The next 24 hours will be apparently be pivotal as the nation approaches the August 2nd debt ceiling. Deal or no deal? The specter of financial chaos is looming. The President put Social Security and Medicare on the table. And, it's unclear if even that's enough to get movement from the GOP:
President Obama prepared Thursday to bring bipartisan talks over the debt to a close, as Senate leaders worked across party lines to craft an alternative strategy to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit and avert a government default.Still no guarantee that House GOPers, now clearly led by Eric Cantor, will go along. I think it's unwise for anyone to assume that rationality will prevail among Cantor's caucus. We're not dealing with rational characters among those House GOPers. Seriously irrational is more like it.
“It’s decision time,” Obama told congressional leaders after meeting at the White House for a fifth straight day. Obama gave Republicans until early Saturday to tell him whether any of three options for trimming the federal budget would win GOP support.
“We need concrete plans to move this forward,” he said.
A breakthrough in the White House talks looked unlikely, however, leaving the Senate framework as the chief option for raising the debt limit before Aug. 2, when the Treasury will be unable to pay its bills without additional borrowing authority.
So, Obama's says, "It's decision time." Does that matter?
And, I'm still not sure what the White House strategy is or has been. But, then again, I haven't understood the White House strategy on many issues for the past two and a half years.
