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Heroic Senate Rides to the Rescue of Shutdown
 The front page of the WaPo said, "Senate Leaders Take Reins on Impasse Talks". Senate Leaders. Leaders! I wanted to retch.Opening a rare Sunday session of the Senate, Majority Leader Reid said he and Minority Leader McConnell are continuing talks to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government. Were in conversation today, Reid said on the Senate floor. Im confident the Republicans will allow the government to open and extend the ability of the country to pay its bills With the two sides stuck over whether to The House, where more than half of the body has been elected to restrain spending, but the Senate didn't turn over fast enough. But another round of cuts is set to take effect in January. Democrats have balked at a deal proposed by Senate Republicans that would have opened broader budget talks in coming months but might have allowed that hit to occur in January. Talks? We know how those will end up. "The Republicans continue to block the poor folks so the fat cats (Dem contributors) can line During the fiscal crises that have gripped Capitol Hill over the past five years, each resolution and compromise came after Senate leaders picked up the pieces of failed efforts between the White House and the House. In the morning session, Reid rejected a proposal crafted by rank-and-file Republicans with some Democratic input to raise the federal debt limit until Jan. 31 and fund federal agencies through the end of March. It also called for minor adjustments to Obamas health-care law. The Kiss of Death!  Reid said he wanted a shorter period for stopgap funding and a longer extension of the Treasurys borrowing authority. Reid particularly wants to scale back deep automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, which were passed during the 2011 debt-ceiling showdown and will take effect every January for the next decade, unless Congress amends them. Sen. Durbin (Dick - Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, called that issue really the single biggest sticking point.It was a dramatic turnabout from Thursday morning, when Boehners leadership team signaled that it would support increasing the debt ceiling until almost Thanksgiving with the only demand being that Obama negotiate over a broader budget framework in the interim. With pressure on the debt issue appearing to ease, financial markets staged their biggest rally in a month. The president, however, rejected Boehners offer because it did not address "reopening" the government. Instead, the White House grew interested in the Senate talks over Collinss plan because of its longer debt-ceiling window. Collins, along with GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), worked with Democrats to draw up a 23-page draft that would have ended the shutdown and funded federal agencies for six months at current spending levels. It would have left intact the sequestration cuts scheduled to hit Jan. 15 but would have given agency officials flexibility to decide where the reductions should occur. Lessee ... we'll keep the National Parks closed and work up from there. In addition, the proposal would raise the debt limit through Jan. 31, setting up a path for the two sides to have broad budget talks to try to tackle the issues of taxes and entitlement reform. Spit. Democrats want a shorter extension of government funding so that they can try to press the Republicans, whose partys image has been battered in recent weeks, for more savings from the sequestration cuts in negotiations that would take place in the near term rather than waiting until March, when the spending cuts will have taken effect. In DC, we have almost crushed the evil Pubs and TEA-drinkers. Whaddabout the rest of the planet? In addition, Reid told reporters that he will make no concessions on the health care law. I rest my case. Posted by: Bobby 2013-10-13 |
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