Can you say “debt bomb” five times fast?
Here is your overnight debt bomb defusing news:
- Sam Stein at HuffPo says Boehner’s going to call Obama’s bluff on a short term extension: “The Ohio Republican, in a briefing with his conference on Saturday, announced that he would press for a short-term deal, with major spending cuts paired with longer-term deficit-reduction strategies, as a way around the current impasse. That strategy puts the speaker directly at odds with the White House and allied Democrats, who have insisted for weeks that they would not support a short-term extension of the debt ceiling.” Makes sense to me. Will Harry Reid really kill a short term deal, and will Obama really veto it? Obama has negotiated himself into a corner with his categorical refusal to consider a short term deal while also warning of catastrophe if the debt ceiling is not raise. Obama he needs a way out, and Reid will not block the doorway when push comes to shove.
- Could Nancy Pelosi come to the rescue, as I suggestedthe other day? The Hill reports Pelosi “said Saturday night that congressional leaders are considering a two-tiered approach to raising the debt ceiling and reducing the nation’s long-term budget deficit…. Pelosi said the leaders are looking at a two-tiered approach, which would likely combine immediate spending cuts while creating a process for Congress to enact entitlement and tax reforms over the next several months. She hinted, however, that the revenue would come in the second “tier” of the process.”
- Andrew Stiles at NRO thinks Reid is just Chuck Schumer’s sock puppet: “But Reid’s statement [that he would not support a two-tiered option] has Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) written all over it. Back in April, Schumer was doing everything he could to force a government shutdown, believing it would play to Democrats’ political advantage.”
- The L.A. Times confirms that negotiations broke down this week when Obama upped his “revenue” demands by $400 billion to $1.2 trillion, contrary to the prior agreement between Boehner and Obama. Obama used the “Gang of Six” proposal which came out in the interim as the excuse. So yes, Obama was Jello and was the cause of the breakdown.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the Chief Executive of this company country never actually ran anything before in his life, and didn’t take a negotiation course in law school.
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