Things seem, maybe, possibly heading towards some sort of debt ceiling deal negotiated by Mitch McConnell directly with the White House. Harry Reid just took to the floor of the Senate to announce that the vote on cloture on his bill will be postponed from 1 a.m. until noon 1 p.m. Sunday.
Reid said that this delay was at the request of the White House, to give negotiations more time.
On the assumption that some agreement is reached — and it was inevitable that would be the case regardless of scenario — the details will be all important particularly since the deal is likely to have mechanisms for further budget cuts. In order to make sure we are not “snookered,” as some predict we will be, we need time to review the bill before there are votes in the House and Senate.
Republicans long have pledged to give voters 72 hours to read final legislation. Assuming that agreement were reached by Tuesday, why not pass a one week debt ceiling increase while the public gets a chance to review the language of the bill?
We shouldn’t have to pass another bill in order to find out what’s in it. So will we have 72 hours to read the final bill?
Update 11:30 p.m.: ABC News is reporting and the White House is denying a tentative deal:
ABC News has learned that Republicans and the White House have struck a tenative deal to raise the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline. It’s not done yet, but here is the framework of the tentative deal they have worked out, according to a source familiar with the negotiations:
•Debt ceiling increase of up to $2.8 trillion
•Spending cuts of roughly $1 trillion
•Vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment
•Special committee to recommend cuts of $1.8 trillion (or whatever it takes to add up to the total of the debt ceiling increase)
•Committee must make recommendations before Thanksgiving recess
•If Congress does not approve those cuts by late December, automatic across-the-board cuts go into effect, including cuts to Defense and Medicare.A senior White House aide pushed back against the idea that a deal was struck.
“Talks continue, but there is no deal to report,” the aide said.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
[…] QUESTION: Will we have 72 hours to read a final debt-ceiling bill? […]
I suspect not….it would be terribly unkind of us to expect BO to think of anything so less important than his birthday plans.
And the theatrical show is coming to a close. Hope all of you enjoyed the Kabuki. Now bend over and grab your ankles.
Professor: Somebody else has prior claim on “drunken blogging”. Were you sober when posting that question, or joking? Clearly this Administration and these Congressional leaders have too much arrogance and too little respect for the American people to allow us the opportunity to look over their shoulders.
How about any lead time? Surely if the New York Times and others could muster up troops to read the Palin emails in short order, we could muster the troops to read a massive bill in short order. But that would mean they trust us. Clearly, we shouldn’t trust them.
Normally, I would insist on it and a week’s extension woild accomplish that. Then again, a lot of resistance could develp and squirrel the deal. Get er done!
if Jefh is in favor of the plan, it needs to die, either in the House or in the Senate…
the only thing that will help this country is something he hates.
Is Obama getting what he wanted after all– the debt ceiling raised high enough to get us past the 2012 election?
Not terrific. The debt debate won’t be the spectacle we need during the campaign season, and, meanwhile, the Republicans get blamed for cuts. If the GOP can’t get a supermajority in the House and Senate, Obamacare will kick in and finish us off.
I hope something bad happens at the last minute…
….like reid can’t get democrats to vote for any debt bill. and it backfires on 0bama… causing a default.
…..then democrats pretty much own everything…
Mitch should do something really evil too…
….like slip in a full repeal of 0bamacare somewhere at the last minute…. and force democrats to vote on it…
it will never make it’s way out of the senate…
and the Democrats will be fucked for causing a default.
Any deal that takes us past the next 6 months, is a big win for Obama and, therefore, a big loss for the Country. Obama and the democrats must be made to run on their abysmal record.
But just watch. Boehner, McConnell and the “establishment” republicans will fold for fear of losing their coveted careers.
The devil will be in the details. For instance how many accounting tricks are included. The current favorite is to move the baseline back to January so the cuts (See I just did it. NONE of these are CUTS, they are decreases in increases. The end result is increases, very large increases) made this spring to avoid government shut down are NOT counted and hence can be counted a second time.
Red State has already come out against it. It will be useful to see the progressive response to this tentative agreement. There is a possibility it’s as good as it gets right now. Obama gets his pass through the 2012 election cycle and the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history.
It makes no sense to me, that they gave Obama his blank check past the next election. And the best thing Republicans are bragging about is the vote on the balanced budget amendment, which won’t pass.
Of course everyone declares victory, but this hands Obama (and other Democrats) the ability to avoid this issue till 2013. Just like with Democrats not passing a budget before the last election, they get to skip the issue again.
Looks like a complete fold, from what I’ve seen. Largest increase in history comes out of the Republican house after being given a mandate for constraint.
now that I’ve thought this over some more….
I really think Republicans should give Democrats an extremely hard time.
they should use sneaky little tactics like:
-putting a complete and total repeal of 0bamacare in there
-Then had 50,000 90% tax hikes… imposed just on Liberals/Progressives/leftwingers and anybody that identifies themselves as a lefty or Democrat.
-an increase/new additional set of Bush tax cuts
….for the wealthy (x2)
sneak those into the bill… and say to the democrats
“We have to pass a bill, in order to find out what’s inside it.” Like Nancy Pelosi said originally.
then Democrats either are so scared of a debt crisis and a default they pass it without reading it, or the refuse when they see those 3 stipulations added.
or maybe they don’t notice and 0bama does and he either signs it into law because he don’t want to be blamed for a default… or examines it and finds those 3 stipulations
….and veto’s… causing the economy to go into default
and go into utter chaos.
what it comes down to is: the Democrats would either have pass the bill and they screw themselves over for the next 10 years in the process or the refuse to pass a bill and get blamed totally for the default that comes…
and lose big in elections like they did in 2010.
and if they don’t specifically like a 90% tax increase for the Democrats only…
…they can move to China or Europe…
[…] Legal Insurrection wonders if we will get 72 hours to read the bill. Vodkapundit points out that this is the best […]
[…] Legal Insurrection wonders if we will get 72 hours to read the bill. Vodkapundit points out that this is the best […]
If the CBA voting provision survives, that could put Democrats on record for refusing to be serious about out of control spending. This would be a platform issue in the upcoming campaign.
i’m wondering if Boehner knew all along… and played the part of being “forced” to slip the CBA into his bill last minute and has used the gun to his head drama to convince the O, along with McConnell, that a compromise won’t pass the houses without it, despite Dem votes.
Preview is good, now we need edit functions for the not enough coffee posters. Phrases are like real estate- they’re all about about location, location, location:
“has used the gun to his head drama, along with McConnell, to convince the O that”
[There’s an extra about in there free to the first comer.]
I make errors and correction posts to up the comment number count for Prof. Jacobson. You’re welcome.
[…] here’s the round up of the bellyaching and ballyhooing and so forth: The Daily Beast, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The New Republic, Shakesville, theblogprof, No More Mister Nice Blog, AmSpecBlog, Pirate’s […]
A 72 hour review is of no concern to me. There are, however, two issues that stand out to me at this point.
First, when was the last time anyone remembers the entire nation being engaged in the issue of raising the debt limit? Clearly, the people have never been engaged in this issue before as they are today. While the people are getting the shaft this time, I’ll bet the next time this issue comes up it will be an entirely different story. The people are now engaged in the political process like never before – thank you internet. While this does not bode well for the career politicians, I believe we have turned a corner and we will never look back. The people are now awake and we can see the travesty of the theatre of the absurd that has been taking place lately. Look for the Tea Party to explode after this and for the old guard of the Republican party to be sent packing.
Second, Obama has now been completely exposed as nothing more than a manipulative and shallow ideologue and he will never recover from his performance of late. Anyone who has been in business has encountered people like Obama who are nothing but conniving and finagling manipulators who never deal with people in a straight forward manner. We have all encountered this type. Nothing is presented as what it really is and everything after the fact is an entirely different matter. Obama has demonstrated not only his ineptitude, but he has shown everyone that he is simply a hollow fancy talker when it comes to dealing with people – no integrity, he’s all deceit. I believe independent voters will now see him for what he really is – no damn good
The sole outcome of this agonizing affair will be an increase in the national debt of $2.8 trillion. (I wonder what that might be in real money.)