Senate Reaches Deal on Shutdown and Debt Ceiling; Will House Go Along?
Breaking:
AP (“Senate leader announces bipartisan budget deal“):
Democratic leader Harry Reid says Senate leaders have reached a bipartisan deal to avoid default and end the government shutdown, now in its 16th day.
Reid made the announcement at the start of the Senate session on Wednesday.
The deal would reopen the government through Jan. 15 and increase the nation’s borrowing authority through Feb. 7.
Reid thanked Republican leader Mitch McConnell for working out an agreement.
It’s being reported that Speaker Boehner is prepared to ram this through the House even if he has to do it mostly with Democratic votes. We shall see.
All the whiz on this is about how Boehner is afraid he’ll lose the Speaker job, but realistically, who’d replace him if they threw him out? Cantor? Ryan? There’s no “Tea Party Champion” who would stand a chance in hell of gathering the kind of support needed to win that vote.
@legion: Yeah, not sure what the alternative is. But, frankly, I don’t know what the point of being Speaker is if you can’t rally your troops behind you for crucial votes.
When half the troops think they are kamikaze pilots it makes the job tough.
Tea baggin time for Boehner!
Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan deserve the privilege of having to lead a House Republican delegation that includes guys like themselves.
When you say “ram this through the House,” does that mean allow a majority vote of the members?
Man, that’s some harsh treatment there.
@ James
Is there even a single Republican who has the skill and stature to be a successful speaker? This crew is making a mediocre group of Democrats on the hill look Jeffersonian by comparison.
@wr: Like it or not, the Speaker is the nominal leader of the majority party in the House. It’s highly unusual to put up legislation opposed by a majority of your own caucus. In this case, it’s absolutely the right thing to do but it still goes against institutional norms.
@James Joyner: If the Speaker is the leader of the majority in the House, why do we also have a majority leader?
The Speaker of the House is, as the title kind of suggests, the Speaker of the enitre House. If he chooses to only listen to his team, that’s his call… but the majority leader is a different position. One that Boehner would be equally bad at.
@James Joyner:
We can solve the problem next November by returning the House to the Democrats, where a real speaker will once more be in charge. Note that nobody doubts that Nancy Pelosi can and will deliver the Democratic votes.