Harry Reid will give Senate Republicans the chance “to shut that whole thing down,” meaning the shutdown.
The idea is that Senate Dems will move their own clean debt limit bill, rather than wait for the House GOP to hold its own vote on either a clean CR funding the government (which Senate Dems have already passed with broad bipartisan support) or on a debt limit hike. Dems would be challenging Senate GOP moderates to vote for or against averting default and economic havoc outside of any set of conditions House Republicans insist must be attached to any measure raising the debt limit.
Senator John Cornyn is claiming no clean debt limit hike can pass the Senate, but Dems believe there may be at least half a dozen GOP Senators who would be willing to support one. A vote would put that to the test.
Appomattox now or Appomattox later.
Nothing quite like a proactive Senate Dem leader. Would it be fair to say that a yea vote from a Sen Rep would be a vote not just against Ted Cruz’s faction but also a vote against McConnell’s? Of course it’s never about the Country, so I left that part out… After your link to Bloomberg things look pretty ominous and Wall Street and her Lobby pockets would be appreciative of Reid’s bid.
Are we going to start seeing a “lifevest now”, “anvil later” strategy maybe?
The Senate takes one of the many House bills that aims to kill Obamacare, strips and stuffs it with a clean debt limit and sees which GOP members break unity. If it passes it goes to the House. It likely goes nowhere and exposes “moderate” GOP folks for the liars they are.
Next round, instead of naming the debt ceiling, the Senate replaces the debt ceiling amount with the Gephart rule that lasted from 1979 to 1995. Again, wait to see who votes or does not vote for it.
Next round, the bill repeals the debt ceiling entirely and cleanly. No more posturing. And see which folks vote for it.
But the message has to been sent that GOP, you missed your chance on the cutting Social Security grand bargain. That one doesn’t come back. The Democrats no longer have to move in your direction; you broke the country.
You’re leaving out Ted Cruz. Or maybe Rand Paul will take a turn at grandstanding. At any rate it will be an opportunity for one or more GOP senators to behave like total assholes in front of the whole country.
The longer they grandstand, the more the Democrats should be able to extract when the time comes.
>But the message has to been sent that GOP, you missed your chance on the cutting Social Security grand bargain. That one doesn’t come back.
Can you elaborate on your reasoning? This is the outcome I want, but I’m far from comfortable that it doesn’t come back.
My logic is this. Negotiation on a “compromise” ended the moment that the GOP shut down the government. Period.
Their only way out of the mess that they have created for themselves is with the help of House Democrats. And now House Democrats can within reason set the terms of the resulting solution.
The key to making this work is forcing the Republicans to do things that ironically will be popular in Republican districts on their merits and be unpopular with the Republican base because they require to member of Congress to sacrifice his “principles”.
Instead of the Social Security grand bargain, an significant increase in Social Security payments (hint: it’s and economic stimulus program).
Instead significant further cut-backs to scale back the debt, passage of a financial transaction TAX.
Instead of a figure for the debt limit, like the upcoming Senate bill, reinstate the Gephardt rule. If that doesn’t get agreement, the next time is repeal of the debt limit law altogether.
If that doesn’t bring them around, the next time it gets worse for their benighted “principles”.
But the measures have to be simple enough that they make perfect sense to the constituents of Republican areas.
The “grand bargain” with Social Security only comes back if the Democrats offer it up. This time, they must say No.
So what’s the strategy to make sure they say no?
If they say yes to anything, they have lost more than they have gained by shutting the government down.
If they say no, on the next offer they lose more.
Just don’t put the the previous “grand bargain” BS up again; they said no to that a year ago. Because of the shutdown, that one never comes back.
What is needed here is someone to ask the owners of the car dealerships in TX if they agree with the senators current inability to raise the debt limit.
Meanwhile:
So Gene Sperling, econ advisor, opened the door to a short term increase with the anticpation that negotiations would follow. How do you do that and not have it interpreted by the R’s and others as a pretext to yielding to their demands?
We Gene Sperling acting on his own to sabotage the current Democratic unity?
If this is true, could Harry knock his lights out? To send a message.
I like the optics of Senate Dems working to raise the debt ceiling concurrently while the House Dems work to put the discharge petition together to fund government.
All on clean bills, no funny business, just the work of Congress.
I’m unconvinced that the discharge petition will succeed. The Bill they’re trying to force to a vote needs to be amended to remove the 1% decrease in spending, does it not? If so why would Dems sign the petition?
The discharge petition doesn’t have to succeed. All it has to do is show which “moderate” Republicans are lying. And so far the answer is: all of them.
We accommodated GOP too much in 2011
No you shouldn’t have accommodated them at all.
Now do I get my pony?
At least they’re admitting they mildly fucked up. Now for the final push: if accommodating them too much was a problem, do you think that maybe accommodating them all was the real issue?
Bill McBride at Calculated Risk is still contending that there will be no default and that this will all be settled before Congress recesses at the end of the week. He was a voice of calm in 2011.
I have always thought fairly well of Harry Reid – more than most progressives as far as I can tell. But it seems like everyone’s respect for him has gone up for him during this budget fight. He’s doing an excellent job, and reaffirming his now-classic “boxer” reputation.
To his credit, he was not in favor of bargaining the first time, 2011. Guess he knew a shakedown when he saw it, coming from Vegas and all.
The Appomattox imagery deserves this postscript.
The GOP is heading the way of Edmund Ruffin.
Edmund Ruffin made a name for himself and some additional money with publications about the benefits of manure. And had a widespread audience for his magazine.
Then he started promoting the cause of the slaveowners, of which he was a sizeable one, even appearing on the scene to light the fuse to shell Fort Sumter.
And then Appomattox. And two months later, Edmund Ruffin finally looked faced to face with the end of slavery.
interesting reference you make – he committed suicide about 2 months after the surrender