vote on the legislation.

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Representative Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.), a prominent member of the HFC, said the group would back Paul’s bill but was also open to negotiations. “If someone comes in and says, ‘Look, I want to raise the debt ceiling for two months, could you accept something less by way of spending reforms?’ The answer is ‘Sure, we’ll take a look at that,’” he said on the press call with Paul. “So I don’t think it’s just a dualistic yes or no choice. But we do know we would accept a debt-ceiling increase as part of this.”

#related#Such a negotiation with Obama would require unity among House and Senate Republicans, the lawmakers allowed. And they seemed willing to have a fight with colleagues to reach that unity.

When asked about the possibility of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) adopting a tactic similar the one used to end the 2011 fight — in which Congress passed a bill that allowed the debt limit to be increased with the support of just a minority of lawmakers — Mulvaney had a sharp retort.

“If Mitch doesn’t want to do his job, he should just quit and go home,” he said. “I mean seriously, you’re just going to get to the point where the president gets to run the country unless the Congress disapproves something? That’s a joke.”

— Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review.