Growing prospect of government shutdown

Plenty of posturing on both sides, with President Obama turning down the Republican offer of a one-week extension in return for $12 billion in immediate spending cuts. "I can't have my agencies making plans on two-week budgets," he said. From the NYT:

As the news circulated in the morning that a White House meeting had produced no deal between Mr. Boehner and Mr. Obama, Senator Charles Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said that if a shutdown was in the offing, the blame should lie at the feet of Republicans, who had rejected a Democratic proposal to cut $33 billion and leave the government open for the rest of the year. "A deal with $33 billion in spending cuts is right there for the taking," Mr. Schumer said in an e-mail. "But the House leadership will need to stand up to the Tea Party." Democrats also denounced the Republicans' long-term proposal.

The deadlock comes on the same day that the Republicans proposed a Tea Party-inspired long-term budget plan that would involve $5.8 trillion in cuts over 10 years.

The plan, drafted principally by Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the Budget Committee, proposes not only to limit federal spending and reconfigure major federal health programs, but also to rewrite the tax code, cutting the top tax rate for both individuals and corporations to 25 percent from 35 percent, reducing the number of income tax brackets and eliminating what it calls a "burdensome tangle of loopholes."

From political analyst Charlie Cook:

Talking with Republican pollsters, strategists and veteran campaign professionals recently, I now hear sounds of concern that haven't been heard in almost two years. Among the worries the party now has is that a government shutdown could get blamed on the GOP. Additionally, these party insiders believe that taking on entitlements, specifically Medicare, could jeopardize the party's hold on the House, its strong chances of taking the Senate and the stronghold that the party has been established with older white voters--not coincidentally, Medicare recipients.

[CUT]

While the GOP has worked hard to bring their freshmen and more ideological members around to the realities of politics, these freshmen and other rank-and-file members are getting pressure from back home not to compromise with Democrats. These constituents don't want any more short-term deals, and their pressure is offsetting the efforts by the party's leadership to do things step by step so as to not jeopardize the party's chances for gains in the Senate.