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	<title>SwamplandCategory: John Boehner &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: John Boehner &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<item>
		<title>Why John Boehner Wants Another Grand Bargain (And Why He Probably Won&#8217;t Get One)</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/17/why-john-boehner-is-going-for-another-grand-bargain-and-why-he-probably-wont-get-one/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/17/why-john-boehner-is-going-for-another-grand-bargain-and-why-he-probably-wont-get-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=59873</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Twice this summer House Speaker John Boehner tried for a grand bargain on deficit reduction and twice the deal collapsed, in part because there just wasn’t support from within his own conference for the increased tax revenue that Democrats demanded. Fast forward three months, and Boehner is in much the same place.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=59873&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/17/why-john-boehner-is-going-for-another-grand-bargain-and-why-he-probably-wont-get-one/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sl_boehner_1116_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Amid Supercommittee Wrangling, Tax Reform Gains Momentum</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/02/amid-supercommittee-wrangling-tax-reform-gains-momentum/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/02/amid-supercommittee-wrangling-tax-reform-gains-momentum/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=58914</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whether or not Congress&#8217;s deficit supercommittee succeeds in finding $1.2 trillion in savings by Thanksgiving, one likely result is that sometime in the next 18 months, Congress will tackle tax reform. There are already many areas of agreement between Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Democrats&#8217; top tax writer, and Republican Rep. Dave Camp, his counterpart on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Over the last year, both men have held a series of hearings on the issue. Tax reform isn’t something that should be done hastily– just look at the Savings &#38; Loan Crisis produced by the rushed tax reform process in 1986 – but with so much already discussed, a comprehensive overhaul is already well on it’s way. So much is apparent in the current supercommittee negotiations. Last week, deficit negotiators from both sides unveiled their offers. Dems proposed a $3 trillion-deficit cutting plan and Republicans proposed a $2.2 trillion version. The biggest difference? Taxes. The seemingly wide rift on this issue was on display at a public hearing Tuesday, during which Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling  sharply told Senator Patty Murray,  &#8220;Certainly we cannot tax our way out of this crisis.&#8221; But this sparring belies the state of near-consensus on tax reform. There’s now enough agreement that if Republicans were to give an inch on revenue, a deal could quickly be achieved. (MORE: Tax Reform and the Revenue Problem) If the supercommittee does come to an agreement, it will likely include $800 billion in new revenue that House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor discussed with the White House during the summer&#8217;s heated debt ceiling talks. Assuming the agreement is passed by both chambers, the supercommittee would send instructions on tax reform to the relevant Congressional committees, which would then spend much of next year enacting tax reform. There are two sticking points: Democrats are demanding a few hundred billion dollars in revenue increases up front, which would be achieved in part by doing away with the  flashy deductions for the rich that they&#8217;ve been<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=58914&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/11/02/amid-supercommittee-wrangling-tax-reform-gains-momentum/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sl_supercommittee_1101_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Why John Boehner Needs to Reassure Wall Street</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/09/why-john-boehner-needs-to-reassure-wall-street/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/09/why-john-boehner-needs-to-reassure-wall-street/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2011 18:37:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt ceiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wall street]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=47524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[House Speaker John Boehner will address the Economic Club of New York City on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Monday night. Though Boehner has long been an avowed friend of business – he received a 94% Chamber of Commerce rating in 2008 &#8212; it will not be a pleasant visit. The Ohio Republican made his fortune, estimated to be between $2.5 million and $7 million according to congressional disclosure records, as a small business entrepreneur at a plastics packaging company he helped to start. He has been an unabashed friend to lobbyists on K-Street, which is populated by many former proteges, a tight-knit circle known as Boehnerland. His occasional breaks from the party line have been on business-related issues like immigration and China.&#8221;It&#8217;s been an advantage as business people come in and testify about laws being proposed. I can appreciate where they&#8217;re coming from,&#8221; Boehner told the Small Business News in Dayton in 1995. &#8220;Far too many members of Congress have never had a job in the private sector.&#8221; But there can be a big difference between a pro-business Republican and a fiscally conservative Republican. And that rift will be on display over the next few months. Most U.S. business groups have been pushing for Washington to pass the debt ceiling well before August, when the Treasury Department estimates the limit will be reached. Congress rarely leaves much time between action and deadline, but Wall Street has been issuing increasingly dire warnings not to run out the clock on this particular negotiation. From a recent J.P. Morgan report entitled, “The Domino Effect of a U.S. Treasury Technical Default”: Even if Treasury avoided a default, we think the delay in raising the debt ceiling is likely to negatively impact markets, as investors undertake risk-management actions in preparation for a potential Treasury default. Already, some market indicators are showing considerable odds that the debt ceiling won’t be raised by July. Because the tail risks from a technical default are so large, a prolonged delay in raising the debt ceiling seems likely to impact<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=47524&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/09/why-john-boehner-needs-to-reassure-wall-street/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/boehner.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">boehner</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Five Things Obama&#8217;s Learned about Boehner</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/11/5-things-obama%e2%80%99s-learned-about-boehner/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/11/5-things-obama%e2%80%99s-learned-about-boehner/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the night that Republicans won control of the House, the White House Press Office came to a startling realization: They had no contact information for Speaker-to-be John Boehner. In President Obama’s first two years in office, he’d reached out to House Republicans so little that they had no reason to get to know – or even get phone numbers or e-mails for – Boehner’s staff. Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse was asked to call his fishing buddy, Nick Schaper, who was  Boehner’s new media director at the time. Schaper gave the appropriate names and numbers to Woodhouse, who then relayed them to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Oh, how the times have changed. Obama may not exactly have Boehner on speed dial, but the two have certainly talked – and learned about each other –more in the last week than ever before. Their partnership yielded a budget deal that not only kept the government running, but was also (mostly) praised by Democrats and Republicans as a victory for both men. They aren’t as close as Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill were –as Reagan famously put it, they were “friends after 6pm” – but the relationship is increasingly cordial. Obama isn’t the first Democrat Boehner has reached across the aisle to work with. As chairman of the Education and Work Force Committee, Boehner formed a friendship with Ted Kennedy, who sat on the Senate&#8217;s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Their partnership not only produced the landmark No Child Left Behind education bill and a massive overhaul of the nation’s pension laws, but also a collaborative charity for DC Catholic schools – a project Boehner fought for amid recent government cuts. I can&#8217;t get inside Obama’s head, but listed below are five things I’m guessing he learned about Boehner during last week&#8217;s budget negotiations. These lessons are particularly important as both leaders turn from cutting billions of dollars to cutting trillions of dollars as they tackle long-term deficit reduction and the debt ceiling in the coming months. Brinksmanship. Boehner plays the line. As<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44452&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/11/5-things-obama%e2%80%99s-learned-about-boehner/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>41</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Maybe It Really Is About Abortion&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/maybe-it-really-is-about-abortion/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/maybe-it-really-is-about-abortion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:46:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shut down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44326</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List and Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, just held a conference call in which Jordan said the fight is all about abortion. “The country’s broke. The vast majority of Americans, whether they’re pro-life or not, don’t want their tax dollars being spent to take the life of unborn children,” Jordan said. When asked about how no federal funds go to paying for abortions – Planned Parenthood carefully segregates the funds – Jordan scoffed: “Come on. Money is fungible, and for them to make that claim – it’s just common sense that money is fungible. We think that tax payers understand this and they don’t want their money to be used in this manner.” Speaker Boehner said this morning that “almost all of the policy issues have been dealt with and there is no agreement on the spending limit.” But Jordan’s remarks would seem to contradict this claim. The Republican Study Committee represents 175 of the most conservative Republicans – a giant bloc without whom Boehner cannot pass anything. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told reporters this afternoon that after House and Senate negotiators came to an agreement on $38 billion in cuts, Boehner brought up this rider.  “[At] midnight last night it was down to one issue: Title X. They made a proposal to us and we said, &#8216;That’s unacceptable,’” Durbin said. “And then they spent the rest of the night &#8212; instead of saying, ‘Ok, can we re-approach that’ – saying, ‘Ok, let’s reopen the conversation on the numbers.’ You know that is maddening. At some point this has to come to a close.” Durbin said the Senate is digging in its heels at $38 billion. The fact that Boehner asked for more money would hint that abortion isn’t really the sticking point, but Democratic aides say the issue isn’t money. “If it were a matter for a couple more billion in cuts in exchange for them dropping Title X, don’t you think we would’ve done that by<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44326&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/maybe-it-really-is-about-abortion/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>30</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Tea Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/tea-party/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Mixed Messages on a Possible Budget Deal</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/mixed-messages-on-a-possible-budget-deal/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/mixed-messages-on-a-possible-budget-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:55:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44313</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Someone is lying. Or spinning us mercilessly, if you prefer to be charitable. A little after 2 PM, Harry Reid stepped in front of a slate of cameras to accuse House Republicans of &#8220;wanting to shut down the federal government over women&#8217;s access to health care.&#8221; If that sounds ridiculous, Reid added, &#8220;it is ridiculous.&#8221; Not true, says John Boehner. After a noon GOP conference meeting in the basement of the Capitol, the House Speaker hewed to his party&#8217;s message. &#8220;Most of the policy issues have been dealt with,&#8221; Boehner said. &#8220;The big fight is over the spending.&#8221; For the most part, the Republicans trickling out of the meeting hewed to their leader&#8217;s line. &#8220;The stumbling block is money,&#8221; says Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Committee on Government Oversight. By all accounts, the parties are close &#8212; if not united &#8212; on that count. Earlier Friday, Reid reported that Boehner had offered $38 billion in spending cuts during a Thursday night meeting at the White House&#8212;a figure Democrats accepted. While Reid accused Boehner of welching on a deal because of pressure from his right flank, Republicans say the deal hasn&#8217;t been sealed. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said there was still daylight on both the total tally and where the cuts would come from. &#8220;The riders have been dealt with,&#8221; Rogers added. But if so, how? Operating under the assumption that any information disseminated at the conference meeting &#8212; at whose doors a battery of reporters lurked, waiting to buttonhole exiting Congressmen &#8212; would leak like a sieve, Boehner largely withheld details of the negotiations from his members, according to several Republicans. Rogers said about a dozen members spoke during the conference meeting, which had a positive tenor. The party, he said, has coalesced behind Boehner&#8217;s attempts to wring every cent from Democrats before the midnight deadline. But some Republicans bristled at the notion that the contentious policy issues have basically been dispensed with. Asked whether the impasse was about money or ideology, Rep. Jim Jordan of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44313&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/mixed-messages-on-a-possible-budget-deal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Is This Really All About Abortion?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/is-this-really-all-about-abortion/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/is-this-really-all-about-abortion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:00:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shut down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44276</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This morning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the networks together and gave them an update on the negotiations (as I type this Reid is starting another press conference in the Senate). He said the issues have narrowed to one: abortion. Reid said House Speaker John Boehner is pushing a rider that would make Title X into block grants, thus enabling governors to do as they wish with the money. Most conservative governors would immediately defund Planned Parenthood. The group doesn&#8217;t use federal money to provide abortions &#8212; the federal money goes to mammograms, contraceptives and family planning for mostly poor women. But conservatives have never liked Planned Parenthood, which does, separately, provide abortion services. Boehner&#8217;s office, meanwhile, issued a statement insisting that the riders were not the central hitching point to the negotiations. &#8220;While nothing will be decided until everything is decided, the largest issue is still spending cuts,&#8221; said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. &#8220;The American people want to cut spending to help the private sector create jobs &#8212; and the Democrats that run Washington don&#8217;t.&#8221; Reid was asked by CNN&#8217;s Brianna Keilar if he&#8217;d offered Boehner more money to drop the Title X rider. He said he had, but that Boehner had turned him down. This surprises me as I&#8217;ve always been under the impression that Boehner was using the policy riders as leverage for more cuts &#8212; that he never really expected to move the needle on abortion, climate change or health care reform. The brouhaha over the riders must be taken with a grain of salt as it behooves Dems to portray Boehner as obsessed with &#8220;extreme&#8221; riders rather than negotiating in good faith on funding the government. Given that even Michele Bachmann called on Boehner to drop the riders and just pass a &#8220;clean&#8221; one week extension to give negotiators more time*, I&#8217;d be surprised if the only issue at play here is truly Title X. *Bachmann voiced support for passing a no-rider bill that would insure that military paychecks continue in the event of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44276&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/is-this-really-all-about-abortion/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>48</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Tea Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/tea-party/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Boehner&#8217;s Choice</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/boehners-choice/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/08/boehners-choice/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:49:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State Governments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shut down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44261</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Boehner has a decision to make. And in some ways it&#8217;s akin to choosing between his children. By midnight tonight the government will shut down unless an agreement can be reached between the Speaker and President Obama. Whatever Boehner decides will have long-reaching implications for his Speakership. Ideally, Boehner would have preferred extending government funding by another week but Obama threatened to veto such a bill and the Democratically-controlled Senate declared it a “non-starter,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it. Boehner can, and has, made the case that the onus to prevent a shutdown was on Democrats &#8211; that he gave them a bipartisan option that they rejected (15 House Democrats voted for the measure). Sure, the extension came with a steep price tag, but negotiators had already agreed to the $12 billion in cuts. The bill would’ve also funded the military for the rest of the year, a move most in Congress would readily endorse with so many troops in harm&#8217;s way. As of last night 51 senators, including a handful of Democrats, had co-sponsored similar legislation. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, put Boehner’s bill on the Senate schedule late last night, but it’s unlikely the extension will come up for a vote unless a broader agreement is reached. Reid made it clear yesterday that he&#8217;d reached the end of short-term extensions.  There have been seven since Democrats last year failed to pass a 2011 budget. After the midterm elections, each extension came with increasingly painful cuts. Democrats, Reid argued, have already agreed to more cuts than the $34 billion first proposed in the House. Senate Dems upped their offer yesterday to $34.5 billion &#8211; more than half of the $61 billion House Republicans ultimately demanded &#8212; including $3 billion in Pentagon cuts approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. &#8220;They&#8217;re not taking yes for an answer on these spending cuts,&#8221; says a Senate Democratic aide. &#8220;Now they&#8217;re digging in their heels on these extreme riders. If they shut down the government over this, it<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44261&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>85</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Tea Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/tea-party/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>With Time Running Out, Still No Budget Deal</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/07/with-time-running-out-still-no-budget-deal/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/07/with-time-running-out-still-no-budget-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:33:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44217</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Updated, 9:55 PM As negotiations over the federal budget crawl toward a conclusion, the process has taken on something of a surreal flavor. Members of Congress busy themselves by putting out statements assigning blame for an event they can prevent. A President intent on floating above the fray parachutes in at the eleventh hour to chide both parties for acting like children. The two parties&#8217; point men take a break from maligning each other&#8217;s integrity to hold joint press conferences at which they conflate conversation with progress. And an expectant press lurks on the sidelines, waiting for a nugget of information to package as breaking news, even if the news is that nothing has changed. And nothing has changed. In the past 24 hours, President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate majority leader Harry Reid have huddled in the Oval Office three times in hopes of hashing out a deal that would fund the government through the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year and sidestep a government shutdown. After the third conclave, which concluded around 9:30 PM, the three negotiators reported progress but no pact. “We have narrowed the issues, however, we have not yet reached an agreement,&#8221; Boehner and Reid said in a terse joint statement. &#8220;We will continue to work through the night to attempt to resolve our remaining differences.” Neither took questions from the press. Nor did President Obama, who took the podium in the briefing room after the meeting broke up to urge Congressional leaders to avert a shutdown he said would furlough hundreds of thousands of workers, impact millions of others and &#8220;severely [hamper] our recovery and our ability to put people back to work.&#8221; Noting that aides would be working through the night, Obama said that because &#8220;the machinery of a shutdown is starting to move, I expect an answer in the morning.&#8221; He conceded, however, that he was &#8220;not yet prepared to express wild optimism.&#8221; The readout was similar to that issued this afternoon, when the two congressional leaders, talking quietly, trudged<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44217&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>27</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/boehner-reid.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/boehner-reid.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/boehner-reid.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">boehner reid</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">More...</media:title>
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		<title>Riders on the (Shutdown) Storm</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/07/riders-on-the-shutdown-storm/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/07/riders-on-the-shutdown-storm/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:37:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shut down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44194</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The budget debate is far from over, but the good news is that they&#8217;re still talking: Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner are heading back to the White House at 1 p.m. on Thursday. But the morning&#8217;s gloomy prognostications don&#8217;t bode well for the chances of averting a government shutdown. If you listen to Reid tell it, the sticking point in the negotiations on funding the government isn&#8217;t money. &#8220;The numbers are basically there,&#8221; Reid said in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday morning. &#8220;But I am not nearly as optimistic as I was 11 hours ago. The only thing holding up an agreement is ideology &#8230; The two issues holding us up are the choice of women, reproductive rights, and clean air. These matters have no place on a budget bill.&#8221; Reid was referring to two of hundreds of controversial riders that were attached to the House omnibus bill funding the government for the rest of 2011. The amendments would defund everything from health care reform to Planned Parenthood to the Environmental Protection Agency&#8217;s regulation of greenhouse gases. They came in the form of riders because by law, legislating is not supposed to be done on the back of the budget. In other words: if you have a problem, go through the regular committee process. &#8220;This is a bill that funds the government. It shouldn&#8217;t be a bill changing the EPA&#8217;s rules and regulations. That should be done on environmental legislation,&#8221; Reid lamented. &#8220;And we can&#8217;t just walk out of a room and resolve an issue that has been around for 40 years, like abortion.&#8221; Boehner disputed Reid&#8217;s take in a press conference 90 minutes later. &#8220;I think we were closer to a number last night than we are this morning,&#8221; he told reporters. &#8220;Our goal has never been to shut down the government &#8230; All of us want this to be finished &#8230; [But] we have policy provisions we feel strongly about.&#8221; Let&#8217;s be realistic: I don&#8217;t think Boehner has any illusions that<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44194&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>41</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Pick Your Own Ending: Shutdown Version</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/06/pick-your-own-ending-shutdown-version/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/06/pick-your-own-ending-shutdown-version/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:47:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shut down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Obama and Speaker Boehner talked this morning by phone – always a good sign that the lines of communications remain open. Though, the fact that the discussion lasted all of three minutes is a tad troubling. As the government lurches towards a possible shutdown, I thought it would be useful to outline the choices facing the leaders this week. They reach a deal to cut $33 40* billion and the government is funded for the rest of the year. The challenge here is that the two sides couldn’t even agree on how to cut $33 billion so how are they going to find another $7 billion in cuts? Not to mention those pesky riders… I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m just saying, if a deal is reached it’ll happen just before midnight Friday when the funding runs out. Congress works best on a deadline. If a plan is in place, a shutdown over the weekend would be treated by the media as a minor blip – as the last time it happened under George H. W. Bush – and life would return to normal on Monday.*Boehner reportedly rejected the $33 billion number at the White House meeting yesterday and said he wanted $40 billion in cuts. Boehner passes a one-week extension that cuts $12 billion and the Senate eats it. This is actually more plausible than I’d originally thought. The White House and Senate have rejected the offer as outrageous but the $12 billion in cuts are part of the $16 billion both sides have already agreed to. The only rider on it is a relatively non-controversial one dealing with funding abortions in DC that has the most bipartisan support of any of the riders. So, will Dems really risk a shut down over $12 billion in cuts they already support? Boehner is trying to box Dems into taking more responsibility for a potential shut down than they’d like. The problem with a week-long $12 billion extension is that it takes some of the sweeteners off of the final<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44108&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/06/pick-your-own-ending-shutdown-version/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Are We Heading for a Government Shutdown?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/05/are-we-heading-for-a-government-shutdown/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/05/are-we-heading-for-a-government-shutdown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:57:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=44003</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The odds of a government shutdown were raised significantly this morning after House GOP leaders and President Obama failed to reach an agreement to continue funding the government. “While there was a good discussion, no agreement was reached,” Speaker John Boehner’s staff wrote in an e-mail to reporters following the White House meeting. “The Speaker reminded those present that there has never been an agreement on $33 billion as an acceptable level of spending cuts, and that $33 billion in cuts is not enough, particularly when it is achieved in large part through budget gimmicks.” On a call early last week White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Boehner’s staff agreed to allow the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to begin sketching out what $33 billion in cuts would look like. The two chambers have already passed $10 billion in cuts, so really the two committees were looking for $23 billion in savings. The two sides agreed on roughly $7.5 billion in cuts to discretionary spending, according to a Senate source, as well as $8 billion in cuts to mandatory spending. The White House wanted to make up the final $7.5 billion in more mandatory cuts – by accelerating the timeline for cutting Pell Grants for summer school and graduate students, cuts to the State Children’s Health Insurance Plans and eliminating funding for Kent Conrad’s health care coops. But Boehner wanted the final money to come out of discretionary spending – thus the impasse. The talks began to collapse over the weekend when Obama called Boehner and Boehner made it clear to the President that he never agreed to the $33 billion level and that the cuts to discretionary spending weren’t deep enough – especially if few of the House’s so-called riders would make it through the Senate. The House budget bill included hundreds of controversial riders that defund everything from health care reform to Planned Parenthood to the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases. Most of those riders have little chance of garnering 60 votes to pass<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=44003&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/05/are-we-heading-for-a-government-shutdown/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>71</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Can John Boehner Convince Republicans to Compromise on the Budget?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/01/can-john-boehner-convince-republicans-to-compromise-on-the-budget/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/01/can-john-boehner-convince-republicans-to-compromise-on-the-budget/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:16:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=43786</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Boehner, who often meets the press flanked by a team of deputies, took the podium alone on Thursday. With a week left before the government shuts down April 8, the House Speaker took pains to dispel rumors of a deal. “There is no agreement” on a pact that would cut $33 billion from the federal budget, Boehner insisted, despite Vice President Joe Biden’s assertion to the contrary Wednesday night. “Here’s the bottom line,” the House Speaker said. “Democrats are rooting for a government shutdown. We’re listening to the people who sent us here to cut spending.” The people aren’t so sure. As the Speaker held forth, some 200 Tea Party activists began gathering Thursday in the shadow of the Capitol. As usual, they came to deliver an ultimatum: House Republicans will meet their promises or pay the price. “They’ve heard us,” Tea Party Patriots’ co-founder Jenny Beth Martin told the crowd. “But they are not listening.” Their ranks thinned by a raw drizzle, the boisterous protesters performed their familiar routine—twirling flags, singing patriotic hymns and brandishing signs ranging from cheeky (“Taxation With Representation Ain’t Much Fun Either”) to defiant (&#8220;HR 1 Not Extreme Enough&#8221;) to exploitive (a young girl carried a placard reading &#8220;Congress, Why Don&#8217;t You Care About Me?&#8221;). And while they assigned the bulk of the blame for the budget impasse to Senate Democrats and President Obama, they sneered at the notion that slashing $33 billion over the next six months would cure the country’s fiscal woes. “I want to say this to Speaker Boehner: man up,” says Helene Kerns, a retired government worker from Paw Paw, W. Va., who wore a yellow Mountaineers poncho and held a sign urging Congress to “Grow a Spine.” Others roared with approval when speakers raised the specter of a government shutdown. This is the tightrope Boehner is walking as he tries to navigate the first of three successive skirmishes over the federal budget. An overwhelming majority of Americans want House Republicans and Senate Democrats to strike a deal that keeps<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=43786&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/01/can-john-boehner-convince-republicans-to-compromise-on-the-budget/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Tea Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/tea-party/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>House Republicans Hold the Line on Spending Cuts</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/house-republicans-hold-the-line-on-spending-cuts/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/house-republicans-hold-the-line-on-spending-cuts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:37:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=43461</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TPM&#8217;s Brian Beutler reports that House Republicans are prepared to reject a White House offer to cut more than $30 billion from the federal budget over the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. The sticking point, Beutler writes, is a dispute over whether some of the money should come from mandatory spending programs: Democrats are pushing for such cuts, which include the big entitlement programs, though the specific cuts they&#8217;re proposing remain unclear. In an ironic twist, Republicans oppose those cuts and want to limit the negotiations to non-defense discretionary spending, a smaller subset of the federal budget. (The irony, of course, is that the GOP has pledged to include provisions to reform entitlement programs in its own 2012 budget, slated for a roll-out early next month.) With the prospect of averting a shutdown darkening by the hour, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blamed the impasse on the GOP&#8217;s Tea Party wing. &#8220;The biggest negotiation isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, it’s between Republicans and Republicans,&#8221; the Nevada Democrat said. &#8220;The infighting between the Tea Party and the rest of the Republican Party, including the Republican leadership in Congress, is keeping our negotiating partner [from] the negotiating table.&#8221; Reid certainly has cause for frustration. House Republican leaders have used the specter of a Tea Party revolt to pull off a coup: they&#8217;re poised to get everything they originally wanted, plus additional concessions should they cajole their conference into accepting them. Less than two months ago, House Budget Chair Paul Ryan unveiled the party&#8217;s target figure for 2011 spending reductions: $32 billion. It&#8217;s roughly the same sum House Republicans are now balking at. For all the predictions that the Tea Party would box John Boehner into a corner, Republican leaders have so far wielded their rank-and-file hard-liners as a negotiating weapon. Of course, it&#8217;s hard to say how much control Boehner actually exerts over the Tea Party caucus. By raising the stakes of the spending debate ever higher, they could just as easily be setting the Speaker up for a bruising fall.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=43461&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/house-republicans-hold-the-line-on-spending-cuts/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>John Boehner</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/john-boehner/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>With a Shutdown Looming, Budget Bickering Intensifies</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/with-a-shutdown-looming-budget-bickering-intensifies/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/with-a-shutdown-looming-budget-bickering-intensifies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:27:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=43386</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rested from its weeklong recess, Congress returns on Monday for its latest round of budget brinksmanship. After a half-dozen stopgap funding bills in as many months, the threat of a government shutdown looms once more, with the lights set to go off on April 8 — unless the two parties can hammer out a deal that runs through the end of the fiscal year in September. Since we’ve been here before, it seems credulous to take the grim warnings echoing throughout the corridors of the Capitol entirely at face value. But there’s reason for pessimism. The two sides are far apart on the sum to slash from the federal budget over the next seven months. House Republicans are hewing to the $61 billion in spending reductions the chamber supported earlier this year, which, extended over the course of a year, matches the $100 billion they pledged during the campaign. Senate Democrats have reportedly countered with up to $20 billion, on top of the $10 billion the two sides lopped off the budget in the past two short-term continuing resolutions. Negotiations stalled last week, spurring a fusillade of finger-pointing press releases that suggested the two sides were unlikely to ease the deadlock before the hourglass runs out of sand. Breaking the impasse isn’t simply a matter of haggling over numbers and meeting somewhere in the middle. As the Washington Post’s Paul Kane reported, a band of House conservatives are insisting that any budget blueprint include many of the amendments — known as “riders” — that were added to the House bill. These are not small things. Two separate provisions would de-fund the health care reform law and Planned Parenthood. Others would gut the EPA and the FCC’s new net-neutrality rule. Another prohibits funding for some White House “czars” — a shorthand term the media uses to refer to policy wonks, which, perhaps because of its Soviet whiff, translates in conservative circles as “threatening person.” For many Democrats, these riders are nonstarters. “I think when we begin to allow an ideological agenda<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=43386&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/28/with-a-shutdown-looming-budget-bickering-intensifies/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Republican Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/republican-party/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Could Republicans Buck Their Leaders Over Spending Cuts?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/15/could-republicans-buck-their-leaders-over-spending-cuts/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/15/could-republicans-buck-their-leaders-over-spending-cuts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:14:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mitch McConnell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=42385</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For a second time this month, Congress faces a weekend deadline to negotiate a stopgap funding measure to keep the federal government open. And as recently as Sunday, it appeared to be a relatively light lift. House Republican leaders and Senate Democrats have signaled support for a three-week continuing resolution that would trim $6 billion in discretionary spending cuts and keep the lights on until April 8, buying time for negotiators to hammer out a pact that covers the remainder of the fiscal year. And yet, nothing comes easily on Capitol Hill. With Tea Party leaders brandishing pitchforks and conservative legislators bristling at incremental cuts, several GOP lawmakers broke ranks with party bosses on Monday, raising questions about whether the measure, which is expected to be brought to the floor Tuesday, could succumb to a Republican revolt. “There could be enough &#8216;no&#8217; votes to kill it,” admits a House Republican aide, whose boss has not decided whether to support it. The CR, rolled out Friday by House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers of Kentucky, cuts $3.5 billion through a combination of rescissions, funding reductions and program closures. The targets range from pandemic programs to construction and Census projects. In general, they&#8217;re noncontroversial; many were selected because they weren&#8217;t funded in President Obama’s budget request or the CR proposal put forth by Senate Democrats earlier this month. The remaining $2.5 billion in savings comes from slashing earmarks. Nearly all agencies would remain open at last year’s levels, pending a longer-term pact. Republicans aligned against the bill for different reasons. Jim Jordan, who helms the conservative Republican Study Committee&#8211;a coalition that comprises about two-thirds of the conference and is a good barometer of conservative sentiment&#8211;said he wouldn’t vote for another piecemeal bill, and was dismayed that the measure didn’t slash funding to conservative bugbears like health-care reform and Planned Parenthood. “We must do more than cut spending in bite-sized pieces,” he said. Republican freshmen Tim Huelskamp and Allen West&#8211;as well as Jeff Flake, who&#8217;s bidding for the Senate seat that Jon Kyl will vacate&#8211;are<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=42385&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/15/could-republicans-buck-their-leaders-over-spending-cuts/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>35</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Tea Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/tea-party/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Defends His Record on Gas Prices, Budget Talks and Libya</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/11/obama-defends-his-record-on-gas-prices-budget-talks-and-libya/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/11/obama-defends-his-record-on-gas-prices-budget-talks-and-libya/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:47:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=42267</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Obama today rejected GOP criticisms that he has not done enough to address the rising price of oil and that his Administration had helped cause the spike by limiting domestic oil and gas production. “Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003,” Obama told reporters in a wide-ranging press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building today. “Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high.  For the first time in more than a decade, imports accounted for less than half of what we consumed. So any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality.” Congressional Republicans have been hammering Obama all week on energy prices. The price of gas is over $3.50 a gallon as oil reached $100 a barrel due to speculation over the turmoil in the Middle East &#8212; in actuality the unrest has yet to cause any major disruptions. “The Obama Administration has consistently blocked American energy production that would lower costs and create new jobs,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement yesterday. “They’ve cancelled leases for new exploration, jeopardized new nuclear energy, and imposed a de facto drilling moratorium.  They’ve even pushed a ‘cap and trade’ national energy tax that the president himself admitted would cause energy costs to ‘skyrocket.’” Obama acknowledged that there was more that he could and would do. He said he was directing the Interior Department to push idle companies that own leases of tens of millions of acres of federal lands. He said his Administration is exploring other offshore production possibilities in the Atlantic and on- and offshore in Alaska – though he noted the importance of proceeding with caution as “we’re only a few months removed from the worst oil spill in our history.” And, he said if things get really bad he would be willing to open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserves – but only in the case of dire emergencies like<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=42267&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/11/obama-defends-his-record-on-gas-prices-budget-talks-and-libya/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>46</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Third Rail</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/09/the-third-rail/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/09/the-third-rail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=42079</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You wanna cut? We&#8217;ll show you cuts. That seems to be the new mantra Democrats have adopted in response to the GOP&#8217;s assault on spending. Dems this week have suggested expanding the debate from discretionary spending to taking on all of the sacred cows: farm subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid, taxes and the Pentagon. Well, almost all. What&#8217;s missing? Social Security. Social Security is poised to be a potential deal breaker on bipartisan efforts to reduce the long-term deficit. Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have suggested that the entitlement program is not part of the problem and should be addressed on &#8220;a separate but parallel track,&#8221; as White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew told reporters last week. &#8220;Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to find a responsible way to cut spending,&#8221; said Majority Leader Reid&#8217;s spokesman Jon Summers, &#8220;as long as it protects our economy and the Americans who rely on programs like Social Security.&#8221; Democrats are hoping to expand the debate over the 2011 budget to encompass not only short- and long-term deficit reduction, but also a vote to increase the debt ceiling as the Treasury Department nears bumping up against the federal borrowing limit. They certainly have timing on their side. The Senate has yet to begin negotiations on their 2011 funding bill. Vice President Biden, who is meant to be leading the talks, is on a foreign trip this week, though he called congressional leaders on Wednesday from Moscow. Both parties have already acknowledged that a second two-week extension of federal funding like the one passed at the beginning of March will be needed to avoid a government shutdown next Friday. A third extension may also be required. As those delays drag on, a vote on the debt ceiling is approaching, likely at the end of April or early May. Negotiators say they hope to attach whatever grand bargain they can reach on deficit reduction to that crucial bill. Inaction on the debt ceiling risks causing the U.S. to default on its<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=42079&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/09/the-third-rail/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>42</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/07/here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/07/here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:54:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=41934</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Senate tomorrow is scheduled to begin deliberations on the long-term omnibus to fund the government for the rest of the year. In an example of why this will surely take longer than two weeks to decide, Dems aren’t even sure they can dispense with votes on both the House and Senate versions until Friday – even though every one already knows they’re going to both fail. &#8220;Everyone&#8217;s done the math and everyone knows how these votes will turn out,&#8221; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the floor today. &#8220;It&#8217;s unlikely either proposal will pass, which means neither will reach the President&#8217;s desk and we&#8217;ll go back to square one, back to the negotiating table.&#8221; Half a pound of tuppenny rice Odds that the Senate will reach a passable compromise before the end of next week are next to nil. So to avoid a government shut down another short-term extension must be passed. House Speaker John Boehner is likely to propose a similar two-week extension paired with $4 billion in bipartisan cuts. Senate Democratic aides were mum on if they would offer an alternative plan. Half a pound of treacle Senate Democratic aides expressed concern that it may take more than a month to come to an agreement, requiring a third two-week extension. At that point, the bill would be bumping up against a vote on the debt ceiling expected at the end of April or early May. That’s the way the money goes The White House said last week that Vice President Joe Biden was limiting his discussions to the 2011 omnibus. But given the timeline, Biden may be forced to wrap in debt ceiling discussions as congressional Democrats hope to consolidate these votes as much as possible, giving Republicans less opportunities to cut. At the same time the longer the debate drags out, the less time remains in the fiscal year and the harder it will be to make cuts. The House and Senate are currently $51 billion apart. If a solution cannot be found, they risk shutting<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=41934&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Anteing Up in the High Stakes Game of Cutting Spending</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/04/anteing-up-in-the-high-stakes-game-of-cutting-spending/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/03/04/anteing-up-in-the-high-stakes-game-of-cutting-spending/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:29:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.blogs.time.com/?p=41789</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For any kind of camel trader, used car salesman or politician the first bid in a negotiation is rarely the number they actually expect to get. Some suckers may agree to pay that price, but most people bargain. House Speaker John Boehner’s first bid was $32 billion in cuts, a number his freshmen laughed at. They jacked their bid up to $100 billion off of President Obama’s 2011 request. (Keep in mind, in cuts to current levels this actually equates to $61 billion.) The Senate today unveiled their first bid. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced two bills: the House version, House Resolution 1, and his bill, which cuts $51 billion from President Obama’s 2011 request. This includes the $4 billion in cuts already passed by the Senate this week. (In real terms $41 billion of these amount to roughly no cuts from current levels, meaning the only real new cuts Reid is proposing is about $6 billion.) “I think that this is the place to start,” Reid sadi on the Senate floor today. “We have some confidence that we&#8217;ll get the votes on our bill that we&#8217;ll move this matter forward.” The competing bills would fund the federal government for the seven months remaining in fiscal 2011. A compromise must be reached by March 18 or the government will shut down. If one cannot be reached, both chambers will have to pass another short term extension &#8212; as they did last week &#8212; to give negotiators more time. Of course, Republicans howled at the first bid. “Yesterday, the White House and congressional Democrats finally announced their position,” Boehner said in a statement today. “Unfortunately, it is little more than the status quo, and the status quo is indefensible and unacceptable.” But Reid’s right, I’m not even sure HR1 will get unified Republican support, let alone draw Democratic votes. Conversely, I don’t think Reid’s bill will get unified Democratic support and is unlikely to draw any GOP votes. Which means that next Tuesday the Senate will hold two votes, both<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=41789&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Senate</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/congress/senate/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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