Things are moving too fast for me to keep up. I think it is correct to say that it’s time for Mitch McConnell to step up and save the day. The only way I can see for him to do that is to negotiate with a small rump of House Republicans who share his complete aversion to a default. And he’s also going to have to work with Reid and Pelosi to find something that their caucuses can almost unanimously support. A Republican-majority bill is no longer a possibility, if it ever was. Unfortunately, McConnell is saying that Senate Democrats, not House Republicans, will be responsible if we default. That’s the opposite of what we need.
Harry Reid is going to try to move something today. The president is going to speak this morning. So, we’ll just have to see if there is a way out of this mess. From all appearances, Boehner is just going to make his bill more unacceptable to the president and the Senate Dems in order to try to blame-shift. No one is going to be fooled.
Let me know if you learn any news.
Economy in U.S. Grows Less Than Forecast After Almost Stalling
Consumer Confidence lowest since spring 2009:
“The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment came in at 63.7, down from 71.5 in June, the lowest reading since March 2009. That is just below the preliminary July figure of 63.8 and the median forecast of 64.0 among economists polled by Reuters.”
Best take I have read all morning, from the former chief of staff of John McCain:
“So worry not, Debbie, Republicans aren’t threatening to impose a dictatorship. They’re threatening to fall apart. All you need to do is let them”.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/07/29/demonization_and_the_debt_ceiling_stalemate_110
760.html
Since 6/30, one of my accounts has gone down 50% in my TIAA-CREF account.
Call your congressturd, and tell them that this is a Republican disaster, and they need to fix it now.
Senator Corker: “makes sense to extend debt limit pass 2012, doesn’t think its “healthy” to repeat this debate”
“They’re playing Russian Roulette + all the chambers have a bullet”
~Senator Voinovich
It sounds like the Senate Republicans are going to balk at McConnell if he tries to work with Boehner on something more conservative.
Well, here’s hoping that: a) McConnell’s #1 goal still is to make Obama a one-term president, and b) McConnell still fears that failing to raise the debt ceiling will help Obama’s chances in November 2012.
The conductor is about to announce what the passengers should do and what the train crew will do after the train wreck.
Sorry, I was premature.
Keep staring at the headlights of that Tea Party Express.
The problem in the senate are the S. Carolina senators who a have held up everything….so will Harry be able to get a vote on anything in time to prevent default?
This entire issue has been the biggest setback to happen to institutional liberalism in my lifetime. Reid’s plan should be the Republican offering that we negotiate towards the center, if not a fringe right proposal that gets laughed off the table.
Bottom line, right now this is NOT the wedge issue that splits Wall Street from the Tea Party, it’s the dominant victory that seals their relationship for the foreseeable future.
The only high profile Dem I trust anymore is Pelosi. The rest of them are a bunch of corporate tools. I feel kind of nauseous.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, so does this mean that the President asking people to call their congressman didn’t do anything?!
My worldview, it is in chaos.
We know the response was great, so presumably it did something. Therefore he’s asking for more of that, so it will do more.
It’s pointing out that some Congressmen are putting their fingers in their ears and…well you know the cliche.
Sometimes you ask Americans to call their Congresscritter so that they can put pressure on said Congresscritter.
And sometimes you ask Americans to call so that they can see how out of touch the Congresscritter’s office is and hopefully they will remember that when they’re in the ballot booth in November.
Time for a one line clean debt ceiling raised Bill. Dems will stand up and there’s enough McCain’s in Senate to overcome fillabuster.
Serwer is calling for renewed stimulus push:
Time for Dems to renew stimulus push
Again, this is NOT the right place for this.
At the point the right thing to do is a clean raise of the bill.
Push for stimulus in the upcoming budget battle – which is going to start pretty much as soon as this debt ceiling crap has played out.
We shouldn’t be cutting or stimulating anything in the debt ceiling bill – that’s what the fucking budget bill is for.
Boehner is attaching BBA, and then they’ll vote on that today.
It’s interesting to watch the media report on this. The markets just aren’t cooperating with the pre-planned media narrative for the day. They’re breathlessly reporting the damage being done to the markets… Dow down 22, Nas UP by 9!
And US bond rates are Dropping, not rising as expected.
Apparently, it’s both Friday and the last trading day of the month and a lot of automated trades are keeping the market up.
I’m not anywhere near a teevee so I can’t hear the talking heads, but I’d say Obama has some pretty good branding going on right now. Earlier today when the DJIA was down about 100 points, the top headlines on Google Finance were about the House Republicans and Boehner and the ‘crisis’.
Now:
And, of course, nobody believes that the US government is going to default. Even with the shenanigans going on right now, nobody believes it will happen.
And that’s because it won’t. Pain will be felt to prevent a default. And, if Congress continues to be stupid after pain is felt, everyone expects Obama to break the law or come up with a creative interpretation or just direct the Treasury to mint some platinum coins or in some other way pull a rabbit out of a hat and fix it.
I think a lot of this is just the confidence of the investors that Obama is actually too much of a technocrat to let the economy crumble on his watch. If there were an obstinate firebrand in office they might be panicking, but it’s Obama – even if he occasionally calls them mean names in public his people are their people and they know that folks like Geithner aren’t going to let the economy collapse.
No one believes that the US government is going to default because the 14th amendment prohibits default as a fiscal option. The Robber Barons made sure that the amendment didn’t just apply to the Civil War debt.
I think Marcy sums it up about as well as anyone.
Addington’s Useful Idiots | emptywheel
When I saw the photo of Boehner that is up on McClatchy at the moment, all I could think of was this line from a song: “Smile when your heart is breaking…”
It looks like he is trying to put on a good front, but he knows he’s completely out of his depth. I think he really has no clue what to do.