Shutdown day 11! Hope you have been getting your Government Shutdown Bonus Card stamped every day, because 12 shutdown days earns you one free voter repression in the swing state of your choice! (Wonkette is going with a minority college kid in North Carolina.)
Well, yesterday saw President Obama meeting with top GOP lawmakers at the White House to Not Negotiate an end to the GOP shutdown over repealing Obamacare defunding Obamacare delaying Obamacare stubbornness? Who knows anymore. But good news!
“We had a useful meeting. We agreed to continue discussions,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said upon returning to the Capitol.
A useful meeting AND more discussions!!1! Just the fact that there is a conversation happening sent stocks rising faster than Rick Santorum’s peener when he dreams of coupling with Ronald Reagan’s corpse. Let’s sexplore what deal may be cooking.
So the House GOP is offering to raise the debt limit until Nov. 22 in return for negotiations over a longer-term budget solution. In other words, the GOP is willing to temporarily release the global economic hostage while it negotiates over the domestic economic hostage. Quite the magnanimous offer!
Level-headed TigerBeat posterboy Paul Ryan is seeking calmer heads to prevail, per Politico:
Ryan said both sides should “put their guns back in their holsters” — a bid to reach an agreement to avoid default, reopen the government and start broader budget talks.
Couldn’t agree more, Ryan! Both sides are, in fact, threatening Americans with gun-threats. In fact, let’s look at those threats:
Dem Threats:
- Reopen the government at funding levels requested by Republicans.
- Put hundreds of thousands of government employees back to work.
- Provide affordable health care to millions of citizens.
- Raise the debt limit to pay for the bills that Congress has authorized.
GOP Threats:
- Continue to cost the American economy billions of dollars in damage by keeping the government closed.
- Cause an untold global economic catastrophe by not raising the debt limit.
- Deny health care to poor people, middle-class people, part-time workers, and full-time workers.
Seriously, Dems, holster that threat of putting people back to work and maintaining a struggling economic recovery! That is not what this country needs right now! We need compromise, dammit.
Wonkette hero and giant-cajones-haver Sen. Harry Reid (D-Backbone) is a bit more skeptical. He continues to insist that the debt ceiling be raised and the Republicans reopen the government before negotiating:
But when asked about whether he would negotiate before the shutdown ends, [Reid] responded: “Not going to happen.”
Whatever we know or don’t know, we know that this isn’t some damn game, according to Speaker John Boehner (R-Flaccid). And apparently his group of GOP asshats couldn’t agree more:
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said the conference needed “some type of win out of this” — and more than just getting Obama to the table.
Thanks for clarifying, Lynn. Glad that the economy is losing billions and the threat of a global economic meltdown hang in the balance of you getting some type of win, because if that’s not patriotism, we don’t know what is.
By DDM
