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(Update, Update #2, Update #3 — confirmation? Update #4 — Reid tables Boehner bill, needing GOP Senator support, melt the phones) Am I crazy? I think Reid is trapped

By: RealQuiet (Diary)  |  July 29th, 2011 at 04:23 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Update:  Andy Stiles is reporting that Reid will TABLE Boehner’s legislation.  Oh Harry, you’re digging your majority’s grave even deeper.

Update #2:  One of the best analytical pieces ever courtesy of Hotair.  Some highlights:

  • The GOP is going to extract as much spending cuts from the Democrats for taking the debt ceiling past the 2012 election.  Using BBA could yield additional cuts.  There are plenty of Democratic Senators and Obama who do NOT want BBA as part of the negotiations.  TOUGH.  I speculated on this earlier.  The Tea Party caucus holding the line and getting the BBA in Boehner’s bill was HUGE.  It would be funny to see McConnell attach a BBA to Reid’s bill to get it out of the Senate, if it ever gets out which is doubtful.
  • Moody’s says U.S. will now retain their AAA credit rating.  Sounds like the White House was bringing some enormous Chicago-like pressure to Moody’s.  Will S&P follow?
  • Obama is now saying he is open to extending the debt ceiling for a further couple of days.  What a bunch of…..you know, this has been absolutely the most horrid display of fear-mongering and deception from the Democratic party that I can ever remember.
  • Democrats are eyeing 11 GOP Senators to pass Reid’s bill.  MELT THE PHONES.
  • Can it not be any more clear now what the Democrats have been doing?  They tried to create another TARP crisis like they did in 2008 for political purposes and to save Obama’s failing presidency.

Update #3:  Reid to table everything, including his own bill??  WOW!  This morning we were talking about Reid forcing Boehner to kill his own bill.  Maybe the instinct was right,  Reid is trapped?  The Tea Party conservatives in the House by pushing to have a BBA included in Boehner’s bill, have forced Reid against the wall apparently?  I don’t know.  I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Update #4:  Reid tables Boehner bill with a 59-41 vote.  Reid needs GOP Senator support now.  Blow those phones up.  McConnell should get a boatload of concessions here if his caucus holds strong.  What the heck is up with Scott Brown supporting the Reid plan?  Asinine!

 

So the House will pass the Boehner plan with a BBA.  One detail that I saw was curiously left out was the fact that the Senate GOP can filabuster any bill Reid sends back to the house.  Reid cannot just load the bill up with Democratic demands to send back to Boehner unless he has 60 votes to bring up a vote to send the amended bill back to the House.  So the GOP does have some leverage here.  Time to blow up those phones of those GOP Senators to hold “Only compromise that will make it through — is mine” Harry Reid in check.

So now what?  Well, my trapped statement is simply this.  Reid has already offered up a bill with $2.5 trillion “spending cuts” over 10 years, with agreed upon no taxes, that takes the debt ceiling past the 2012 elections.  The House has already passed their bill that takes the debt ceiling past 2012, CCB, which has $5.8 trillion in cuts.  This is all a negotiation so these are the starting negotiating positions for bills that take the debt ceiling past 2012.  Reid has trapped himself in the fact that he’s staked an opening negotiating position with no taxes.  So the sides are $3.3 trillion in spendings cuts apart with the other provisions to be negotiated as well.

So, Reid needs GOP help in the Senate to get the amended Boehner bill back to the House.  Reid has no room for compromise and his ill-advised statement today makes it look like he’s getting in the way of getting something done.  If Reid tries to push his own bill through, the GOP House can send an amended CCB back up and the negotiations go from there.

By the way, if the GOP is doing so bad, why is Barack Obama’s approval rating down to 40% today in Gallup?

Am I crazy? No mean comments please :)

COMMENTS

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  • acat

    A compromise of any sort is not what they want. They want a crisis.

    Mew

    • RealQuiet

      That argument of the GOP caused an economic crash becomes more crazy. What makes it worse is they haven’t sent a bill to be debated and voted on!

      I think the Dems realize they are screwed. It is not a coincidence that Stony Hoyer and Jim Clyburn are calling for President Obama to usurp the separation of powers in the Constitution by using the 14th amendment. If Obama did this, he would guarantee getting elected out of office and the Dems would lose horribly in 2012. Blind or subtle, Boehner may have outmaneuvered Reid here but maybe that is just premature for me to say.

    • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

      They would rather default than let their precious Welfare Statist Overspending get even a scratch.

      They had MONTHS to figure this out. And instead of acting months ago, they did …. NOTHING.

      “This is all a negotiation” … still!?!?!

      We are down to this: Reid’s phony smoke-and-mirrors bill needs to die in the Senate. We need 41 stalwart Senators to make Reid take tough vote after tough vote.

      Obama’s approval ratings are heading down. He voted ‘present’ in these negotiations and has NO plan 2 days prior to D-Day (Default Day).

  • chbroussard

    Wouldn’t it be hoot if Dirty Harry actually got his butt in a crack on this. Just maybe by those reps holding out, it gave the Dems just enough rope to hang themselves. l

  • jerry39

    I don’t know that the starting points make that much difference because that assumes they would be honest about the content of the bills. But I think that these poll numbers do make a difference and I said so yesterday -

    http://www.redstate.com/jerry39/

    These polls give our members confidence that the American people won’t believe its our fault just because O says it is, and they(polls) have to give the dems pause.

    I don’t see the benefit to Obama of allowing this to go past Tuesday either, and the world not coming to an end. After the beating this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if the market goes up on Tuesday.

    I’m not sold that the senate doesn’t have to pass either ccb or the new bill. And the new bill is a substative improvement over what we had last night.

    • proudgop

      I heard scott brown might support Reid bill.

      Schummer is already quoted as saying ” would republicans filibuster us into default.” you see their games

      • jerry39

        nt

      • kestrel

        how desperate they are becoming. If they wanted something done by August 2, maybe Reid and Schumer should have noticed the debt ceiling issue before last week.

      • RealQuiet

        Too bad the public supports the GOP on balancing the budget and cutting spending.

      • Ausonius

        His ranking via the American Conservative Union is c. 75%.

        Therefore, the odds are 1 in 4 that he will bolt from a Conservative position.

        The odds, however, that he will bolt and join Dems on something big are probably much higher.

  • carolina

    that I hope keeps getting ‘better and better’.
    I do not see a win-win anywhere for BO, no matter what finally happens.

  • jerry39

    Sorry for the (sort of) threadjack, but its worth a listen if you can find the replay.

    • carolina

      .

  • MrMosis

    I get really tired of people who are supposed to be on the conservative side ganging up on the TeaCons in the House and their supporters here and elsewhere- with arguments such as, “Let’s be realistic here! Nothing like CCB is EVER going to get by Reid and Obama’s veto pen. We need to be looking to 2012 when we have all three branches! Let’s not throw the economy into turmoil and then get blamed for it too.”

    You people got it all WRONG!!11

    You (as in all of us) need to tell the statists and the media the following:

    “Let’s be realistic here! Nothing without a BBA is going to get past the Tea Party House freshmen! They are not beholden to the establishment. Besides, CCB / BBA is the only serious plan that seriously addresses the real problem here- and it’s ready to go now! Do you really want to cause the forthcoming economic turmoil because of such stubbornness? Do you really want to die on this hill? Do you really want the American people to know that you sat on / tabled / vetoed the only legislation that actually solves the problem at hand, prevents a downgrade, etc. etc. etc…?”

    See the difference? The former perspective is rooted in fear and lies. The later is rooted in confidence and truth…. truth that enough of the populace now has access to to make all of this POSSIBLE.

    • luvnthebigsites

      nt

      • runner12

        :) nt

        • fpete13527

          nt

    • RealQuiet

      I fully admit it. One thing is for sure, the Tea Party became a much bigger thorn in the Democrats’ side as this has played along.

    • silentcal2012

      Both sides can play chicken with the fate of the country and our countrymen, but most of us are Americans first, Conservaive second and Republican Thrid. Radical leftist are radicals first, radical second and Democrats last.

      They will run this experiment off a cliff and shrug their shoulders. We have dilgent Patriots like Allan West leading us, who put the best interests of the country first. Everyone sitting on their hands and watching the deadline pass like is a sell-out.

      I’m tired of everyone pretending to be financial experts. No one knows what will happen exactly, but its Russian Roulette. We are playing with fire. Those minimiizing the risk were stuck on Social Security payments, then T-Bills and defaults and then downgrades. This is true, we will not meet all of our finanical andl egal obligations and people will hurt. Play internet tough guy all you want, but that is just cowardice to me. The real men are stickign their necks out and working for the American people like leaders are supposed to, not pandering to demagogues on talk radio and blogs.

      • fpete13527

        to adhere to your username

      • luvnthebigsites

        Yea its time to punt this one. Those Demagogues on talk radio and the the blogs are “us” silly rabbit. If your here to win hearts and minds… well you lost.

        • silentcal2012

          The responsible conservatives won. I know the Ron Paul crowd and other faux conservatives will be disappointed that we didn’t have our nihilistist Nero moment, and just let the sucker burn, while we live in some fantasy of rebuilding everything in our idealized imagination.

          But people have jobs, lives and business to attend to and they dont want to fool around with a default or a downgrade. Some people had the balls and brains to do the hard work that’s needs to be done.

          • luvnthebigsites

            Its 2011…. NOW, not 2012. I work in industry that is recession proof but is NOT Depression proof and the end is here for my company now… after 17 years. Get your free tee shirt and go sit down. For some of us populist rubes that post here at redstate it is about more than politics… and you would do well to keep that in mind.

          • ghostship

            Just what did we Conservatives win?

            Just what are we supposed to be fighting foe?

            Did we reduce the size and scope of government? No
            Did we make some real cuts to spending? No
            Did we at least put the government on a path towards fiscal sanity? No
            OK, did we make any significant cuts for reducing government growth? No

            Just what did we win?

            The “cuts” in the Boehner bill are so insignificant that we might as well have just given Obama the Debt Ceiling raise with no strings attached and save us from this whole song and dance.

            The Boehner bill wasn’t a step in the right direction. It was so pathetic that it wasn’t even the nerve impulse sent to the leg to tell it to move to take a step in the right direction. To make matters worse is if that is to be our starting bid then I hate to see what watered down drivel the final version will be.

            If we won then how come we have to be told that we won?

            Wouldn’t we know it if we’ve really won?

            Or are you really trying to convince yourself that we won?

      • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

        We’re standing on principle.

        You’re welcome to join us.

        Also, if you want to talk to a financial expert, try reading Francis Cianfrocca on the front page.

        And the coward in the room is the one posting under a pseudonym while blasting people posting under their names.

        • silentcal2012

          Point 1: A US default on debt service is pure unthinkable, FULL STOP. Larry Summers, for once, is absolutely right: a sustained debt default would very likely produce market disruptions comparable to, or worse than, the fall of 2008. However, at only about $200 billion and change per year, avoiding a debt default would be easy. The President, the Treasury Secretary and others are lying by omission when they fail to stress this point.

          Point 2: A failure to increase the debt ceiling would produce a deep economic recession, almost instantly. We?re talking about cutting out an amount of spending that?s almost 10% of the economy. The 2007-09 recession only dropped the economy by about 6%. We really DON?T want a failure to increase the debt ceiling

          ….

          Its okay though, CCB passed, Those who are supposed to govern, can quit governing and just let, as Francis wrote “deep economic recession” come almost “instantly”. It’ll be cool though because we are principled. Screw the struggling American people. Its what the Left would do for political gain. as Reagan once noted, commies reserve the right to lie, cheat and steal because the ends jutify the means. Conservatives in Reagan’s time were men of honor who rejected that premise. Tempting ecnomomic turmoil, recession, national humilation, and hardship on many Americans isnt worth the ends of political gamesmanship. Its something that Allan West, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan figured out.

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            You’re spreading false, Democrat talking points with your point one, if you’re implying that defaulting is a necessary consequence of leaving the ceiling alone.

            Get educated, son.

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        The debt, deficit, recession, Fed mess the Dems have made is what has our financial viability at risk, not tea partiers refusal to submit to Obama-Reid over the debt ceiling.

        • JSobieski

          The problem is with both CCB and Boehner 3.0, since the BBA in Boehner 3.0 has the same requirement of acting on the CA.

          CCB was passed by the House with less than 2/3 vote, so it wasn’t enough to send anything to the states. Moreover, in reading the CCB, defines a CA with certain provisions in it, but doesn’t actually put the proposed amendment for a vote (i.e. a Congressman could actually vote for CCB and then vote against the actual amendment or vice versa).

          The CCB has language in it that says the Treasury Secretary can’t use the additional debt ceiling funds until the CA is sent to the states.

          It seems to me that one of the following statements must be true:
          (1) CCB wasn’t really a viable debt ceiling solution in terms of timing as even the House doesn’t have the votes to send the proposed amendment to the states at the moment (i.e. the debt ceiling wouldn’t be raised for months if at all while the amendment process moved forward)

          OR

          (2) The CA language in the CCB is unenforceable fluff (analogous to the Obamacare provision that says no vote to repeal Obamacare can be taken in “good order.

          I am unfamiliar with any past attempts to bootstrap a CA to a proposed statute. If the BBA of the CCB is smoke and mirrors, I would think that the lefties would have already raised that argument by now. However, I really don’t see how the CCB if passed by the Senate that the CCB could be all the things that we think it would be.

          A constitutional amendment would probably not get through either house. If it started from the states, the language in the CCB about sending the CA to the states for a vote would never be in invoked.

          Now Boehner 3.0 has the same language (only without the 3 specified provisions that the BBA in the CCB had). I still can’t reconcile the (1) a CA must be sent off to the states before the ceiling is raised and (2) the CCB/Boehnher 3.0 is a viable solution for raising the debt ceiling ASAP.

          Any thoughts?

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            It is a gimmick. What is required to fix our problem is to eliminate federal power, agencies…fire people. And the exceptions required to a rigid balance due to war and emergency and the likelihood that the courts could end up making fiscal policy and even imposing taxes as has happened in some states, gives me pause.

            I also see the incompetence or worse (collusion to trick tea partiers into backing Boehner bills) as to the differing language in these bills that you see.

          • RealQuiet

            And all funds would go to war funding. BBA would go back into effect with surrender of the enemy. Simple enough

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            and a BBA is an invitation for them to get their hands on fiscal policy as a constitutional imperative. They have done so in states that have no foreign policy, where they have ordered tax hikes.

    • gekster

      just stay silent.
      That would be your best feature right now. ;)

    • Matthew Morris

      Top story on Drudge currently: The Balanced Budget ‘Poison Pill’

      http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/07/the-balanced-budget-poison-pill-and-theoretical-conversations-where-we-are-friday-evening-729.html

      First paragraph: “Democrats close to the negotiating process say that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has made his deficit reduction legislation a non-starter in the Senate by adding the Balanced Budget Amendment.”

      See how absurd this is? It should be evidently so to all but the most leftward commited.

      Read the liberals’ comments on this Jake Tapper post. See them attempt to argue that it would be detrimental to the future of our children if we pass a BBA? I would LOVE to see Dems constantly trying to defend such a position between now and Nov. 2012. (Of course, this will depend on some AGRESSIVE conservatives- not the scared sort.)

      • jerry39

        …before bba was added? But now its bba that killed it? Whatever.

      • bk

        Jake Tapper is usually one of the most reasonable MSM types, but his comments here were either really stupid or else Reid and Obama were lying even more than usual (if that’s possible). Tapper was saying that the original Boehner bill – the one Reid called DOA and Obama promised to veto – might have passed and gotten signed, but by adding BBA they cross my heart and hope to die meant this time that it was really truly DOA. Bad bad Boehner!

        Did somebody kidnap Jake and impersonate him?

    • rightwingmom52

      Who had more to lose in this battle? The GOP, Boehner & McConnell or those of us who work outside of politics, who run small businesses and provide jobs, who keep money flowing into the economy because we pay our taxes and bills and take care of our families and those less fortunate.

      The GOP has once again allowed the Dems to frame the debate and control the narrative, even while attacking those very citizens who handed them the House majority in 2010 and whose votes they’ll be begging for and counting on in 2012. They have underestimated us, and I think the GOP establishment will pay a hefty price because I don’t think a lot of theTea Party voters are going to fall in line just because the GOP leadership tells them to. God forbid they give up and don’t vote or end up voting for anybody but the GOP because they’re ticked about this, because then we’ll all pay the price.

  • bk

    He’s doing whatever he can to protect the 23 Democrats up for reelection. They’ll all say “Well we didn’t really vote against a BBA we just voted to table it.”

    • kestrel

      There’s also the “Sense of the Senate” vote on the BBA in March, 2011, “To express the sense of the Senate in support of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.” Ten Democrats voted for it. Granted, this is not the same as voting on an actual BBA, but what does a NO vote say, especially as part of their cumulative records? The Dems are in big trouble.

      http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00030

  • renny

    and the sky didn’t fall, the stock market didn’t crash, and the US defaulted on nothing.

    Ec. columnist John Crudele of the NYPost says it’s all whooey anyway. We have already passed the $14+ “LIMIT” and already are up $93 billion a day, i.e. the so-called limit was $14.294 trillion and we have passed that “limit” last Monday to $14.343 trillion, and we did that on July 25 and NOTHING HAPPENED.

    THE SKY DIDN’T FALL AND THE US EC. DID NOT COLLAPSE.

    The Treasury is doing this magic by borrowing against fed. pension funds BUT NOT COUNTING THAT BORROWING AS BORROWING.

    Meanwhile, FOX says o and Geithner (who should resign) are secretly reassuring banks that no default or horror is about to happen. Wouldn’t you have guessed?

    V0TE FOR ANYBODY BUT OBAMA IN 2012.

    • runner12

      Looks like Obama and his minions have been playing the role of Chicken Little.

      On purpose.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Good analysis and updates. The fur has been flying thick and fast and you have had some good insights and information.

    If the GOP does *not* cave totally, then Reid will indeed look foolish and wrong. But to do that, his bill needs to be stopped in the Senate. The GOP Senate members now need to HOLD THE LINE and NOT give in to the pressure from the left.

    • RealQuiet

      n/t

  • RealQuiet

    http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/174483-reid-alters-debt-plan-to-attract-gop-support

    I’ll let you guys read the article to see his huge movement to the GOP. My favorite part?

    Reid said his plan is what the American people want: a compromise.

    “The proposal I have put forward is a reasonable compromise,” Reid said. “It gives Democrats what they want, and it gives Republicans what they want. If we do nothing, our country will fail to pay its bills for the first time in history. Social Security checks could stop. Paychecks to our troops could stop.”

    Phew! The stench of BS is getting horrid!

    • bk

      With the clock ticking to Armageddon, and with having wasted the Senate’s time for the past 48 hours, they adjourned until Saturday afternoon. So I don’t believe his bill has actually been introduced yet else he’d have started the clock ticking toward a cloture vote.

  • lastgopinillinois

    Because everytime either Reid, Schumer, or Durbin step up to the C-Span podium, I immediately get the sudden urge to PUKE !

    • rightwingmom52

      …