Senate Debt/Shutdown Deal Basically a Punt

When I got home last night from work after a stop off at the grocery store (whose United Food and Commercial Workers employees are looking at potentially going on strike, having been locked for some time in contentious negotiations with the employer group) I checked the messages on my answering machine. It's campaign season. So there was an invitation to participate in a conference call sponsored by opponents of the GMO-labeling initiative that will be on the ballot in November; there was a message from a city council candidate, I believe; an offer to have my carpets and drapes professionally cleaned. But the lengthiest message of the four was one from Glenn Beck urging me to sign "even if I have already signed before" a petition telling Obama to de-fund Obamacare. Several years ago -- it has to be going on six or seven -- I ended up on a conservative robodial list. I actually I appreciate it because it lets me know what issues are percolating among the Tea Party driven Right Wing.

Here's the skinny on the deal being hatched in the Senate to re-open the federal government and to avoid default on the sovereign debt of the United States. Based on what's being reported there are five components to the deal, one of which is not a repeal of the medical device tax. The best synopsis I have read is one that Paul Krugman links to in a blog post from yesterday, "Almost Over"; it is an update provided by Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski. The five components are:

1. Reopen the government through January 15.
2. Lift the debt ceiling through February 7.
3. Begin a House-Senate conference with a deadline of December 15 to pass a budget that ends the sequester.
4. Department of Health and Human Services certify incomes of individuals qualifying for a health care subsidy.
5. Delay for one year a reinsurance tax that mandates, according to the IRS, "[A]ll health insurance issuers and third-party administrators on behalf of self-insured group health plans to make contributions under this program to support payments to individual market issuers that cover high-cost individuals."

Numbers four and five are meant to balance out. Four is a conservative demand; five is a union one (according to Lesniewski unions pushed for the delay; they're worried about absorbing the hit to their health & welfare funds). By having four and five offset you can make the argument that you're not caving in to Tea Party blackmail. But the New York Times editorial board isn't buying it. This is from today's unsigned editorial, "The Senate Tries to End the Crisis":

Senate negotiators insist that the income verification process would not impose any delays on the health law’s coverage of the uninsured, beginning in January, or the individual mandate to buy insurance. They said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, would quickly make the certification, which would later be audited by the department’s inspector general. But the White House needs to provide assurance that this would not affect the implementation of the law in the slightest.

Delaying the insurance company tax, according to negotiators, doesn’t count as ransom, because Republicans never asked for it. In fact, it was requested by unions who object to paying more through their own health policies. But that strained logic doesn’t make it a good idea. If the delay is not paid for in some way — details remain unclear — it could force some insurers to raise premiums and make coverage less affordable. Without another source of money, the proposal should not be included in the final package.

Excepting income verification and reinsurance tax delay, the Senate deal shaping up is a punt, plain and simple. It is hard to see how the Tea Party caucus in the House votes for a punt. Maybe they do, figuring they can shut down the government again on January 15. But that seems unlikely. You can't keep pressing the shutdown button. Sooner or later there will be some serious blowback; organized push-back, I would imagine, is not far off.

So once again, we're back to where we started. Does Boehner allow a vote?