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Wednesday Worrying: Debt Ceiling Eve and Shutdown Day 16 – UPDATED

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Waiting for the someone to take the ball and run with it.

UPDATE Wednesday, 10/16 at 10:20pm Eastern:

House votes to reopen government and raise debt ceiling:

The bill passed 285-144; 144 Republicans voted against it. The Senate had previously passed the bill 81-18. It now heads to the White House, where President Obama has said he would sign it.

Upon Obama’s signature, the first government shutdown in 17 years will end after 16 days.



Transcript


The president is scheduled to make a statement at 10:35am Eastern on Thursday morning.

UPDATE Wednesday, 10/16 at 5pm Eastern:

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH): “… blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us.”

Chamber of Commerce: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced Wednesday that it supports the new Senate plan to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, and it will include the measure as a key vote.

Clown King Ted Cruz (R-TX): Cruz told a gaggle of reporters that he has “no objections” to the Senate holding a vote

The much ballyhooed Senate bill (re-open the government until January 15th, raise the debt ceiling through February 15th, conference on budget) which was  to be voted on and sent to the House of Representatives was held after the House floated their “counteroffer”: a bill festooned with poison pills ornaments including big sloppy kisses to the Catholic bishops and medical device lobbyists.

The White House was quick to reject what it called the latest “ransom demand” (take that whiney White House reporters!!) and the ball is back in the Senate’s court.

This afternoon President Obama and Vice President Biden will meet with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The Fitch warning will likely be one of the topics:

“Fitch continues to believe that an agreement will be reached to end the current political impasse and raise the U.S. debt ceiling,” the agency said in a press release. “Even if the debt limit is not raised before or shortly after 17 October, we assume there is sufficient political will and capacity to ensure that Treasury securities will continue to be honoured in full and on time.”

While Fitch said that it remained confident Congress would ultimately reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling ahead of the Oct. 17 deadline, future ratings of U.S. holdings would be dependant on the “manner and duration of the agreement and the perceived risk of a similar episode occurring in the future.”

Translation: “We are looking around desperately to see if there are enough adults in Congress to justify our belief that the United States is credit worthy”.

ThinkProgress posted a timeline of yesterday’s NOGOtiations, ending with this:

LATEST UPDATE 6:10 pm Tuesday

House Republicans Won’t Vote Tonight

Several outlets now report that House Republicans won’t vote on their own leadership’s proposal tonight, and that conservative organization Heritage Action’s opposition to the bill is to blame.

From today:

LATEST UPDATE 5:05 pm Wednesday

After Senate Bill Is Signed, Recall Notices Will Go Out To Government Staff ‘Immediately’

It may take a few days for the government to reopen, but Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) tells Fox’s Chad Pergram that recall notices will go out immediately to all furloughed workers. The deal also includes backpay, so workers who have been panicked about being able to pay their bills.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 53 Comments

53 comments

  2. jlms qkw

    that the markets believed there would be a settlement in time.  

    food banks need food.  snap money is running out.  WIC money is running out too.  

    it is all i can do to not hate the republicans.  i just took the esquire poll.  

  3. JanF

    His smackdown of the president is just another reminder of what happens when you spend too much time in the Washington cocktail-party circuit: you start believing the pundits.

    “This president — he’s extremely bright, he’s extremely able, he’s somebody who I think certainly understands the issues, asks the right questions and I think has the right instincts about what needs to be done for the country.”

    Next came the “but” — without a name but with a clear message. “You have to engage in the process. This is a town where it’s not enough to feel you’ve got the right answer. You’ve got to roll up your sleeves … listening to other people, figuring out what they need … that’s what governing is all about.”

    He goes on to talk about how he negotiated into the wee hours to avert a shutdown (that one lasted 21 days, not exactly “averted” was it?) with people like “Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, plus Clinton and Vice President Gore”.  (p.s. Bob Dole is no fan of the current Heritage Action Figures).

    Leon Panetta needs to open his eyes and notice that this is NOT the 1990s and that the election of the first black president has caused more than just a “meaner Washington”. We have a meaner country: a country filled with kooks who want to nullify elections and the constitution. When your opponents don’t even concede that you are the legitimate president, how can you talk to them?

    President Obama spent most of his first term seeking bipartisan solutions to our problems only to be rebuffed at every turn.

    Panetta did some good things at Defense, particularly in implementing the repeal of DADT but he can take his 1990s political mindset and go home. His time has passed.

  4. jlms qkw

    i think this was on local radio, not npr national.  dewhurst was supposed to get that senate seat that kay bailey hutchinson vacated.  and ted cruz outmanuveured him or something.  

    mike lee also scammed into his senate seat by fooling around w/ the caucus and convention system in utah.  orrin hatch took early measures to avoid the same fate.  

  5. Nurse Kelley

    The county office that takes food stamp applications holds 35 citizens. At one point yesterday there were 50 people in line, most of them furloughed.

  6. JanF

    Heritage Action CEO: Everybody Knows We Won’t Be Able To Repeal Obamacare Until 2017

    “Well everybody, understands that we’ll not be able to repeal this law until 2017,” Needham said Wednesday. “We have to win the Senate and win the White House. Right now it is clear that this bill is not ready for prime time. It is clear the bill is unfair.”

    Unfair … unfair … unfair. Why does that sound familiar?

    GOP leaders apparently had nothing to say for themselves either, because they settled on a theme of saying their last-minute monkey wrench was meant “to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare,” as Boehner put it.

    “There should be fairness,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor agreed.

    “Individuals should be treated fairly,” concurred Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.

    Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the conference chairwoman, contributed her belief in “fairness for all.”

    Ah!! Fairly clear that we have found the Tea Party Talking Point (TP2).

    Give it up, guys, says Senator Kelly Ayotte, one term senator from New Hampshire:

    Ayotte echoed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in urging Republicans to recognize that the effort to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act was a nonstarter from the beginning.

    “I never signed on to this defunding strategy even though I’m an opponent of Obamacare because I didn’t think it was a winning strategy,” Ayotte said during an appearance on CNN’s “New Day.”

  8. Strummerson

    There may be republicans who are conservative (as opposed to radical) in disposition and in belief, but they have all but utterly abdicated.  You are what you do.  And they’ve gone along with the Tea Party.  The difference is that the Tea Partiers are largely true believers.  They are guided by misguided conscience, analysis, and principles.  Many are sincere in their belief that they are acting for the good of the country as they understand it.  Not so Boehner, McConnell, Graham.  For them, it’s all politics all of the time.  Governance and the greater good barely figure into it.  They are morally bankrupt and we cannot rely on them to risk, little less sacrifice either 5 cents or 5 minutes for the America they claim to love.  We always knew that the TPers were crazy and that these “establishment” republicans were timid.  Now we know how deeply callow and worthless they are.  Yes.  I mean that.  Worthless.  Boehner clutches his useless gavel like a baby sucks on a pacifier.  McConnell droops around like a slanderous sloth.  Graham is the biggest weasel of them all.  You have to love this crap:

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he was “proud” of Boehner’s handling of the crisis. Then within moments he pleaded with Democrats to bail out the GOP, which he admitted has “screwed up” and “really did go too far” in the shutdown and debt limit standoffs.

    “We won’t be the last political party to overplay our hand,” he said. “It might happen one day on the Democratic side. And if it did, would Republicans, for the good of the country, kinda give a little? We really did go too far. We screwed up. But their response is making things worse, not better.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/d…

    So much for a leader of the party of “personal responsibility.”  Let’s not forget, Graham came to national prominence as a House “manager”, i.e. prosecuter, in the Clinton impeachment proceedings.  Clinton certainly overplayed his “hand” and did his GOP “kinda give a little” or was he at the center of a response that made things worse?

    Dear Lindsay, go fuck yourself you slimy, slithering, decrepit hypocritical zero.  I hope this thanksgiving your family gathers to express how ashamed they are of you.

  9. princesspat

    Democracy After the Shutdown

    Here’s the question we should be asking ourselves right now: What next?

    Even if the immediate crises – the partial shutdown and the looming debt default – are resolved, we will still be living in a dangerous political moment. The danger in question is because of the recent emergence of a political philosophy – and I mean that in the loosest sense – which threatens to unravel our joint commitment to a common democratic enterprise.

    ~snip~

    In the end, that’s the real danger we are now facing. Not just the shutdown, but the rise of the shutdown strategy. By unraveling the threads of our joint commitment to shared governance, it raises the chances those threads will be rewoven into something else: something deeply, and tragically, undemocratic.

    From a response to the article….

    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

    One of the most alarming aspects of this carefully planned crisis is the R’s willful disregard of the Constitution while using propaganda techniques to create confusion and distrust. Given that we now know who planned this and when why did it come as a surprise to so many?

  12. Strummerson

    When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation – that he follow Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator.

    Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution.

    http://www.chron.com/opinion/e…

  13. Portlaw

    One of the most alarming aspects of this carefully planned crisis is the R’s willful disregard of the Constitution while using propaganda techniques to create confusion and distrust.

     

  15. bfitzinAR

    Next Monday the Budget Committee is going to hear testimony from the insurance consultant.  Unfortunately he’s an R and I’ve caught him before giving out incorrect information about what the ACA is going to do to our fund.  We’re self-insured and he’s claimed that our fund will be hit with 18% or higher annual taxes to fund ACA.  I know that one’s wrong but can’t find my source (although I did send it to him and the rest of the QC the day after he made the claim – and for some reason he hasn’t been to a meeting since).  I’m going to need be at least minimally prepared to deal with R lies.  (Got the old “took $700 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare” lie just last Monday night from one of the hypocritical libtards.  Sigh.)  Anyway, any help any of you can give me before Monday night’s meeting will be greatly appreciated.  bf

  17. JanF

    S&P: Shutdown Cost U.S. $24 Billion, 0.6% GDP In Projected Growth

    The first federal government shutdown in 17 years, triggered by a Republican demand to defund the Affordable Care Act on Oct. 1, cost the U.S. $24 billion in potential economic activity — equalling at least 0.6% of projected annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.

    Instead of the 3% annualized growth fourth quarter originally projected in September, S&P now forecasts actual fourth-quarter growth near 2%, the agency said in a press release.

    The Perpetual Budget Crises Have Already Cost 900,000 Jobs

    The reliance on crisis-driven governing since the House changed hands in the 2010 elections has already cost 900,000 jobs, according to a study commissioned by the conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

    The study, “The Cost of Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy,” finds that the uncertainty created by short-term spending bills and perpetual brinkmanship around the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, and other manufactured crises has pushed the unemployment rate 0.6 percentage points higher than it would otherwise have been in 2013.

    Thanks, GOP.  

  19. JanF

    Three Reasons That the Democrats Prevailed

    … this was one of those (relatively) rare Washington battles in which one side clearly prevailed. It was the Democrats. When this episode started, they said they were determined not to make major concessions simply because Republicans were threatening shutdown and default. Sure enough, here we are-with a new continuing resolution, a higher debt limit, and no major changes in law. Democrats achieved the policy outcome they had sought, while establishing a precedent for the future: No more negotiating while under such threats.

    Completely off topic, I am always intrigued about how titles for articles morph. If you look at the link, it started out as “How Obama, Reid, and Pelosi Stopped Republican Extortion”. Now it is “Three Reasons That the Democrats Prevailed”. The original title stays because it is the permalink (you can change it right up to the time you Publish) but somewhere along the line it changed.

    The three reasons, by the way, according to Cohn:

    1. The troublemakers are gone. He cites the shifting of the Democratic caucus in the Senate to the left with the “loss” of LIEberman, Lincoln, Conrad, Nelson.

    2. Republican crazy brings people together.

    3. The Democratic leaders were tough.

    I am not sure the crazy did it … Republicans have been doing crazy things for years. I think the difference came from the top: President Obama realized that when you give in to extortion, the extortionists just keep coming back with more brazen demands. That had to be stopped. Period.

  20. janicket

    ….not so sure the crazies have been beaten back to their kennels.  Consider what Steve M. has to say at No More Mister Nice Blog:

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.c…

    Now, he’s generally a pessimist, but even so….

    And never for get the mantra of the extremists:  Conservatism cannot fail; it can only be failed.

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