So it looks like Boehner, et al are working on a “framework” that is to be announced sometime before the Asian markets open this afternoon. First, the best summary of Where We Are Now comes from British Business Secretary Vance Cable:
“The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American congress rather than the eurozone.”
Co-sign.
The Saturday meeting with the President and the Congressional leadership was apparently short and terse. So Boehner is off working on a deal with Senate leadership. Which is a head-scratcher, until you get the fact that one of the primary goals for the GOP here is to make sure that the President doesn’t get any credit whatsoever for solving this impending crisis. There has been some interesting commentary and fewer pieces of interesting reporting, but here are some suggestions:
White House: We Thought We Were Down To The Details — This is from TPM and provides the detail of the state of the “Grand Bargain” negotiations from Thursday AM when everyone thought they were close until Friday evening when Boehner picked up his marbles to go home. If you saw the President’s press conference from Friday, you’ll recall that he promised to detail the negotiation timeline so people could see how close they were. This piece provides that detail.
What killed the deal last week, and what might make one happen this week Ezra Klein summarizes why the “Grand Bargain” deal did not happen, and the key seems to be:
There’s a question as to whether this was the very best deal Republicans could get or simply close to it. But it’s hard to believe that it was so bad that it ended the talks. What seems likelier is that Boehner spent some time between Thursday and Friday talking to his members and found that his party simply didn’t support a deal with the White House. For one thing, a deal would include some amount of revenue, and that was a hard sell under any circumstances. For another, letting the president look like a dealmaker would potentially dim the GOP’s chances of retaking the White House in 2012. As my colleague George Will put it Thursday, a deal “would enable President Obama to run away from his record and run as a debt-reducing centrist.”
Boehner does not have any control over his caucus unless they get everything they want. And his caucus is not interested in governing, just in making sure that this President has no political advantage.
Republicans and the Deficit Narrative Kevin Drum is interested in the media narrative here and wonders if the media will actually buy the narrative being spun by conservatives that it is President Obama who is the obstacle to a deal. Even though the clear evidence of their own reporting is that the President is certainly *dealing* and Boehner who can’t say yes to anything.
What Might Be the Plan Coming up? From the NYT:
The contours of such a plan were far from clear midday Sunday, but seemed likely to take the form of a two-step process, with a short term increase in the debt limit along with about $1 trillion in cuts, an amount they said was sufficient to clear the way for a debt limit increase through 2011. That would be followed by legislation for future cuts guided by a newly created legislative commission that would consider a broader range of spending cuts, program overhauls and potential revenue increases.
Both sides would also be given another chance to vote for a balanced budget amendment that would set stringent guidelines for future debt ceiling increases.
It’s bullshit, because all this does is make sure that the GOP has another chance to have this fight in another 6 months. And a new legislative body to make this happen? Don’t get me started. This is an awful lot of work to make sure that the President doesn’t get any credit for this. There’s already been a commission to look at reining in the deficit and paying for one more because Republicans cannot live with their own debt reduction narrative is stupid. Credit rating agencies are signaling that even if the debt ceiling gets raised in time, they would still review the US’ credit rating. Not because we can’t pay our bills — we certainly can if allowed to access the credit markets — but because our politics have become that of a banana republic.
Four thoughts on the debt-ceiling fight Smart observations from MSNBC, interestingly enough. Much of the editorializing I’ve seen today have not been kind to Speaker Boehner or his True Believers.
Apparently 4:30 is the time that Boehner rolls out his new framework to his caucus. Reminding everyone of the fact that a framework is not a deal, so who knows if this will appease the markets. President Obama has signaled this AM that he will not approve a short-term hike in the debt limit. So it is looking like we are still waiting to see who blinks first here.