David Dayen:

The fact that the Boehner and Reid plans are so similar, including the Pell grant spending and everything else, means that they were basically negotiated together, as something the White House would accept. Reid threw in a few more bells and whistles, scored the war savings, and increases the debt limit all at once. Boehner uses a second tranche of the debt limit to force through any Catfood Commission II changes.

The White House is talking about blending all the plans on the table if they fail, "combining elements of the Boehner and Reid proposals and another from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) so each can claim a measure of victory." They're already blended! It's just a matter of when the debt limit is increased, and who can declare victory.

UPDATE: First Read writes that a short-term extension, by about 10 days or so, is looking more and more likely.

But there was one thing the deal didn't include, that many observers -- myself included -- said should have been there: an increase in the debt ceiling.

It seemed to fit. The deal was going to increase the deficit by almost a trillion dollars, so it was going to accelerate our collision with the debt ceiling. It was passed by an outgoing Congress, and it's always easier for retiring legislators to take tough votes than it is for newly elected legislators to take them. And it would have headed off the awful choice that Democrats face this year: deep, sharp cuts that will slow the recovery, or a debt crisis that could plunge us back into recession.

But Democrats rejected it. One argument was political. As Harry Reid put it, "let the Republicans have some buy-in on the debt. They're going to have a majority in the House. I don't think it should be when we have a heavily Democratic Senate, heavily Democratic House and a Democratic president." That didn't make sense then, and it makes even less sense hearing it now. Republicans aren't going to end up with buy-in on the debt. Their opposition to raising the debt ceiling is pretty clear. What they're going to end up with is massive concessions on spending.

[emphasis supplied]

We have two crews that are fighting about the size of the vig, but not about the vig itself. One crew wants people to pay slightly less and starve slowly, and the other wants people to pay more, and starve quicker. The second crew wants to then bring in a whole lot more people, and do the same thing to the new folks-- high vig and starvation.

Finding out that on the hill people can use insider information? No wonder so many millionaires hold their virtual-lifetime appointments to the seats of power. Their masters throw them enough bones and scraps for the seat holders and their flappers (Term from Swift and Gulliver's travels) for them to get fat and complacent, and the 'powerful' keep wagging their tails and begging for more.

I thought insider trading was not allowed anywhere, and 'ethics' were supposed to matter-- blind trusts, and so forth... but if there's a means to grift, someone will find it.

anyone need a poli sci level explanation from the Kennedy School of Government, College of Upper Middle Cla$$ Excuse Making Lo$er$ to Right Winger$?

Pols will be pols - the right wingers won't take a 90% win screwing the bottom 98% cuz they'll get crucified by their nut job base. Dems will aid and abet the right wingers because ...

DRUM ROLL PLEASE

... cuz we the peee-ons keep listening to DLC - Third Way - Blue Dog - Neo Lib pearl clutching crap about bipartisan-shite and we keep voting for diaper pooping political pathetics - except when they just sell out us, instead of being pathetics.

Pols will be Pols - and our worthless ... ha ha ha ha ... "progressives" cave & we keep voting for them!

Vote "Medicare Forall" 2012 from Postmaster to POTUS!

I might need to open an exploratory committee for the 'real FDR-based' Democratic party nomination, in that case.

House Democrats have been largely silenced in the debt limit debate. They're the minority in a majoritarian body, so that's somewhat natural. But seeing that the numbers are so close for any plan in the House that Democrats could hold the margin of victory, it's a little curious.

Now, House Democrats are responding to that lockout by basically saying that the President should invoke the 14th Amendment and put this nonsense to rest.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a member of the Democratic leadership, said he told fellow Democrats that Obama should both veto any House GOP plan for a short-term extension of the debt ceiling and invoke the 14th amendment, which says that the validity of the nation's public debt "shall not be questioned."

The White House has rejected resorting to this tactic to keep the nation from defaulting, questioning its legality, but Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, who chairs the Democratic caucus, said "we're getting down to decision time" and "we have to have a failsafe mechanism and we believe that failsafe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States."

Larson said Clyburn's proposal on the 14th Amendment was met with applause by other Democrats at their meeting.

Link

I remember the first time I read that book. It shocked my 13 year old sensibilities to no end and is probably what started me down the road of distrust of politicians who send us into war. That we were embroiled in Viet Nam at the time gave me an added push down that road.

Pew Research finds that 68% of the people support a compromise on the debt ceiling even if they don't agree with the deal, while only 23% support standing on principle even if it results in default. My question is this. What percent of that 23% are voters that the president has a chance of winning to his side in November 2012? I believe the answer is pretty close to zero percent. So, the president has won the political battle here, which it was very important for him to do. However, that doesn't get him out of the woods.

- Booman

Obviously the desire to score a political victory here is not solely coming from the GOP's side.

I just don't see the lasting value of this when austerity is going to make Obama's re-election that much harder.

"The key for the electorate is to make them act in ways that are beneficial to the Nation."

i.e., pols are not the solution to our problem; the solution lies with the electorate.

"Pols have always acted first and foremost in their own political interests."

With Reid's bill in the Senate being nearly identical, it means the Boenher bill passes the House, it gets to the Senate where it's tinkered with a bit to incorporate some of Harry's bill's provisions, and then - voila! - the Republic is saved!

Via David Dayen:

A number of House conservatives are now closing ranks on the bill, giving it a better chance of passing the chamber. Boehner has been whipping his caucus furiously, imploring them to "get your ass in line" and get behind the plan to save him from embarrassment. The bad CBO report has also enabled Boehner to go back and add in more cuts, which could bring him some more votes.

[snip]

Keep in mind that the Boehner plan and the Reid plan are almost exactly the same. Reid's plan simply scores things that are going to happen anyway (less war spending, for example), and it provides the full debt limit increase up front. That's all this argument is about.

To be sure, that's a key argument, because Boehner's plan ties the second increase in the debt limit to the result of his Catfood Commission to cut safety net programs. Reid has no such enforcing mechanism, making it easier to just vote down what comes from that committee. So the two sides are not arguing over nothing. But they're arguing over far less than they want you to think.

Will spending be cut, a Catfood Commission empowered, and the debt limit increased through the elections, or will spending be cut, a Catfood Commission empowered, and the debt limit increased for only six months? Stay tuned. It's so very exciting!

What it is is insulting to the intelligence; never have I been able to see more clearly just how little regard these politicians have for the intelligence of the people they purport to represent as I have in the last couple of years - and especially in the last couple months.  From the perspective of someone who still manages to think for herself, it's jaw-droppingly obvious how the ruling class uses the people for their own purposes - and they do that by filling their heads with half-truths and lies, by misdirecting their attention and manipulating their emotions.