Deal? Boehner Says 50-50 For Debt Increase Deal By Saturday

Ed thinks maybe Obama has laid down a marker -- $4 trillion in cuts -- that requires him to be on board with entitlement reforms.

I don't think so. Remember, Obama months ago claimed he had $4 trillion in cuts in mind... over a 12 year window (not the typical 10 year window used for long-term budgeting). And his method of getting to $4 trillion was in unspecified cuts to Medicare (funny how the media never seems to want to report how much Obama and the Democrats claim to want to cut Medicare) and general horseshit like increased tax revenues from the 4%+ growth we're apparently going to have for the next 12 years.

Oh, and of course "spending reductions in the tax code," in his not-felicitous phraseology. That is, increased taxes, which he prefers to call "spending reductions," by ending a welter of deductions for both businesses and individual filers.

So is Obama moving at all? Based on this made-up number of $4 trillion, no, I see no movement.

But Boehner thinks they might be close. Peter King says it's better than 50-50.

Ed speculates that there might be some deliberate expectations-raising going on here to pressure the Democrats to come to terms, an attempt to maybe change the Narrative about who exactly it is who won't compromise.

Alas, I haven't seen a lot of that sort of gamesmanship from Boehner.

We Could Easily Operate Within The Current Debt Ceiling For Some Time. So says Senator Ron Johnson.

“I’ve been on the unsecured creditor side of a customer going bankrupt,” he said. “If you come to me as an unsecured creditor in a bankruptcy situation where the customer is going through a reorganization and you say, ‘Secured creditors are getting dollar for dollar — that’s interest on the debt, that’s Social Security. The rest of you guys, until we get this figured out, will basically get 60 cents on the dollar. Once we go through the reorganization, once we get this figured out, you’ll probably get 98 cents on the dollar.’ I’d be going, ‘That’s a sweet deal.’ I’d do that in an instant.”

Here's something. Obama says that not reaching a deal will panic the markets.

It will.

But why will it?

Because Obama and his cronies are putting out the word every single day that no deal means a default.

And who, meanwhile, is attempting to reassure markets that a failure to broker a deal does not mean a default?

The Republicans.

So yes, the market will panic, because they're listening to the man who is deliberately attempting to panic them and possibly collapse the world economy... as a negotiating strategy.

More on that conference call from John McCormack. Johnson characterizes the secret nature of these negotiations as "disgusting" and "outrageous."

posted by Ace at 12:54 PM

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