Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Shutdown Wednesday: Congressional Leaders Invited to White House to Meet with the President

Tags:

Obama Invites Hill Leaders To Talk Debt Limit

President Barack Obama invited Congressional leaders to the White House to discuss raising the federal debt limit on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The meeting will take place at 5:30pm ET.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday it was executing final emergency measures before it must raise the debt ceiling on Oct. 17. House Republicans are considering merging negotiations on the debt limit with a continuing resolution to re-open the shuttered government.

Here is what America’s Leaders look like:



People of color. Check. Women. Check. Token (ha!) old white guys. Check.

Yesterday, Eric Cantor tweeted that he was ready to negotiate and had his team in place. This is what Republican Leaders look like:



Old white guys in $4,000 suits. Check.

President Obama wants a clean debt limit increase and a clean Continuing Resolution. The only thing we know for sure is that the Affordable Care Act is not a bargaining chip.

Beyond The Shutdown, There’s A Bigger Battle Brewing

Congress has to raise the limit on the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow by Oct. 17. If the debt ceiling is not raised on time, President Obama warns that Washington won’t be able to keep paying its bills.

“It’d be far more dangerous than a government shutdown, as bad as a shutdown is,” Obama said Tuesday. “It would be an economic shutdown.”

No one is exactly sure what would happen if the government suddenly had to make do without a credit card. But experts agree that the fallout could be scary and far-reaching.

While government shutdowns are messy and disruptive, the country has lived through them before. The U.S. government, on the other hand, has never had to go cold turkey on borrowed money.

Off the Wednesday News Wires:

FoxNews.com Alters AP Reports To Read Gov’t ‘Slimdown,’ Not ‘Shutdown’

[Fox News] altered its original lede: “The roiling debate over the U.S. government shutdown is extending to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as fed-up Americans turn to social media to register their disgust with federal lawmakers for shutting down the government.” The website replaced “shutting down the government” in that sentence with “slimming down the government.”

~

Poll Indicates GOP Has Been Deeply Damaged By Shutdown Fight

… 72 percent of Americans said they are opposed to shutting down the government in an effort to block implemntation of the health care law.

…  the Affordable Care Act remains polarizing – 45 percent support it while 47 percent are opposed – 58 percent said they are opposed to Congress cutting off funding for the law. Seventy-four percent said they disapprove of congressional Republicans while only 17 percent said they approve – their lowest score ever in Quinnipiac’s polling.

The view from the op-ed pages: GOP takes a beating

The nation’s editorial boards spent Tuesday much the way tourists on the Mall did, expressing their outrage over the government shutdown. The overwhelming number of editorial boards came to the same conclusion: That Republicans – specifically the tea party caucus – are to blame. Even those editorial boards that don’t like the Affordable Care Act think shutting down the government is a bridge too far.

~

Obamacare Day One: A Tale Of Two States

At Enrollfest, one of the few Affordable Care Act events in Virginia, organizer Gaylene Kanoyton was quick to point out that “the state is not providing any resources. So, we just have to go ahead and move on. It is a grass-roots effort. It is up to all of us as citizens to come together.” …

It will be a different story for people in similar situations in California. The state was an eager, early and bipartisan adopter of the Affordable Care Act, said Anthony Wright, executive director of , a consumer advocacy group.

~

Under Obamacare, Disney World Will Promote Its Part-Time Workers To Full-Time Status

isney already offers a level of health coverage that is acceptable under Obamacare to its full-time employees. But part-time workers, including those who work at the 30-hour cutoff set by the health law, receive more limited benefits. Instead of rolling back these workers’ hours to avoid expanding their health coverage, Disney is choosing to promote them to full-time status.

“Disney wants to be proactive,” said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council union that represents tens of thousands of Orlando Disney employees, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Disney is way out in front on this.”

~

White House Threatens To Veto GOP’s Partial Funding Bills

President Barack Obama “would veto” the House GOP’s proposed bills to fund only popular parts of the government after a shutdown Monday night, the White House vowed Tuesday.

“The President and the Senate have been clear that they won’t accept this kind of game-playing, and if these bills were to come to the President’s desk he would veto them,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

House Republican leaders scheduled votes on Tuesday evening to fund programs for military veterans, re-open national parks and museums and provide local funding for the District of Columbia. The votes will be on suspension of regular House rules, which means they’ll require a two-thirds majority to pass.

~

WWII Veterans Group: Park Service ‘Bent Over Backwards’ For Us

Jeff Miller, the co-founder of the Honor Flight Network, applauded the National Park Service on Wednesday for accomodating veterans hoping to visit the World War II Memorial, which had been closed as a result of the government shutdown.

“The Park Service they have been so compassionate, they have done everything they could,” Miller said, as quoted by the Washington Post. He added that the service “bent over backwards” to ensure that veterans were not dealt any additional inconveniences.[…]

Republicans have tried to score political points off the ordeal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Tuesday that the government had deployed “goons” to deny veterans access, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued a statement Wednesday blaming the Obama administration for the closure.

~

Quick Take Headlines:

HHS: Nearly 3 Million People Visited Obamacare Marketplace On First Day

New York Looking Into ‘Abnormally High Traffic’ To Obamacare Website (10,000,000 web hits)

Red State Democrats Landrieu (LA) and Pryor (AR) Quick To Blame Tea Party For Shutdown

So It Begins: U.S. Government Shutdown in Photos

Top Conservative Bill Kristol: Not ‘The End Of The World’ For Women And Infants Losing Food During Shutdown

~

A Twittering “Outrage”:

Some responses:

~


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 28 Comments

28 comments

  1. JanF

    Lots of people I know have friends and family being furloughed.

    People with Medicare questions are not getting through to people.

  2. JanF

    Compromise is a dirty word … and should be

    Democrats did offer to keep the government running for the next six weeks at current spending levels, which is a minor concession. But their refusal to consider any deal with Republicans that involves weakening Obamacare is good news, because doing so would make the already intolerable situation in Washington worse.

    Compromise is usually a happy notion, but in this instance it would invite more chaos. If Democrats agree to weaken health-care reform, they will have proved that all it takes to change an existing law is for a minority of lawmakers in one chamber to threaten a rebellion against their own party’s leadership.

    Once you give in to extortionists you show them that extortion pays.

  3. JanF

    Obama’s Shift In Rhetoric Helping Democrats Stick Together

    Obama’s rhetoric in this conflict is a shift from some of his earlier complaints about Congress – and that’s having a positive effect on Democrats.

    Talking about his adversaries who work in the Capitol in 2011, for example, he characterized lawmakers as lazy, saying, “There shouldn’t be any reason for Congress to drag its feet.”

    In those speeches, the enemy was not specifically the House or the Senate, not Republicans or Democrats. Often it was just “Congress.”

    Citing the need to come to a Grand Bargain then as opposed to now, the tone has shifted:

    Earlier this week, [President Obama] told NPR: “One party to this conversation says that the only way that they come to the table is if they get 100 percent of what they want, and if they don’t, they threaten to burn down the house.”

    One Republican whined that the president was being mean:

    “Washington is sort of a symphony with a lot of talented people playing different instruments,” says [Republican strategist Ed] Rogers. “But it needs a conductor.

    Democrats argue that if this is a symphony, then Obama the conductor should call out the people who constantly play sour notes. And they feel energized by Obama’s recent willingness to do so.[…]

    Democrats are more unified than they’ve been in a long time. As the shutdown plays out, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appears to be on the exact same page as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. And both are marching in lock step with the White House.

  4. JanF

    Shutdown Solution? None To Be Seen Yet, But Sides Will Talk

    Even as word emerged Wednesday that Democrats and Republicans would at least speak with each other, there weren’t any real signs of a solution. As NPR’s Mara Liasson said, there was “no escape hatch.”

    Republicans, Mara said, say they’ll only agree to fully fund government operations if the new health care law (“Obamacare”) is either defunded, delayed or otherwise denuded. Democrats, Mara added, “aren’t in the mood to rescue the Republicans from the box they’ve got themselves in.”

  5. JanF

    What kind of idiot Democrats are voting for this?

    House passes partial spending bills

      The bill to fund the National Park Service passed 252-173.

    The bill to fund the National Institutes of Health passed 254-171.

    A piecemeal funding of the government would be like grabbing the gun that the hostage taker has at your head and turning it on yourself. And pulling the trigger.

    Republicans won’t vote to fund WIC or OSHA or the EPA and if you pass bills to fund the things they do want you have lost all your leverage to fund the things they don’t want.

Comments are closed.