At the top levels of the negotiations, it doesn’t appear we’re in any different a place than we were 24 hours ago despite another day with meetings among the principals. See our latest report from the Hill.
At the staff level, there are rumblings about various scenarios that could couple steep spending cuts now with some promise of tax reform down the road and avoid default. But there have been rumblings like that for days, and whenever they have advanced into concrete plans the principals on the Republican side have been unable to commit. Why? Boehner doesn’t have the votes. Pure and simple. He can’t deliver his caucus. The President seems to think Boehner wants to deliver, but simply can’t.
But we have a wildcard about to enter the political equation that could change the calculus pretty dramatically. Read More
A live performance of “Teach Me Tonight” from earlier in her career: Read More
A young California woman, a daughter of a friend and campaign donor to Rep. David Wu (D-OR), has accused the congressman of sexual assault during an incident last Thanksgiving.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reportedly phoned Wu Saturday after the allegations became public, and pressure is building on him to resign, The Oregonian reports.
Speaker John Boehner is still promising to release some new debt deal proposal today but I don’t think anyone is optimistic that it’ll be a plan that can pass.
Boehner is scheduled to hold a conference call with the House Republican conference at 4:30 ET.
New public proposals at this stage are designed more to avoid losing on the politics than they are to actually plot a new way forward. If a workable deal is achieved it’ll probably come from the staff level work still going on behind the scenes, be ratified privately by the principals, and then unveiled publicly as a done deal. But at this hour, no indication anything like that is imminent.
After going on national TV this morning and saying he would be putting forward a debt deal framework today, Speaker John Boehner has yet to produce — and reports are trickling in that he won’t have anything to announce today at all. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe …
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are back at the White House for a meeting with President Obama that’s getting underway at 6 p.m. ET.
Late Update: The Pelosi/Reid meeting with Obama has ended, lasting for just over an hour. No announcement — or leaks or spin — yet.
Later Update: A White House official says: “In the meeting the President received an update on the state of negotiations on the Hill from Leader Pelosi and Leader Reid, and the Leaders and the President reiterated our opposition to a short-term debt limit increase.”
Stock futures for the S&P 500 and for the Dow declined 1 percent each in early Tokyo trading with no debt deal in sight. Not nothing, but could be worse.
An interesting take from TPM Reader SC:
The parallels between what may happen if and when we go into default and the premise of the Y2K “crises” are striking; only we may not be able to fix this one.
We’ve got a better read now on what went down during Speaker Boehner’s conference call with House Republicans late this afternoon.
Not sure whether the headline from Harry Reid’s statement below is “Talks Break Down — Again” or “Democrats Agree To Nearly $3 Trillion In Cuts With No Revenue Increases”: Read More
Dems to GOP: If we give you everything you want, will you finally raise the debt ceiling?