Schumer To Boehner: Posture All You Want — We Got You

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
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If you’re John Boehner, you really hate Chuck Schumer right now. Schumer responded to the latest government shutdown contretemps by calling the House Speaker’s posture a phony dance for the Tea Party.

“A compromise on the budget is right there for the taking, assuming the Speaker still wants one,” Schumer said in a statement to reporters. “We take it for granted that because of the intense political pressure being applied by the Tea Party, the Speaker needs to play an outside game as well as an inside game. As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s OK by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly.”

Contra the GOP, Schumer says Boehner has agreed to a spending cut number privately, and just needs to find a way to make the medicine go down with members of his own party.

“At this point, we are so far down the road towards an agreement, and so little time remains before Friday’s deadline, that it would be a dramatic about-face for the Speaker to suddenly let things devolve into a shutdown, as many in the Tea Party are urging,” Schumer said.

Without painting a terribly rosy picture, Democratic aides have downplayed the significance of today’s row. When negotiations nearly fell apart in recent days, the peril was reflected in a concerted media campaign playing up the risks. For the time being, that’s not what’s happening. Top Republicans and Democrats will meet with President Obama at the White House tomorrow to thaw things out. You can read Schumer’s full statement below.

A compromise on the budget is right there for the taking, assuming the Speaker still wants one. We take it for granted that because of the intense political pressure being applied by the Tea Party, the Speaker needs to play an outside game as well as an inside game. As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s OK by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly. Since last week, the two sides have made steady progress on a package of $33 billion in cuts. This is an historic level of spending cuts, it is the halfway mark between the two sides, and the Speaker has already agreed to this number privately. Differences may remain over where exactly the cuts should come from, but the only real question left is whether the political will exists to buck the Tea Party. At this point, we are so far down the road towards an agreement, and so little time remains before Friday’s deadline, that it would be a dramatic about-face for the Speaker to suddenly let things devolve into a shutdown, as many in the Tea Party are urging. As a result, we remain hopeful a deal will be reached.

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