Talks Intensify Around Short-Term Debt Limit Hike
WH, House GOP leaders talk through night. AP: "No agreement was reported and plenty of hurdles remained, but both sides cast their meeting positively ... Obama planned a late-morning White House meeting Friday with GOP senators, who said they would present options of their own for ending the shutdown and debt limit standoff ..."
Obama welcomes short-term debt limit hike, but pushes for reopening government. CNN: "...Obama acknowledged that the Republican proposal on a six week debt ceiling increase was a good thing in an hour-and-a-half meeting with House Republican leadership Thursday night ... The President continued to question the rationale for keeping the government closed. And he continued to call for the government to be funded and the debt ceiling raised in one swoop ... The GOP leaders present told the President they had a list of demands in exchange for reopening the government, which Obama said he would look at but reminded them he would not give concessions in order to end the shutdown. House Speaker John Boehner did not outline what the specific items were, the source said. Boehner said staff was working on that."
Rep. Paul Ryan tries to sell conservatives. The Hill: "Ryan ... will speak in a pre-recorded message to be aired at the conservative [Value Voters Summit]. 'Now, this President, he won’t agree to everything we need to do,' Ryan will say. 'A budget agreement—with this President and this Senate— it won’t solve all of our problems. But I hope it’s a start. I hope we can get a down payment on our debt.'"
Senate GOP On Different Track
Senate GOPers diverge from Boehner. The Hill: "They are coalescing around their own proposal to pair a short-term debt-ceiling increase with a year-long stopgap to fund the government. Under their plan, the government would be funded for a year at the $967 billion level set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. The package would also include a repeal of ObamaCare's medical-device tax and language to require income verification of people who apply for healthcare subsidies ... Some Senate Republicans are willing to extend the debt limit for as long as six months, while others say the extension should only last for a few months."
Sen. Sanders rejects Boehner gambit. Politico quotes: "He’s attempting to hoodwink the American people with this short term solution, which is totally unsatisfactory."
GOP Hits Rockbottom
GOP hits rockbottom in NBC/WSJ poll: "By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96. Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll ... American voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress to a Republican-controlled one by eight percentage points..."
"We could be witnessing the death throes of the Republican Party" says TNR's John Judis: "What is happening in the Republican Party today is reminiscent of what happened to the Democrats in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At that time, the Democrats in Washington were faced by a grassroots revolt from the new left over the war in Vietnam and from the white South over the party’s support for civil rights. It took the Democrats over two decades to do undo the damage—to create a party coalition that united the leadership in Washington with the base and that was capable of winning national elections. The Republicans could be facing a similar split between their base and their Washington leadership, and it could cripple them not just in the 2014 and 2016 elections, but for decades to come."
