| Being part the second of the article Bobby posted yesterday. |
What started as a mad dash to strike a deal to lift the federal debt limit slowed to a crawl over the weekend as stalemated Senate leaders waited nervously to see whether financial markets would plunge Monday morning and drive the other side toward compromise.Always thinking of The People first, right?
Republicans
To The Lightbringer? The path is not yet aligned with his wishes, so he remains above the fray.
On Sunday Reid was wielding that leverage to maximum advantage. Rather than making concessions that would undermine Obama's signature health-care initiative, as Republicans first demanded, Democrats are now on the offensive and seeking to undo what has become a cherished prize for the GOP: deep agency spending cuts known as the sequester.Soviet-style negotiations - what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.
But the shift in focus away from the imminent threat of a default on the U.S. debt sparked outrage among Republicans and alarm among the world's financial leaders, meeting this weekend in Washington.
Tired of 'we won - get over it'?
Democrats said they objected to a debt-limit plan developed by Sen. Susan Collins because it would permit the cuts to stay in place through March, allowing another round of sequester cuts to hit on Jan. 15. At that point, agency spending for fiscal 2014, which began Oct. 1, would be on track to fall roughly $90 billion lower than Democrats have proposed. And with the fiscal year half over, Democrats would have scant opportunity to renegotiate the numbers, a top priority.
Maybe they could just shut 'er down.
The sequester cuts are part of $2.1 trillion in agency spending cuts over 10 years included in the Budget Control Act, the measure that raised the debt limit in 2011. Initially, Republicans, also wanted to replace the sequester, particularly the portion that falls on the Pentagon. But since Obama won tax hikes on the wealthy as part of a year-end fight over the "fiscal cliff," McConnell has taken to casting the sequester as a significant GOP victory from which the party cannot retreat.
Crisis to crisis to crisis. Never let one go to waste.
On Sunday, McConnell issued a statement throwing his support for the first time behind the Collins proposal, calling it a "bipartisan plan" brokered with five other GOP senators and six senators who caucus with Democrats.
Harry lose control, did he?
"It would reopen the government, prevent a default and maintain the commitment that Congress made to reduce Washington spending through the Budget Control Act -- the law of the land," McConnell said. "It's time for Democrat leaders to take 'yes' for an answer."
On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), one of the Democrats working with Collins, defended the proposal on "Fox News Sunday" as having "a little bit of move for everybody. In a divided government, you can't have it all your way."
Looks like a crack in the Dem facade, to me.
Many lawmakers are leery of missing the Thursday deadline -- particularly Republicans, who are already getting hammered in
"Look, I guess we can get lower in the polls. We're down to blood relatives and paid staffers now," Sen. McCain joked on Face the Nation. "But we've got to turn this around. And the Democrats had better help us."
He IS deluded!