A skit, thats all it is.
Posted on 07/21/2011 3:42:58 PM PDT by markomalley
Congressional Democrats are set to meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday evening at the White House, and if it’s anything like the “volcanic” intraparty sessions that took place earlier in the day, it could be quite the contentious affair.
Senate Democrats were huddled for lunch with Jacob Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, when news broke of a possible deal between Obama and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The reports of the “grand bargain” — potentially worth $3 trillion in savings over 10 years with no upfront revenue raisers — started filtering into the Mansfield Room, just yards from the Senate chamber, and Senators began getting agitated, worried that Obama was poised to agree to sweeping entitlement cuts with only the “promise” of a deal on future tax code reform.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) will meet with Obama and his top brass at 5:30 p.m. Although Obama likely will have to quickly sell them on any deal that’s being discussed, the president also will have to listen to the top Congressional Democrats relay the serious concerns of their rank and file.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), a 24-year veteran of the chamber, called Thursday’s biweekly party luncheon “volcanic,” and others said the session was one of the most unpleasant in 20 years.
“Many of us were volcanic,” Mikulski said about the reports of an Obama-Boehner deal with no revenues. “You can’t ask us to vote when we haven’t been part of the deal.”
Obama’s renewed efforts to cut a larger deal with Boehner, after the Speaker previously walked away from a potential $4 trillion agreement, is the most recent step in a process where Democrats, especially in the Senate, have felt out of the loop.
Any package, grand or otherwise, will need the backing of Democrats, particularly in the Republican-controlled House, where many conservatives will vote “no” on any measure that raises the debt ceiling.
And all parties expressed reservations about forcing through an agreement that doesn’t yet have legislative language or a Congressional Budget Office score less than two weeks before an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling and avert government default.
Moreover, Senate Democrats had already gotten on board with a framework provided by Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would raise the debt limit through the 2012 elections in a series of three votes and immediately extend the ceiling by $100 billion as soon as Obama puts in his first request to do so.
The whirlwind of reports that Obama was moving toward a different option, given that Senate leaders had been poised to begin the legislative process on the Reid-McConnell deal as early as this weekend, caught Democrats off-guard at best and incensed them at worst.
“The responsible thing to do in the Senate, for the country, is to not have default and to embrace a big deal in concept, with a specific time period to try to implement it, to not try to have to vote on it,” Sen. John Kerry told reporters after the luncheon. “The virtue of the Reid-McConnell package is that it is not a kick down the road. It is, in fact, a very specific and very tough process, which the Senate and Congress would have to complete the task of the big deal. So you get the best of both worlds.
“The best thing for us to do is to embrace the McConnell-Reid approach,” the Massachusetts Democrat added.
Durbin, who is also a member of the Senate’s bipartisan “gang of six” that is working on its own deficit reduction package, expressed reservations Thursday about the Senate’s ability to approve a deal like the one reportedly in the works between Obama and Boehner.
“It would have a very difficult time passing the Democratic Senate,” he said of any large package of spending cuts without revenues. “I’m looking for balance, and balance means revenues as well as spending cuts.”
Durbin, who said Lew assured the Democratic Senators that no such deal had been made, fell in line with Reid’s comments to reporters around the same time. The Nevada Democrat said his Conference would not support a deal without revenues and that he hoped the “president would stick with that.”
A Senate leadership aide contested the notion that Thursday’s meeting was unpleasant.
“It was lively,” the aide said, adding that much of the frustration was directed at Lew and not at other Members. “Democrats were united in their message to the White House that any deficit deal must include revenues.”
Although it was easy to gauge the temperature of Senate Democrats, who were in the same place when reports of the Obama deal surfaced, it’s less clear how House Democrats received the news.
House Budget ranking member Chris Van Hollen said he had not heard of a deal struck Thursday afternoon, but he added that there had been a “meeting of the minds” about doing something larger.
“There are a lot of people who were very skeptical about whether that would happen, but I think both sides remain focused on that even as discussions about Plan B” continue, the Maryland Democrat said.
House Democratic aides said that given the composition of their Caucus, if Senate Democrats were upset, it is likely their colleagues across the Capitol would be doubly so.
Grab the popcorn, Obama is making his party destroy itself from within.
Good cop, bad cop. Both parties are engaged in political theater making it seem that no one is happy with the deal, which has already been agreed to. Now it is just a matter of managing and manipulating public opinion. They really must think we are stupid.
Get stuffed, tootse.
Remember Obamacare?
You didn't feel that way when the 'Pubs were locked out of ObamaCare talks, fata$$.
“Many of us were volcanic,” Mikulski said about the reports of an Obama-Boehner deal with no revenues. “You can’t ask us to vote when we haven’t been part of the deal.” boo hoo, remember all the bills the dems passed that had no in put from the republicans.. even some bills were deemed passed.. jeshhhh, now they whine
A skit, thats all it is.
To the GOP: Go back! Go Back! It’s a trick!
I fear that you’re right. We may end up with another smoke-n-mirrors job, like the 2011 budget.
No deal can be reached. The radicals of the Democratic party are in control and will never allow a deal that only cuts taxes. These fanatics do not want spending controlled and they’re so stupid they blame deficits on tax cuts, not out of control spending. We can’t deal with these freaks. The GOP position should be we passed cut, cap and balance. That’s our position. Take it or leave it, but that’s the only deal you’re getting. It’s on you Dems now. Work it out.
That only cuts SPENDING I meant in my last post, not taxes.
“Mikulski said about the reports of an Obama-Boehner deal with no revenues. “You can’t ask us to vote when we haven’t been part of the deal.”
Too bad she didn’t feel that way when they voted for BOcare.
They need to stand fast on CCB. Let see what BO is willing to do.
Simple: Spending cuts NOW—No new taxes.
Any Republican who votes for anything different needs to be tarred, feathered, and primaried.
Dims get nasty without some walking around money
Actually not. All it would need is a handful of Red State Dems up for re-election to succeed in bi-partisan passage.
Senate Dems could be the ones shafted the most in this whole debacle. What a beautiful thing.
There IS NO budget. Why is this man still collecting a paycheck?
It’s historic
Obama could end up being the first U.S. president to hold office while rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s downgrade the nation’s AAA debt rating.
Now, does anyone really think that’s going to happen? Even though the corrupt media are trying to get you to believe it ‘may’...’could’...?
A skit, thats all it is.
“You can’t ask us to vote when we haven’t been part of the deal.”
Hey Barb, take it easy, you do it to us all the time.
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