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Deal Watch Tuesday: Shutdown plus 15, Debtpocalypse minus 2

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Reports are that a deal has been struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

The rough parameters appear to be as follows:

– Government reopened with a continuing resolution that runs through January 15th when the next round of sequester cuts is scheduled to take effect.

– Clean debt ceiling increase through February 15th.

– Budget conference will meet with a deadline of mid-December to come up with a budget.

There are rumors that some concessions related to the Affordable Care Act are in the mix and possibly limitations on extraordinary measures that Treasury can take the next time we approach the debt ceiling.

This morning Senate Republicans will meet at 9am Eastern to consider the deal.

Senate leadership is looking for unanimous consent to get the bill to the House quickly because the government can no longer borrow money to pay its obligations as of Thursday. Emperor Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has not yet decided if he will allow the Senate to vote.

House leadership has been silent. Some individual House members have said that they think there aren’t 20 Republican votes for such a deal and there is still the Cantor Rule to overcome.

Dare we hope?

Let the rumoring and gnashing of teeth begin …


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42 comments

  1. JanF

    But until the Senate Republicans meet and add their two cents, there is no “deal” to vote on in either house of congress or for the president to consider and sign.

    I hope that the strings being attached are not just hostages by another name.

  2. JanF

    Apparently the president’s Weekly Address was posted under the White House Blog instead of the “Your Weekly Address” link which is why I missed it. Here it is: Weekly Address: Let’s Get Back to the Work of the American People

    Transcript

    A few highlights:

    But one thing we have to agree on is that there is no good reason anyone should keep suffering through this shutdown. I met with some really innovative small business owners on Friday who’ve already lost contracts, lost customers, and put hiring on hold – because the pain of this Republican shutdown has trickled down to their bottom lines. It’s hurting the very citizens that our government exists to serve. That’s why a growing number of reasonable Republicans say it should end now.

    And it wouldn’t be wise, as some suggest, to just kick the debt ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season. Because damage to America’s sterling credit rating wouldn’t just cause global markets to go haywire; it would become more expensive for everyone in America to borrow money. Students paying for college. Newlyweds buying a home. It would amount to a new tax – a Republican default tax – on every family and business in America.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not supposed to be this way. Manufacturing crises to extract massive concessions isn’t how our democracy works, and we have to stop it. Politics is a battle of ideas, but you advance those ideas through elections and legislation – not extortion.

    So let’s pass a budget, put people back to work, and end this Republican shutdown. Let’s pay our bills, and prevent an economic shutdown. Then let’s get back to the work of the American people. Because there is so much else we should be focusing our energies on right now. We’ve got to create more jobs, and kids to educate, and an immigration system to fix. We’ve got more troops to bring home, and a middle class to rebuild, and opportunity to restore. There’s so much America has going for it in this new century. And as always, this country works better when we work together.

  3. JanF

    White House faces an insurrection over metaphors

    Carney said finally that Obama would sign a debt-ceiling extension but not if it meant “paying a ransom” to Republicans.

    “The president will not pay ransom for … ” Carney began.

    “You see it as a ransom, but it’s a metaphor that doesn’t serve our purposes … ” NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro shouted back …

    The hot rhetoric from a consciously cool administration has not been the domain only of senior advisers. An exasperated Obama helped set the tone during his news conference last week when he used a torrent of metaphors and angry characterizations to describe the budget standoff and debt ceiling threat.

    As Chris Cillizza pointed out last week, Obama used “ransom,” “extortion,” “deadbeat,” “hostage-taking,” “blow the whole thing up” and “insane” in his hour-long news conference. Republicans have made clear they don’t appreciate the metaphors, either.

    Well of course it does not serve the purposes of the White House press corps. It belies the false equivalence meme (“both sides do it”) they are invested in when one side is clearly labeled as the terrorists they are.

  4. JanF

    Democrats Raise Their Ante

    The standard pattern since Republicans captured the House in 2010 goes something like this: House Speaker John Boehner makes outrageous demands. Obama negotiates a “compromise” package heavily weighted toward Republican priorities, but Boehner can’t deliver his caucus. Fearful that tea party vandals might burn down the house, Democrats end up agreeing to a short-term deal that gives the GOP much of what it wants.

    It is understandable that the activist Republican base might think victory through blackmail was the natural order of things. It’s not. It’s a distortion of American democracy that weakens the nation, and it has to end.

    The ante that Eugene Robinson is talking about?

    Before the tea party tantrum that caused the shutdown, Democrats had already agreed to sequester-level government funding of $986 billion — the number that Republicans insisted on. Because of sequestration, funding will suffer a further $21 billion cut in January. Last week, as the Senate struggled to clean up the mess that the House majority had made, Reid said hold on a minute.

    Senate Democrats now want only a brief extension at the sequester level, along with further negotiations that could raise government funding closer to $1.058 trillion, the number they originally sought.

    Republican overreach and the bloodbath they suffered in public opinion polls may have given the Democrats the best hand they have had in some time.

  7. Strummerson

    How much damage to our republic and our economy is your job as speaker worth?  And why do you want this job anyway?  Maybe you are as crazy as your caucus.

  8. JanF

    GOP Rep Outlines Boehner’s Counter Offer

    Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) on Tuesday outlined the proposal that House Republicans are likely to put forward to avert default and end the government shutdown.

    The House would include a two-year delay of the medical device tax. Dent said that the House will also look to strike the so-called reinsurance tax under the Affordable Care Act and include a variation of Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) amendment by requiring members of Congress and the White House to obtain coverage through Obamacare’s health exchanges.

    Apparently Senate Democrats showing their willingness to “deal” on the reinsurance tax gave the House Republicans the opening they needed to push for the outright repeal of that tax.

    And, my goodness! The medical device tax repeal is back!! The guys running that lobby are really getting their money’s worth.

    A Tweet from Floja Roja’s F Bomb yesterday pretty much describes that zombie tax repeal:

    Get ready for default. This deal is going nowhere.

  9. Nurse Kelley

    The House of Representatives, controlled by the Tea Party, will never agree to anything. This is exactly what they’ve wanted all along: to destroy the United States government.

    Some in the MSM are beginning to catch on, but they’re a day late and a dollar short.

  10. Portlaw

     11:39 AM – Today

    Reid Rips House’s New Plan

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the floor shortly after the House previewed its plan and called it “nothing more than a blatant attack on bipartisanship” and an attempt “to torpedo” a bill to raise the debt limit or fund the government.

    “We felt blindsided by the news from the House,” he went on. “It won’t pass the Senate.”

    And so, we move on.

    — Sam Stein

  12. princesspat

    The Speaker’s Choice Narrows

    This morning, the GOP leadership could not get enough support from their own caucus for the alternative, tougher “compromise” they wanted. So we’re back to the Senate bill, which the House may have to reject and throw us into economic chaos or accept and step back from the brink. How the bill can still pass the house:

    From the NYT

    [A]s weak as his control of the House is, Boehner’s still officially the speaker – and as long as he’s officially the speaker, he controls the floor. The logical leap (really, the assumption) everyone’s making is that Boehner will put the Senate plan on the floor before midnight, rather than kowtow to the dead-enders to preserve his speakership. There are almost certainly 217-plus votes in the House for any deal that comes out of the Senate, which means we’ll only crash through the debt limit deadline if Boehner chooses to let the country default the same way he chose to shut down the government.

  15. JanF

    This is a hugely important point:

    President Obama and Senate Democrats are insisting that the administration retain power to use so-called extraordinary measures to delay the impact of hitting the federal debt ceiling.

    House Republicans have called on the administration to relinquish authority to use extraordinary measures, which has made it difficult for Congress to assess debt-limit deadlines.

    A senior Senate Democratic aide said Obama and Democratic leaders would insist any deal to open government and raise the debt ceiling not curb future use of extraordinary measures.

    “Any deal is going to include it,” the aide said of preserving the power to use extraordinary measures.

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