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GOP Meets with Obama: Deal or No Deal?

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By Fox News.

Republican lawmakers scrambled back to the drawing board late Thursday to modify their plan for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, after President Obama apparently pushed back on the proposal during a high-stakes White House meeting.

The meeting broke up with no deal announced, despite optimism earlier in the day that the two sides might agree. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid also cast doubt on House Speaker John Boehner’s plan. The day ended like it began, with Americans still unsure when the partial government shutdown will end, and the financial markets still uncertain as to whether the country might miss next week’s deadline to raise the debt ceiling.

Nevertheless, both sides claimed to be working together, describing the initial meeting as positive as they worked toward a possible agreement.

A statement from House Republicans said Obama and GOP leaders agreed to continue talking “throughout the night.”

Another key meeting, between Obama and Senate Republicans, is scheduled for Friday morning.

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Photo Credit: M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICOBarack Obama to GOP: ‘What’s it going to take?’

By JAKE SHERMAN, BURGESS EVERETT and JOHN BRESNAHAN.

President Barack Obama and House Republicans clashed in a meeting Thursday afternoon over how soon the government can be reopened, even as the GOP offered to lift the debt limit for six weeks, according to sources familiar with the session.

House Republicans told Obama at the White House that they could reopen the federal government by early next week if the president and Senate Democrats agree to their debt-ceiling proposal. After the debt ceiling is lifted, a House GOP aide said they would seek some additional concessions in a government funding bill.

Obama repeatedly pressed House Republicans to open the government, asking them “what’s it going to take to” end the shutdown, those sources said. He questioned why the government should remain closed if both sides agreed to engage in good-faith negotiations on the budget, according to a Democratic source briefed on the meeting.

The meeting was described by both sides as cordial but inconclusive. Obama acknowledged to Republicans that notable progress had been made. Sources described the meeting without attribution, because the meeting was private.

Aides will continue the discussion through the night to see if they could find common ground on how to move forward on the debt limit and government funding. The short-term debt hike — which was originally proposed at the closed GOP meeting Thursday — did not include plans to reopen the government.

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House Republicans Eye Short-Term Debt Ceiling Fix, Ahead of White House Meeting

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Conservative lawmakers are exploring the possibility of a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, perhaps trying to seize the opening after President Obama said a day earlier he would consider the option.

Members of the Republican Study Committee, the most conservative bloc in the House, told Fox News they’re looking at that possibility. Their inclination is to consider a short-term increase only if there is an agreement on a broader spending framework.

But the option could help buy time for lawmakers to nail down the specifics of a longer-term deal. The U.S. government is facing what the Treasury Department says is an Oct. 17 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Though a short-term deal would by definition be only a stopgap fix, the development Wednesday pointed to at least a sliver of possible common ground — something to potentially work toward, after nine days of a partial government shutdown during which lawmakers seemed to mostly talk past one another.

“Clearly, Republicans want to avoid default,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said, adding they also want to cut spending.

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Senators Murkowski, McCain and Kirk Signal Willingness to Work with Dems to Raise the Debt Ceiling Without Conditions

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The United States government is expected to hit the debt ceiling in less than two weeks, and Senate Democrats have said they’re ready to raise it with a “clean” bill to avoid default on the national debt. Reports that Senate Republicans would consider supporting such a bill began to roll in on Monday.

Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have all floated the idea of voting for a clean debt limit increase, according to reports by Politico, ABC News and Public Radio International.

Though these Republicans seem willing to meet Democrats in the middle, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made clear that the House won’t budge.

Earlier this year, Senator Murkowski stated that she did not believe the debt ceiling should be used as political leverage in seeking to obtain spending cuts from the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats.

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Senate Democrats Plan Maneuver to Allow Obama to Raise Debt Ceiling

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Photo Credit: abangbay @ MalaysiaSenate Democrats say they’ll advance a bill giving President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of Congress disapproves, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

The issue of increasing the borrowing limit and avoiding an unprecedented default is fast becoming a central focus in Washington — and comes as ordinary Americans say they’re deeply dismayed with the week-old government shutdown, and are finding blame with both Republicans and Democrats.

“It looks like there is more than enough blame to go around and both parties are being hurt by the shutdown,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

An initial test vote on the proposal, described by the aide on condition of anonymity, could occur as soon as Oct. 11, just six days before federal borrowing authority is set to expire.

Democrats have been pressing for a one-year increase in the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt ceiling without any of the spending cuts of policy changes Republicans are demanding.

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Obama Just Played His Big ‘Trump Card’ On The Debt Ceiling

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Early Thursday morning, Potomac Research Group analyst Greg Valliere predicted that if the debt-ceiling deadline grew closer, President Barack Obama would play his “trump card” in the debate. He would remind seniors that if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, seniors wouldn’t get their Social Security checks.

“GOP strategists like Karl Rove surely know that it’s just a matter of time before President Obama throws a game-changer — warning senior citizens that their Social Security checks won’t be mailed because of John Boehner,” Valliere wrote in a note to clients.

A few hours later, Obama did just that during a speech at M. Luis Construction Company in Rockville, Md. He spent much of the speech warning that while the ongoing government shutdown was damaging, failure to raise the debt ceiling by an Oct. 17 deadline would be even worse.

“In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time. In an economic shutdown — if we don’t raise the debt ceiling — they don’t go out on time,” Obama said. “In a government shutdown, disability benefits still arrive on time. In an economic shutdown, they don’t.”

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Would Democrats Accept Obamacare Delay in Return for Debt Hike?

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he would agree to raise the nation’s debt ceiling before the federal government hits its credit limit on Oct. 17, but only if Democrats agree to delay implementation of Obamacare for one year.

Though still in the formative stage, the House GOP’s debt bill right now would also authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, permit more energy exploration on federal lands, block federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, establish a timeline for comprehensive tax reform, limit medical malpractice suits, and raise the cost of Medicare for wealthier Americans.

“We’re going to introduce a plan that ties important spending cuts and pro-growth reforms to a debt limit increase,” said Speaker Boehner at a press conference with GOP leaders.

Remember, the debt limit is a separate issue from the government spending bill that’s now in the Senate and is about to be pinged back to the House, shorn of a provision that would defund the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) for good.

The spending bill would authorize appropriations to keep the government open. It’s not yet clear whether Congress will be able to pass such legislation before the US fiscal year ends at midnight Monday.

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Says Oct. 17 is the Debt Ceiling Deadline

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned Congress in a letter Wednesday morning that Oct. 17 will be the last day that the government has the funds to meet all its obligations if the debt ceiling is not raised.

That is within the range Lew has previously indicated, and in line with projections from outside analysts. But now Congress has a specific deadline. If it does not act before Oct. 17, a Thursday, the government risks defaulting on the debt, an outcome that Lew warned “could be catastrophic.”

Lew previously said that the Treasury would exhaust the extraordinary measures it has used to create headroom under the debt limit by mid-October, at which point it would have only $50 billion in cash on hand and whatever revenues come in on a given day with which to pay the government’s bills.

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Steyn: American Banana Republic

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Photo Credit:spdracerkmw

Photo Credit:spdracerkmw

“This is the United States of America,” declared President Obama to the burghers of Liberty, Mo., on Friday. “We’re not some banana republic.”

He was talking about the Annual Raising of the Debt Ceiling, which glorious American tradition seems to come round earlier every year. “This is not a deadbeat nation,” President Obama continued. “We don’t run out on our tab.” True. But we don’t pay it off either. We just keep running it up, ever higher. And every time the bartender says, “Mebbe you’ve had enough, pal,” we protest, “Jush another couple trillion for the road. Set ’em up, Joe.” And he gives you that look that kinda says he wishes you’d run out on your tab back when it was $23.68.

Still, Obama is right. We’re not a banana republic, if only because the debt of banana republics is denominated in a currency other than their own — i.e., the U.S. dollar. When you’re the guys who print the global currency, you can run up debts undreamt of by your average generalissimo. As Obama explained in another of his recent speeches, “Raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt.” I won’t even pretend to know what he and his speechwriters meant by that one, but the fact that raising the debt ceiling “has been done over a hundred times” does suggest that spending more than it takes in is now a permanent feature of American government. And no one has plans to do anything about it. Which is certainly banana republic-esque.

Is all this spending necessary? Every day, the foot-of-page-37 news stories reveal government programs it would never occur to your dimestore caudillo to blow money on. On Thursday, it was the Food and Drug Administration blowing just shy of $200 grand to find out whether its Twitter and Facebook presence is “well-received.” A fifth of a million dollars isn’t even a rounding error in most departmental budgets, so nobody cares. But the FDA is one of those sclerotic American institutions that has near to entirely seized up. In October 1920, it occurred to an Ontario doctor called Frederick Banting that insulin might be isolated and purified and used to treat diabetes; by January 1923, Eli Lilly & Co were selling insulin to American pharmacies: A little over two years from concept to market. Now the FDA adds at least half-a-decade to the process, and your chances of making it through are far slimmer: As recently as the late Nineties, they were approving 157 new drugs per half-decade. Today it’s less than half that.

But they’ve got $182,000 to splash around on finding out whether people really like them on Facebook, or they’re just saying that. So they’ve given the dough to a company run by Dan Beckmann, a former “new media aide” to President Obama. That has the whiff of the banana republic about it, too.

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Obama: ‘Raising the Debt Ceiling…Does Not Increase Our Debt,’ Though It Has ‘Over 100 Times’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: abangbay @ Malaysia

Photo Credit: abangbay @ Malaysia

Raising the debt ceiling doesn’t increase the nation’s debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today.

In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it’d been done so many times in the past:

“Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”

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Poll: Anger at D.C. Rises Sharply

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Photo Credit: AP

Eight in 10 Americans are unhappy with Washington, according to a new poll — with nearly 30 percent describing themselves as “angry.”

Both of those numbers have jumped in recent months and are now the highest recorded since CBS began asking the question in 2010. In December, 75 percent of the country were unhappy with D.C., and only 21 percent were angry.

In addition, 61 percent of the country believe the United States is on the wrong track, the highest number since the aftermath of the debt ceiling debate in August 2011. President Barack Obama’s job approval has slipped from 52 percent in February to 45 percent today, and disapproval has jumped from 38 percent to 46 percent, the CBS poll found.

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