Ever since talks with the White House collapsed, the fight over the debt ceiling has fallen to Congress, where it's devolved into competing shows of force between the Democratic-controlled Senate and Republican-controlled House. Both have offered their own bills, and it's pathetic because neither bill actually has the votes to make it out of its own chamber. Harry Reid might be able to cobble together a majority for his proposal, but he'll need Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. Boehner can't even count on votes from his own party, whose restive Tea Party caucus is simply not interested in raising the ceiling (or governing, for that matter). And complicating matters for Boehner, Pelosi's Democrats are going to vote "no" en masse to force him to find the votes within his own conference. At the moment, the stalemate between the two chambers of Congress looks like nothing so much as an arthritic mating display, and they're not even fooling each other with their empty posturing and geriatric chest-puffing.
But the dynamics of the standoff may favor Harry Reid as things progress, even though Senate Democrats are currently unable to move his bill. It takes time to negotiate a new bill, for the agreement to be marked up as a bill, for the CBO to score the mark-up, and then for Congress to vote on it. Since we're only a week away from defaulting, Dems and Reps need to come to an agreement very soon. And as soon as either Reid or Boehner shows his hand by calling for a vote in his chamber, we will see that both are negotiating from a position of weakness. If the House votes first and their bill fails to pass, House Republicans might lose their leverage as moderate Senate Republicans scramble to work with Harry Reid. However, in the event that the Senate votes first and fails to move Reid's bill, I still don't think Boehner stands a much better shot at pushing his proposal through, since the far right-wing of his party is a main obstacle in the House and they seem uninterested in exploiting the looming deadline.
In order to propel his bill ahead of the Democrats', Boehner needs to show that he can assemble a majority. That would pretty much tank the Democrats' plans. But his prospects were damaged today by a disappointing score from the CBO and warnings by Wall Street that a short-term debt limit hike is insufficient - which spells bad publicity and destabilizes his standing among his base. In a sign that the Speaker recognizes his weak hand, the House vote has been put off until Thursday, so I can't say things are looking too bright for the poor guy. If the Tea Party even had one iota of interest constructive governance, they would stand behind the Republican leadership right now, hand themselves a victory, and cut their losses. But these people don't know how to quit while they're ahead. If they actually cared about leveraging their votes for policy, they would have agreed weeks ago to the grand bargain that Obama had been crafting with Boehner. Instead, they gave up their best opportunity for entitlement reforms in order to protect tax breaks for oil companies and a porous tax code for the rich. They torpedoed their own flagship just to make a point. And they'll continue this predictable holding pattern because their zealotry has reduced them to automatons.
The Democrats will prevail because they're playing strategically against people whose most salient dynamic is their lack of dynamism.
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