Why Harry Reid Fears a Long-Term Shutdown Deal

[WilliamPitt]

Why Harry Reid Fears a Long-Term Shutdown Deal

As the week of a possible government default began, talks aimed at ending the shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis revolved around a new wrinkle: the resistance of Senate majority leader Harry Reid and his fellow Senate Democrats to an agreement funding the government for a longer, rather than shorter, period of time. Say what?

Why is kicking the can down the road a couple of months a better option than staving off another government-spending showdown for a half a year, as Republicans prefer? It's because the Republican plan would lock in for even longer the $1.2 trillion in budget cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect in March and which Democrats really hate.

Democrats want to replace the economy-crimping sequester with a less austere plan that includes more targeted cuts and higher total spending levels. Reid is OK with extending current sequester-level spending—but only until mid-January, so a broader budget deal that includes Democratic priorities can be worked out before deeper spending cuts go into effect. If the House somehow forces a longer term deal, it would be much harder for Reid and Democrats to negotiate a substitute for the sequester, say, six months from now because the fiscal year (which began October 1) would be half over. That would mean that the current deep budget cuts, which have already resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, would likely drag on and on.

Reid does not want a deal that un-shuts the government to prevent him from waging a fight over sequestration. In September, he says, he agreed to a temporary continuing resolution that would keep the US government open for two months at the spending levels dictated by sequestration, and considered that a concession to House Speaker John Boehner and the Republicans. He did so with the expectation that he could still try to undo some of the consequences of sequestration in the 2014 budget. And with the House Republicans now on the ropes in the dual shutdown/debt ceiling crisis, he has seen his leverage increase and has pushed for the chance to wage another battle over sequestration.

The rest: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/harry-reid-sequestration-susan-collins-deal

Thoughts?

[BumRushDaShow]

1. I did hear that the Democrats want to get rid of the sequestration

which is risky with this current congress... However they need to push to remove the debt ceiling issue once and for all and require that it be automatically increased upon passage/signature on any appropriations bills. That would help focus on the spending levels.

[WilliamPitt]

2. Up