Joshua Green is correct that the Senate has passed the point of no return and that a single determined senator has the power, by repeatedly refusing to grant their consent to motions, to push us past the Thursday day of default. However, there is a solution to this problem.
The reason that a single senator can cause this much delay is because the rules say that there shall be 30 hours of post-cloture debate unless there is unanimous consent to waive those 30 hours. But it only takes 67 votes to change the rules.
If Ted Cruz tries to take us into default and his cohorts in the Senate don’t want to go along, they can just change the rules for this one vote and the disaster is averted.
Don’t panic.
If they can get 67 votes to change the rules, can they also get 67 votes to censure Ted Cruz and spare us all from his future asshattery.
I endorse that.
Thursday isn’t a drop dead date. Thursday is when the Treasury was originally predicted to run out of ways to borrow more money, but they will still have about 30 billion on hand. They don’t default until the cash runs out. If bills and taxes arrived at a steady pace, they would almost certainly make it until the Social Security checks go out Nov. 1. In reality, bills and taxes aren’t steady and predictable and they might go down early. But they’ll almost certainly make it past Thursday, or even several days beyond that.
In addition, the shutdown probably gives us a few more days.
Extra insurance, perhaps, but part of this perceptual. And once damage starts, it can be hard to contain.
Am I missing something here, or is this all just Kabuki? From what I understand, the Senate could pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling and end the shutdown, and Boehner could just ignore it. Or the Senate could fail to pass a bill, and Boehner could introduce a clean resolution to raise the debt ceiling on his own. Perhaps a Senate bill would put pressure on Boehner to act, or give him cover to act, especially if it was passed with significant Republican support. Or perhaps he could use it to put pressure on his own caucus to pass a bill to raise the ceiling (with ridiculous conditions attached). But it seems as though regardless of what the Senate passes, all that matters is what Boehner decides to do.