Obama and Boehner Seem Close to an Agreement, but Reid and the Democrats Balk

Urgent efforts to prevent a dangerous US national default seemed poised to succeed today, but Demicrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has tossed cold water on what was to be a deal agreed by President Obama and House Speaker Boehner. House Republicans softened their long-standing demands and the White House appeared agreeable to a compromise. But Senate Democrats appear to have told Senate Leader Reid to declare the proposed deal unacceptable. Reid, standing outside the White House after he and fellow Democrats met with President Barack Obama, called the plan a "non-starter." The Republican have proposed plan to leave the 10-day partial government shutdown in place while raising the nation's $16.7 trillion debt limit and triggering negotiations between the GOP and Obama over spending cuts and other issues. Heartened by a hint of progress, Wall Street, after days of decline, saw the Dow Jones industrial average soar 323 points on hopes that the divided government was taking steps to avoid a default. Reid's dismissive comments at the White House came at the end of the trading day. However, Republicans, wanting to avoid a bond default and roiling world financial markets, said they might look to Reid to add what would make the proposal acceptable to the Senate Democrat majority. Mentioned were an agreement to pay Social Security and veterans benefits as well as salaries to active duty military troops during the second half of this month. Boehner said failure to raise the debt limit by October 17 "could put timely payment of all of these at risk....I would hope the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good faith effort on our part to move halfway, halfway to what he's demanded, in order to have these conversations begin." Boehner spoke earlier in the day, after informing his rank and file that he would introduce a House motion to raise the debt ceiling until 22 November. Tea party Republicans said it could be a way to ease the debt ceiling problem while maintaining the government shutdown so they could resume their own campaign to deny operating funds for the national health care overhaul known as "Obamacare." At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the President would "likely sign" a short-term extension in the debt ceiling, and did not rule out his doing so even if it left the shutdown intact. Moderate Republicans were not very pleased, saying the shutdown should end, but there was little if any unhappiness among House conservatives. In addition, GOP Senator Ted Cruz, the conservative Texan who has played a prominent role in this fall's budget struggles, raised no objections. Cruz said that he understands the plan is being driven by House conservatives who are quite reasonably saying, "Listen, let's focus on Obamacare, on winning the fight on Obamacare...and let's push the debt ceiling a little further down the road so that it doesn't distract us from the fight we are in the middle of right now." For his part, Reid has proposed no-strings-attached legislation to raise the debt limit by $1.1 trillion, enough to prevent a recurrence of the current standoff until after the 2014 elections, something that would give Democrat candidates an edge in campaign rhetoric. Senator Mitch McConnell, the GOP Senate Minority Leader, said that Reid's Democratic measure "just won't fly....The American people can be persuaded to raise the debt ceiling, but they're not in any mood to simply hand over a blank check." The call for negotiations on long-term deficit cuts would mark a return to basics for the House Republican majority, which since the 2010 election has initiated a series of demands to cut spending, culminating in a 2011 agreement with Obama that automatically cut more than $2 trillion over a decade. Because no actual agreement was possible, the cuts, called "across-the-board sequesters", were implemented, cutting every executive branch department equally. This has made Republicans uneasy because of the impact on the Pentagon, and Democrats are unsatisfied because of reductions in domestic programs. But the GOP House that controls spending has insisted that the budget come under control closer to balancing inputs ans layouts, and also demands that the national debt be reduced. It was $10.6 trillion when Obama took office and has grown to $16.7 trillion in the years since. ~~~~~ So, dear readers, we now see President Obama having his own Democrat Senate majority balk at his effort to strike a deal to get a temporary debt ceiling. President Obama has often accused Speaker Boehner of being held hostage by the House GOP tea party. It seems that it is now Obama who is being held hostage by the left wing of the Senate Democrat majority. What goes around usually comes around in Washington politics. As I post this, there is no news on what Obama and Boehner have been able to agree on. But Boehner and his House GOP leadership are now meeting and plan to continue through the night. One of them told CNN's Dana Bash that the meeting with the President went well. And, surely Harry Reid is not the white-knuckle kind of Majority Leader who will want to be blamed for a US government default. He will find a way to agree to whatever the President and the Speaker can cobble together.