New House offer proves Boehner is a clown and Republicans are terrorists.

[ProSense]

Jed Lewison over at Daily Kos posted a piece titled: House Republican rush to offer own plan to end their shutdown

He then detailed what he thought was the House Republican counter offer:

According to National Review's Robert Costa, here is the outline of the House GOP's new plan:

1. Keep government open through January 15 and extend debt limit through February 7.
   
   
2. Suspend the Medical Device tax for two years.
   
   
3. Add new income verification language to Obamacare (which already has income verification).
   
   
4. Require members of Congress and Cabinet to use Obamacare.

Depending on the details of the third item, this is actually not enormously different than what the Senate has been talking about. The dates on extensions are the same, and until yesterday afternoon, the Senate had been talking about a medical device tax delay. The Senate had also discussed including an income verification provision, but not the fourth item, requiring members of Congress and the Cabinet to use Obamacare. Reports yesterday said Democrats had "won" a delay in a tax opposed by unions, but House Republicans don't seem to have included that in their list of demands.

<...>

Now, here are the updates:

7:04 AM PT: Okay, ignore everything I wrote above. Costa apparently left out an important detail:

DETAILS FROM GOP BILL: debt ceiling till feb7, govt funding till jan 15. Medical device tax delay for 2yrs. Language canceling hc subsidies
— @JakeSherman

The "language canceling health care subsidies" is a reference to the income verification piece, which means that (at least according to Politico's Jake Sherman) the House bill essentially guts Obamacare, which means John Boehner is back at square one.

7:06 AM PT: According to both Costa and Sherman, the House will vote on its plan this evening, but we've heard that before from the House. Also according to Sherman, the House bill would cancel Treasury's ability to use extraordinary measures to avoid default, which is incredibly insane policy, though not as toxic as ending Obamacare subsidies would be.

7:21 AM PT: Here's another report on what House Republicans are proposing. This one makes no mention of canceling Obamacare subsidies for income verification, which would be the the worst part of what Sherman had suggested, so it's probably too early to form a final opinion of the House proposal, since it's not clear what's in it.

(emphasis added) Updated to add lastest.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/15/1247410/-House-Republican-rush-to-offer-own-plan-to-end-their-shutdown

Think Progress:

<...>

Rumors are that the House’s emerging deal would end the Treasury’s ability to take what are called extraordinary measures to avoid default. Here’s Neil Irwin’s explanation over at the Washington Post of how extraordinary measures work:

The Treasury has regularly used a variety of cash management tools to enable it to continue to carry out normal spending operations when the nation runs into the legal cap on debt issuance, including timing tricks around public employee pensions and use of the “exchange stabilization fund”…. it’s a little like a family juggling its bills by holding off making a contribution to their 401(k) for a while. So technically, we hit the legal debt ceiling of $16.699 trillion way back on May 19, even though Oct. 17 is the D-Day that the Treasury has identified as when the debt ceiling needs to be raised if the nation is to meet its financial obligations.

Eliminating these accounting tricks (the full list is here) means we’d actually wind up hitting our debt limit even sooner, and there’d be no temporary way for treasury to stave off default. Extraordinary measures have been used by the Treasury for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

When removing extraordinary measures was originally floated last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said of the proposal, “It certainly isn’t very smart.”

The Emerging House Deal

We told you about the emerging deal in the Senate — now, here’s its House counterpart:

• Funding the government at sequestration levels until January 15
  
  
• Raising the debt limit until February 7
  
  
• Income verification for recipients of subsidies under Obamacare
  
  
• Delay of the medical device tax for 2 years
  
  
• A requirement that all members of Congress and members of the cabinet sign up for Obamacare, with no employer contribution
  
  
• Ending the ability of the treasury to take ‘extraordinary measures‘ to avoid default in the future

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/15/2779001/debt-ceiling-shutdown-liveblog/

[Eric J in MN]

1. Instead of a 2 year delay in the medical device tax and

...a 3 month delay in reaching the Debt Ceiling, they should make it the other way around.

[ProSense]

2. There should be no negotiating with terrorists. n/t

[Eric J in MN]

8. That would be better still, if Democrats just stuck with

...saying the House must fund the government and raise the debt limit, period.

[ProSense]

10. Yup, and the terrorists are still adding to the list

Republicans still looking to take birth control hostage in shutdown and debt limit negotiations
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/15/1247475/-Republicans-still-looking-to-take-birth-control-hostage-in-shutdown-and-debt-limit-negotiations

[Coyotl]

3. The Tyranny Party

[SamYeager]

4. According to breaking news on the NYT web site, the Republican plan has collapsed

As of three minutes ago, Boehner can't even get his unacceptable plan past the teabaggers:

http://www.nytimes.com/?smid=tw-bna

And with the rules change, only he can put the Senate plan to a vote.

He must now depend upon Nancy Pelosi's good graces if he expects to remain speaker as it would require PElosi keeping members of her caucus from voting when the teabaggers go after Boehner's speakership.

[flamingdem]

5. Let's hope so nt

[ProSense]

6. Thanks for the link. n/t

[BluegrassStateBlues]

7. Yep. This is not the way to manage a superpower.

No other nation with our level of power would ever allow themselves to be destroyed by a minority power.

[dawg]

9. What gave him away?

The squeaky red nose or the big floppy shoes?

[treestar]

11. Too short a time period

to make any concessions. They will just demand more in January.

[tavernier]

12. The balloons have burst, the popcorn is stale

the clowns aren't funny, the tent stinks of sweat and sour whiskey.

I'm sick of this circus and I want to go home. Please make it stop.

[ProSense]

13. The terrorists have taken over. n/t