With 11 days to go

[ProSense]

With 11 days to go

By Steve Benen

President Obama spent much of the week in private talks with House Republican leaders, working on finding an agreement that would raise the debt ceiling, but last night, the president had a different task: persuading his own party’s congressional leaders that he’s on the right track.

Obama invited the top four congressional Dems — Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and Steny Hoyer — to the White House, and by all accounts, the group talked for about two hours, which as these meetings go, is quite a while. Ordinarily, after these sessions, lawmakers are willing to chat a bit with reporters, if only to share vague platitudes (“We’re continuing to make progress”), while their aides dish out tidbits. Last night, after the meeting, the Democratic leaders and their aides said absolutely nothing.

With that in mind, it’s worth pausing to appreciate a key caveat to all of the speculation surrounding this process: the number of people who have all the facts is exceedingly small, and those folks are pretty tightlipped. I mention this because some of the information that’s surfaced is very likely wrong, some is incomplete, and some has been twisted as part of a larger agenda. When weighing the validity of rumors, the phrase “caveat emptor” comes to mind.

That said, the reports that have surfaced — which, again, may not be entirely reliable — are so discouraging, one has to hope they’re wrong.

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Democrats Set Drop-Dead Date For Debt Ceiling Backup Plan

Brian Beutler

President Obama's quest to reach a historic budget agreement with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) fell into deep doubt Thursday, after a noisy rebellion by Senate Democrats over reports that Obama might hand Republicans the farm on discretionary and entitlement spending, with few or no guarantees that the GOP will accept any new tax revenues.

If the initial leak was meant to serve as a trial balloon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shot it out of the sky the same day, after a contentious meeting with White House budget director Jack Lew. A Senate leadership aide told me that Reid will set the wheels in motion to pass a backup plan no later than Sunday unless a deal that can pass both chambers is agreed to before then. And the administration, clearly in damage control mode, summoned Democratic leaders up Pennsylvania Ave late in the day to clear the air, nurse wounds, and lay out a possible framework for a grand bargain to the skeptical crowd.

The administration and Boehner both denied the initial reports. White House spokesman Jay Carney claimed emphatically that Obama still views new tax revenues as essential to any budget deal. And Boehner reiterated that the Republicans' top priority at the moment is to see their push for a Balanced Budget Amendment through to its natural demise in the Senate, where it will fail on a partisan vote Friday.

But Democratic lawmakers weren't buying the denials, for two reasons. First because Republicans can't acknowledge progress toward a compromise with Obama just yet. As two GOP sources noted, Boehner won't shake hands on anything until after the GOP's so-called Cut, Cap, and Balance plan has its day in the Senate -- conservatives won't abide by him pre-empting it with a compromise, even if everyone knows Cut, Cap, and Balance is hopeless in reality.

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With 11 days to go, the reports have turned into gossip!

[Pholus]

1. Well really, gossip is all that escapes from back room meetings. nt

[ProSense]

2. Yeah,

those back room meetings with Democratic members of Congress are dangerous.

[Pholus]

3. Really, just the Democratic members? What about the very first sentence of your first link?

"President Obama spent much of the week in private talks with House Republican leaders"

[ProSense]

4. Well,

since nearly every discussion the President has with people in the WH are "private talks," what makes these "back room meetings"?

Is that phrase meant to imply something sinister?

[Pholus]

5. I wasn't the one Tut-tutting about gossip. But that's the only info coming out, isn't it? nt