October 06, 2013
Republican Congressman to
Byron York on the current fiscal crisis:
"I would liken this a little bit to Gettysburg, where a Confederate unit went looking for shoes and stumbled into Union cavalry, and all of a sudden found itself embroiled in battle on a battlefield it didn't intend to be on, and everybody just kept feeding troops into it. That's basically what's happening now in a political sense. This isn't exactly the fight I think Republicans wanted to have, certainly that the leadership wanted to have, but it's the fight that's here."
Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Michele Bachmann celebrate the government shutdown by throwing a raucous house party on
Saturday Night Live.
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"I'm a progressive activist fiscal conservative, but I'm still a fiscal conservative. And so we can't talk about tax cuts in any sector until we sort out our financial situation."
-- New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio (D), quoted by
CBS New York.
House Speaker John Boehner "flatly refused to schedule votes for full government funding or to raise the debt ceiling without concessions from Democrats, asserting that the House couldn't and shouldn't take either step without addressing problems with the new health care law and the nation's debt crisis,"
ABC News reports.
"Some 21 House Republicans have said publicly that they're willing to support a 'clean' measure to extend all government funding without other conditions attached... That's apparently enough, when added to Democratic votes, to pass a bill out of the House."
But Boehner disputed that notion: "There are not the votes in the house to pass a clean CR."
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"Tea party activists made an energetic showing Saturday at a California Republican Party convention, promoting resolutions to block the state's high-speed rail project and require voters to show photo identification at the polls as part of a push to influence the direction of the struggling state organization," the
AP reports.
"The meeting represented the best organized effort to date by the tea party to become a force within the state party, as leaders consider how to rebuild after being pushed to the political margins in the nation's most populous state."
"In the clearest sign yet of the potent effect of the government shutdown on the Virginia governor's race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli avoided being photographed with Ted Cruz at a gala they headlined here Saturday night--even leaving before the Texas senator rose to speak,"
Politico reports.
"Cruz has become the face of GOP intransigence, and the conservative attorney general's effort to distance himself from congressional Republicans reflects how damaging Cuccinelli realizes a prolonged shutdown may be for his campaign."
John Avlon talks with former FBI hostage negotiator Christopher Voss about how to end the fiscal crisis in Washington, D.C.
Said Voss: "It actually reminds me of a prison siege. The opposition isn't particularly organized. The smart move is to pick among the leadership on the other side who is the most reasonable. Then you empower them by talking with them and granting some sort of small concession. And they suddenly gain a lot of influence on their side."
"If the United States government, for the first time in its history, chooses not to pay its bills on time, we will be in default. There is no option that prevents us from being in default if we don't have enough cash to pay our bills."
-- Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, quoted by the
Washington Post, adding that, "Congress is playing with fire."
Robert Costa: "They may sometimes be silent and fearful of stirring conservative ire,
but more than 100 members of the House GOP aremuch more centrist than
you'd imagine. These are the members from purple and light-red
districts, who rarely go on television and, unlike their more unruly
colleagues, stick with the leadership. They are critical to sustaining
Boehner's power, and, should the GOP find a way to extend the debt limit
and once again fund the government, they'll deserve credit."
"Ultimately, a large group of rank-and-file Republicans wants the mess
to end. They may not have the moxie to outmaneuver House conservatives,
but they certainly have the numbers."
A new
Public Policy Polling survey finds that if the 2014 midterm elections were held today, Republicans "would be in grave danger of losing control of the House of Representatives."
In a series of 24 surveys in GOP-held House districts, Republican incumbents are behind in match ups with generic Democratic challengers in 17 districts. In 4 other districts, the incumbent Republican trails after being told that the incumbent supported the government shutdown. In just 3 districts are incumbents leading generic challengers after voters are told the incumbent supported the government shutdown.
Democrats need 17 seats to win control of the House. These results show that if the election were held today, such a pickup would be within reach.
A senior House Republican tells
CNN that "one idea being considered to end the immediate fiscal impasse is a bill to fund the government and extend the nation's borrowing authority for six weeks."
"The GOP lawmaker said a committee could then be set up to negotiate the fiscal issues dividing the two parties and negotiate a plan to keep the government funded for the rest of the year without the proverbial gun to their heads."
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"The ideological, cultural and political differences that led to this moment of extreme governmental dysfunction are almost certain to shape elections and legislative battles in the near term,"
Dan Balz reports.
"That is the conclusion of politicians, political strategists and scholars who have been living with a deepening red-blue divide in America that they say has made this era of politics the most polarized in more than a century. However bad it may have seemed in the 1990s, the last time there was a shutdown , or after the contested presidential election in 2000, or a decade ago during a divisive war, the fundamentals are worse today."
"Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama's health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan," the
New York Times reports.
"Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed '
blueprint to defunding Obamacare,' signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups."
"It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans -- including their cautious leaders -- into cutting off financing for the entire federal government."
October 05, 2013
New York Times: "The twin shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 had a theme: Cut federal spending, especially on Medicare, to eliminate the budget deficit in a prescribed length of time. This time around, even many Republicans no longer know what they want to achieve."
Said Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL): "I think now it's a lot about pride."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) "may be catching grief from some fellow Republicans in Congress for his role as a leader of the group in Congress in favor of shutting down the government rather than funding the Affordable Care Act, but he's getting support from the Florida Republican Party," the
Tampa Tribune reports.
"The state party's caucus of state committeemen and committeewomen, who make up the governing executive committee of the party, just voted by acclamation during a meeting in Orlando to express their support for Cruz."
"This mess was created by the Republicans for one purpose, and they lost. People in my district are calling in for Obamacare -- affordable health care -- in large numbers. These guys have lost, and they can't figure out how to admit it... So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin' lost."
-- Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), quoted by
Slate, on when the government shutdown will end.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) traveled to California to contrast that state's "big government, protectionist, nanny state" with his "limited-government, unsubsidized, freedom state," the
Los Angeles Times reports.
It's his attempt to lay the groundwork for another presidential bid after the first one in 2012 didn't go so well.
"A second try depends on Perry's ability to dramatically alter his image. To that end, the governor is coursing across the country with new hipster glasses and a more disciplined approach, taking on Democratic governors' policies, trying to swipe their state's jobs, and putting himself prominently in the public eye."
A new
National Journal poll finds that just 14% of women said the Republican Party had moved closer to their perspective since the 2012 presidential election. More than twice as many women, 33%, said the party had drifted further from them. A plurality, 46%, saw no change.
"You really have to call Cruz, I'm not even joking about that. That's
really what you have to do, because he's the one that set up the
strategy, he's the one that got us into this mess, and so we've got to
know what the next move is."
-- Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), quoted by the
New York Times, when asked what Republicans were going to do next in the budget standoff.
In an interview with the
Associated Press, President Obama contrasted his tenure as a senator with the current crop of first-term Republican senators, saying he "didn't go around courting the media" or "trying to shut down the government" while he was in the Senate.
Said Obama: "I recognize that in today's media age, being controversial, taking controversial positions, rallying the most extreme parts of your base, whether it's left or right, is a lot of times the fastest way to get attention and raise money. But it's not good for government."
Hillary Clinton said she would consider mounting another presidential bid sometime next year,
Newsday reports.
Said Clinton: "I want to think seriously about it. I probably won't start thinking about it until sometime next year."
She admitted that it's "something on a lot of people's minds, and it's on my mind as well."
Marc Thiessen: "Quick: What do Republicans want in exchange for ending the government shutdown? If you know the answer, congratulations -- because Republicans sure don't."
"It calls to mind the episode of
Seinfeld where Jerry and George are coming up with an idea for a show to pitch to NBC -- and decide it will be '
a show about nothing. That's what this standoff has become -- the Seinfeld Shutdown, a shutdown about nothing."
"Obama presses GOP's Boehner"
--
Richmond Times Dispatch, October 4, 2013.
Democrats
outlined a plan to use a "discharge petition" to force a vote to end the government shutdown. It effectively overrides House leaders by presenting a petition signed by a majority of representatives to bring a bill to vote on the floor.
Speaker John Boehner's press secretary immediately
dismissed the idea on Twitter: "Ah, the old discharge petition move. Zero percent of the time it works every time."
Except that
Digital First Media finds four high profile times the maneuver has worked in the past.
"Today, too many in our politics choose scorched earth over common ground. Many of our public debates are happening in what I like to call an evidence-free zone, where ideology trumps data and common sense. That is a recipe for paralysis, not progress."
-- Hillary Clinton, quoted by the
Associated Press.
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