Senate leaders nearing a deal

[Torie]

What was totally inevitable is being realized - right about on schedule - all sound and fury signifying nothing. I just don't get what the contretemps about the medical device tax is all about (why is that tax so noisome as opposed to other taxes - subsidizing the impecunious uninsured does not come for free, even after having higher income young folks kick in a fair amount of the cost through higher premiums than the market would otherwise demand, and somebody has to pay). Hopefully the Pubs will drop that sooner rather than later.

Just why was it so hard for the parties to sit down, like months ago, and negotiate, and then after both parties had laid out all their "demands," that could not be resolved, at least then if stuff is going to be shut down, one would know what was really at stake (e.g., what programs cut or expanded or not, what taxes raised, what entitlements cut or not cut, which programs more means tested, or not) - as opposed to empty rhetoric?  But I guess we had to go through this, so both sides could see how their respective PR campaigns moved the polls. Poll driven government in this context disgusts me.

[Torie]

The "schedule" is tied to the debt limit increase. Actually, the CR "shutdown" proved to be less of a world ending event than some advertised, but that object lesson was less dangerous admittedly than seeing what would happen if the US started deferring paying some of its bills on time. What the Dems wanted by the way was more spending than is set forth in the sequester, and right now. They didn't get that. They knew the PR on that one would not work well. In that sense they are smarter than the Pubs, who seemed to not realize that holding Obamacare hostage would flop. Of course, they knew the Dems would never agree to that, but hoped to pick up poll points by getting the Dems to defend it all. Instead they lost points over it - as they should have.

[Torie]

I think that 986 billion number is higher than the 965 billion number in the sequester (I may be off a bit in the exact number of billions), and in recent days, there was a lot of chat about upping spending from sequester levels. That at least is my sense of it. I could be wrong. Again, however, the main game was the debt limit increase, not the CR. Always has been.

[Torie]

I think that 986 billion number is higher than the 965 billion number in the sequester (I may be off a bit in the exact number of billions), and in recent days, there was a lot of chat about upping spending from sequester levels. That at least is my sense of it. I could be wrong. Again, however, the main game was the debt limit increase, not the CR. Always has been.

As I understand it, the clean CR was just sequestration levels with some added defense spending (which doesn't count as spending in the Republican accounting method).  And, sure, Democrats wanted to get rid of sequestration.  But, forget the talk, they passed a CR at the exact level that Boehner requested!  They agreed to a bill to reopen the government and would agree to increase the debt limit with no strings attached.  Democrats aren't the holdup here.

Did Boehner ever cop to the Reid/Obama/Pelosi (mix and match) version of events (more or less what you describe), that Boehner offered something, and then withdrew it (under pressure from the red meaters in his caucus)? Myself, I take all this back and forth about who said what to whom, in what context, and what was a firm offer, and what was just chat, with a very big grain of salt. I just don't trust these boys myself to be candid. Or they have selective memories.

[Torie]

Thank you for sorting this all out for me Morden.