Why the Senate blinked and moved back from the brink of a federal default crisis

[Zorro]

On Wednesday morning, the Senate appeared to be headed down one unavoidable collision course with potentially calamitous consequences: Republicans refused to allow a vote raising the federal debt ceiling to pay the government’s bills unless Democrats capitulated to their procedural demands. Democrats would not do so, while no obvious strategy to avoid an unprecedented federal default was anywhere in sight.

But hours later, as senators were set to take a key procedural vote that would have heightened the confrontation, an off-ramp appeared: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Republicans would allow Democrats to advance a roughly two-month debt hike.

Senate Democrats chose to accept the deal, crowing that it represented a Republican capitulation: “McConnell caved,” announced Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Wednesday as she left a private meeting.

But the political scorekeeping behind the deal, which passed Thursday night, is not quite so simple. Like most deals on Capitol Hill, the agreement to punt the debt-limit battle into December reflects a convergence of interests that is not always obvious in the heat of the moment. And, like most deals on Capitol Hill, it leaves mixed feelings on both sides of the aisle and involves political implications which could take months to sort out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/default-senate-deal/2021/10/07/222f9008-2779-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html

[Autumn]

1. They didn't blink. They were just grandstanding. They were always going to raise the federal

debt ceiling. Just meat to the base. Mitch knows well what would happen to the party who would default and close down the government.

[bahboo]

2. yep...