Monday morning (East Coast afternoon) and reports are that the Senate has the broad outlines agreed-upon, except the dates. Great! But there's just one enormous elephant in the room: House Republicans.
The vast majority of House Republicans have been quite clear: They won't settle for anything less than alterations to the ACA to get government reopened and specific cuts to federal spending to raise the debt ceiling.
While some Republicans have come out in support of a clean CR to restart government and raise the debt ceiling, there's just not enough of them willing to vote with Democrats. And, while they my have passed the fiscal cliff deal (thus showing that there could be enough Republicans willing to cross the line), at the time House Republicans were given the green light to vote whichever way they wanted to, without being penalized by conservative groups.
Further, markets seem to be convinced that a deal will occur, so they've gone up on every rumor that a deal could be in the works, and that only solidifies the false narrative of conservatives that a default won't occur, come Oct. 17th.
In other words, this time there doesn't seem to be support behind House Republicans to vote against the grain of their party's platform while markets are outsmarting themselves, and so I don't think you should expect a debt ceiling deal.
On the positive side, it's going to be sunny and in the lower-70s this week in Portland, Oregon, and that doesn't happen often in mid-October, so if the country defaults, I'll just go walk outside and enjoy the sun.
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