After a bit of wrangling between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over how to proceed on Reid's debt-ceiling plan, the Senate has begun dispatching with the Boehner plan. The vote is finishing up now.
At issue, for theatrics only, between McConnell and Reid was McConnell's offer to have the cloture vote on Reid's plan immediately. Reid said that an immediate vote would be fine by him, as long as it was an up or down vote on his plan and not a cloture vote. Which of course is not happening.
Rumors abound about what happens next, besides a great deal of horsetrading, none of which is likely to be good news for poor and middle-class Americans.
The two sides are discussing trigger mechanisms that could be used to build bipartisan support. Such triggers would force Congress to carry out another round of deficit reduction before the 2012 election.
Reid has a plan that would cut more than $2 trillion and set up a select joint committee to assemble a package to further reduce the deficit. [...]
But many lawmakers are skeptical that a special bipartisan panel, evenly split between six Democrats and six Republicans, could reach an agreement.
One possibility under consideration is to automatically enact spending cuts and tax increases—a penalty painful to both Democrats and Republicans—if the committee fails to act.
Another fail-safe option would be to automatically implement the instructions of the Senate’s Gang of Six framework, which calls for steep spending cuts, reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and about $1 trillion in increased revenues. The group projects its plan would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion.
But then there's this:
It's going to be a looooong, painful, and stupid weekend.
5:23 PM PT: The motion to table, kill the Boehner plan, is agreed to 59-41. That was so worth all our while.
6:20 PM PT (Barbara Morrill): Senate adjourned until 1:00 PM ET tomorrow when they will do more "compromising" on the so-called "modified" Reid bill.
Reid complained that they've been "negotiating with ourselves," and now the message is, "We've given them EVERYTHING! Our next move? Give more."
Tune in tomorrow.
