The Clock Is Ticking --

Updates

Later, 9:35 CT: mainstream media reports -- Senate hopes to announce plan today (Tuesday; vote on Wednesday; House working on own plan. Drop-dead date: Thursday. 
 

Original Post

The original "drop-dead date" -- the date the US would reach its borrowing authority -- was October 17th, 2013, Thursday, this week. I don't know if that date still holds; I'm not sure anyone really knows, but ..

... if that is still the "drop-dead" rate, I don't see how there will be enough time to do it. The "Senate" is still working on a deal. Technically, it's a group of twelve senators that are working on a deal. Once they announce the deal, the entire Senate needs to vote, which they can do within an hour or so, if pushed. Of course, the Senate will be alerted well in advance to be in their chamber immediately.

But then it needs to be taken over to Congress, the House of Representatives. Everyone better hope the top three Tea Party congressmen have been in the "Senate loop" on this bill; otherwise, they at least need to read some of it, and then let the House leader know how they will vote. The only way they can meet the deadline is to accept the Senate bill "as is." Right now it looks like these compromises:

• medical device tax will be delayed
• union members will win a delay with mandatory ObamaCare enrollment
• debt limit will be raised by an amount to get us to February 15 (after Christmas; before the 2014 campaign begins in earnest
• funding the 10% part of government that is still not "working"

Actually, it's a pretty good compromise. The "union ObamaCare exemption" is not trivial.