Members of Congress are
racing against the clock to hammer out a deal that would reopen the government
and lift the risk of default before October 17. On that day, the country will
hit the ‘debt ceiling’ — that’s the day when the U.S. exhausts its borrowing authority,
and, if there’s no deal, we’ll be forced to pay our bills with whatever cash is
on hand, raising a serious prospect of default.
House Republicans brought the government to a shutdown by refusing
to fund Obamacare, but with the added leverage of the debt ceiling, their
demands have since grown. As we reach the final hours before the deadline,
here’s the latest news on where we stand on getting a deal done:
LATEST UPDATE
Here's The Final Language Of The Senate's Deal
Here’s what’s in the Senate
deal that will go before both the House and Senate today:
·
Government funded through January 15 at sequestration levels
·
Debt limit extended until February 7
·
A budget conference established to come up with long-term spending
plans by December 13
·
Income verification for recipients of subsidies under Obamacare’s
newly-established exchanges
·
Backpay for furloughed workers
Perhaps more notably, here
are some of the demands that Republicans have made in the last few days, but
that are NOT in the bill:
·
No repeal of the “extraordinary measures” provision that allows the
Treasury to do accounting tricks to avoid default
·
No ‘Vitter Amendment‘ that would have taken away employer
contributions from the health
plans of Congressional staff
·
No provisions related to birth control access
·
No flexibility in how government agencies make budget cuts to
their programs,
as they are required to under sequestration
·
No repeal or delay of the medical device tax
·
No repeal or delay of the reinsurance tax
·
No repeal, replacement, or delay of any aspects of Obamacare’s
exchanges or individual mandate
It might look like this is
overall a good deal for Democrats given the number of things that Republicans aren’t getting. It is good: It reopens the
government and lifts the debt ceiling without doing any major additional damage
to existing programs.
But it’s important to
remember that the baseline for negotiations wasn’t exactly even: Democrats
accepted the major budget cuts of sequestration (slated only to get worse on
January 15, the same day their budget deal expires), and their only demand was
actually the status quo: Keeping the government running and having the country
fulfill its financial obligations. They didn’t request to restore the funding
sequestration took away, they didn’t demand any newprograms or
initiatives that Democrats support. And if the previousbudget conference is any indication, the one established
under this deal has the potential to blow up in Democrats’ faces, leading to
more cuts instead of an actual, long-term budget. In that sense, while it is
the best, cleanest deal we can get, the Democratic party has been pulled
slightly from center to right, not from left to center.
Meanwhile, Republicans
threw everything but the kitchen sink into their negotiations. It’s no surprise
they’re taking a lot of losses.
On top of all that, this deal marks the second time in our
nation’s history that the debt ceiling has become a bargaining chip. While
there were brief hints that the deal would include a provision that required a
proactive vote to disapprove extending the debt
limit, as opposed to having votes to raise it, that was taken out of
negotiations. Long-term, this is bad news for the nation’s economy, since it
means we’llcontinue to
rely on crisis governance.
Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, And The Opportunity For A Filibuster
The deal emerging this
morning sounds very promising, but even if Boehner accepts it and the House
passes it, there’s another major hitch that could grind progress to a halt: A
filibuster in the Senate. The House votes first and then the bill goes to the
Senate for a final vote, it’ll need something called “unanimous consent” to
move the bill quickly to the President’s desk. If one senator decides to block
that, the process could potentially take days, and force the country to breach
the debt limit.
There are three major
filibuster risks in the Senate: Tea partiers Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee
(R-UT), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who think the bill doesn’t do enough for
Republican demands.
Paul has indicated that he
doesn’t plan to filibuster this time around. “I think it’s not a good idea to
go through the debt ceiling deadline,” Paul told CNN this week. “I think we should go ahead and
have an agreement in advance.”
But Lee and Cruz are unknowns, and Cruz has definitely hinted that he’d be willing to fight it out to the
last. And lee just today indicated he would, too:
Steve King Is *Still* Not Worried About Default
Tomorrow’s the day the
United States hits its credit limit, but Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is still insisting it doesn’t matter, though he is backing down
a bit:
“I’m not worried about this
thing they term default because we are going to service our debt…But I am
concerned about all the rhetoric around this, about the weeks and months
building up to this point and the utilization of that term default,” King
(R-Iowa) said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“I’m concerned that it will scare the markets; I’m concerned that
the president’s remarks will scare the markets,” the lawmaker continued.
Markets are already incredibly volatile thanks to the
Congressional dysfunction playing out on Capitol Hill. Right now, that looks
like a good thing: The Dowsurged on news of a potential deal.
Boehner Plans To Bring Senate's Latest Plan To A Vote, Which
Could End Shutdown And Raise Debt Limit
House Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH) will bring the proposal that the Senate hammered out last night to
a vote on the House floor. And he won’t make any alterations to it first, CBS reports.
That means that the bill
will likely pass with support from both Democratic and Republican
Representatives, though without the backing of the far-right tea party
contingent that has so far blocked all progress by successfully convincing
Boehner not to bring any legislation to a vote.
Boehner is also reportedly
considering having the House vote first on the billbefore sending it to the Senate.
This hurries the process along (which we need as we near the deadline and the
markets start to panic) by letting the Senate take only one filibuster vote.
The Senate is expected to
pass the bill and send it to the President’s desk.
Of course, this could still very well fall apart: Boehner could
back out of his agreement to bring the bill to the floor, or he could decide he
wants to add new caveats into it. Nothing is a done deal.
Conservative Voices Bash House Republicans
The Wall Street Journal
released a scathing editorial about the shutdown this morning
that places blame squarely on the shoulders of House Republicans.
The editorial board calls
out “the small band of 20 or so House conservatives who have been all but
running the House since this fiasco began.” They also tell Republicans it’s
time to move on from Obamacare obstructionism:
The conservatives thus
undermined whatever small leverage the House GOP had left. Without a united majority of 218 votes, Republicans might as well
hand the Speaker’s gavel to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. Senate
leaders announced immediately that they would resume negotiating to finish a
deal that they would bring to the floor as early as Wednesday [...]
This is the quality of thinking—or lack thereof—that has afflicted
many GOP conservatives from the beginning of this budget showdown. They
picked a goal they couldn’t achieve in trying to defund ObamaCare from one
House of Congress, and then they picked a means they couldn’t sustain
politically by pursuing a long government shutdown and threatening to blow through
the debt limit.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) echoed these comments, telling the New York Times,
“Republicans have to understand we have lost this battle, as I predicted weeks
ago, that we would not be able to win because we were demanding something that
was not achievable.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) concurred, tellingBloomberg News that Republicans “screwed up” and
went “too far.”
RECAP: Here's What Happened Since Last Night On The Debt Limit/
Shutdown Negotiations
After House Republicans
failed miserably at bringing their own budget and debt limit proposal up for a
vote, the Senate last night stepped back in to take a lead on the negotiations.
Today, they’re expected to bring up a new bill and then send it to the House
for a final vote. Here’s what the Senate’s newest proposal looks like:
·
Government funded through January 15
·
Debt limit extended until February 7
·
A budget conference established to come up with long-term spending
plans by December 13
·
Income verification for recipients of subsidies under Obamacare’s
newly-established exchanges
There are two options for
what happens with this proposal: First, the Senate could pass the legislation,
then send it to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) who in all hopes would
swallow his pride and bring it to the floor of the House for a vote, despite
vocal opposition from a minority of House Republicans. But doing this would
open up the possibility that someone in the Senate — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) seems
like a likely candidate — could derail the process before it ever makes it to
the House.
The other option is for Senate leaders to urge the House to take
up the bill first, then pass it and send it to the Senate (again, under the
condition that it actually garners enough support). That system would expedite
the process slightly, and could potentially allow the Senate to tweak some of
the language in the House’s bill. It would not totally lift the threat, though,
that Cruz or one of his Republican colleagues could block the bill’s passage.
House Republicans Won't Vote Tonight
Several outlets now report that House Republicans won’t vote on their own leadership’s proposal
tonight, and that conservative organization Heritage Action’s opposition to the bill is to blame.
Obama Will Veto A Bill That Includes The Vitter Amendment
President Obama will veto a funding/ debt limit bill if it
includes the so-called “Vitter Amendment,” Politico reports. The Vitter Amendment removes employer
contributions to the insurance plans of Congressional staffers, members of
Congress, and some cabinet members. Without an employer contribution,
lower-paid Hill staffers will need to seek out government-provided subsidies
offered to enrollees of the Obamacare exchanges — meaning that the Vitter
Amendment would actually increase the deficit by $530 million over 10 years,
the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Here's The Proposal The House Was Supposed To Vote On Tonight
Here’s the text of the bill the House was supposed
to vote on tonight. It’s not clear, though, that the vote will actually happen;
fresh on the heels of Heritage urging members to vote against it, a House Rules
Committee meeting that was scheduled to set the stage for a vote on the bill
tonight has been postponed.
Conservative Organization Tells House Republicans To Vote
Against Their Own Leadership's Proposed Deal
House Republican
leadership’s budget and debt deal just took a major blow: The conservative
organization Heritage Action is urging Republican Representatives not to back
the bill, and saying it will make the vote a “key vote” on its legislative
scorecard. The organization says the proposal doesn’t do enough to derail
obamacare:
Despite overruling OPM’s congressional exemption, the proposed plan will do absolutely nothing to help Americans
who are negatively impacted by Obamacare. Premiums will continue to
skyrocket, cancellation notices will still arrive in the mail, employers will
continue reducing hours and bureaucrats will continue reaching deeper and
deeper into our health care decisions.
Credit Downgrade On The Horizon
In August of 2011, the last
time the government came to loggerheads over the debt ceiling, Standard &
Poor’sdowngraded the credit rating of the United States.
A few weeks before that, they put the US on “CreditWatch with negative
implications.”
It looks like the same
thing is happening again. This time, Fitch Ratings has placed the US on “Rating Watch Negative”:
The prolonged negotiations over raising the debt ceiling
(following the episode in August 2011) risks undermining confidence in the role
of the U.S. dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency, by
casting doubt over the full faith and credit of the U.S. This “faith” is a key
reason why the U.S. ‘AAA’ rating can tolerate a substantially higher level of
public debt than other ‘AAA’ sovereigns.
The Vitter Amendment And The Deficit
House Republicans might be
pushing their agenda in the name of spending reduction, but their latest demand
— known as the Vitter Amendment — might actually add to the deficit.
There are several different iterations that have been called the “Vitter Amendment,” but one proposed version (being
called the “full Vitter” in today’s talks) takes away employer contributions to
the insurance plans of Congressional staffers, making the lower-paid staffers
on Capitol Hill to turn to the government-provided subsidies offered to
enrollees of the Obamacare exchanges. This would cost the government $530 million over 10 years,
the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
House GOP's Newest Plan Funds The Government For Two Months
House Republicans are
emerging with yet another plan — this time to fund the government through
December 15, raise the debt limit until February 7th, remove “extraordinary
measures” used by the Treasury, and deny employer contributions to
Obamacare-based health care plans for all Congressional staff (a measure known
as the Vitter Amendment). House Republicans will reportedly leave town after
voting on this bill to try toforce the Senate’s hand. It’s not clear if votes are
there to pass it — of if the House can actually leave town if the President wants
them to stay.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office says they’ll be
standing by with a new Senate deal when the House proposal fails.
Where We Stand
As things reach a lull this
afternoon, here’s the state of negotiations:
On the House side: House
Republican leadership has proposed a bill but is struggling to get the
caucus to support it. It may simply fall apart. The latest version of their
bill funds the government at sequestration levels until January 15, raises the
debt limit until February 7, includes income verification for recipients of
subsidies under Obamacare, requires that all Congressional staff and members of
the cabinet sign up for the exchanges offered under Obamacare with no employer
contribution, and ends the ability of the treasury to take ‘extraordinary
measures‘ to avoid default in the future. It also may include a provision to
allow employers to deny copay-free birth control to their employees if they
have a personal religious objection. Reportedly, the medical device tax delay
that was originally part of the effort has been dropped.
On the Senate side: Negotiations are pretty
much at a standstill until the House gets its act together. The latest version
of a Senate deal rumored to be agreed upon by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would fund the government at
sequestration levels until January 15, raise the debt limit until February 7,
maintain the budget cuts known as sequestration rbut give federal agencies
flexibility in how they make those cuts, establishes a committee to negotiate a
new budget by December 13th, and includes income verification for ecipients of
subsidies for their insurance under the exchanges established by Obamacare.
Reporter Tells White House Spokesman He Got Insurance Through
Obamacare's Exchanges
A sort of odd moment
unfolded during today’s White House press briefing, when reporter Tommy
Christopher of Mediaite told spokesman Jay Carney a story about how he suffered
a heart attack a few years ago. He was uninsured then and has been since.
“Is there a chance,” he
asked, “the president would be willing to delay Obamacare for a year if
Republicans were to agree to delay heart attacks for a year?”
Watch it:
Christopher followed up Carney’s answer by saying “for what it’s
worth, I was able to enroll in the exchanges about a week and a half ago.”
White House Spokesperson: We Will Not 'Pay Ransom To The Tea
Party'
White House Spokesman Jay
Carney told reporters during an afternoon press briefing that the
administration is not impressed with the House Republicans’ deal that emerged
this morning, and reiterated that the White House is not going to “pay ransom
to the tea party in order to open the government.”
“The right thing to do is to make no partisan demands as part of
Congress doing its basic job,” he added, saying that the President is ready to
have longer budget talks when “there are no guns on the table,” meaning no
looming threat of default.
The Newest (Old) Sticking Point: Birth Control
The latest thing that House
Republicans are demanding in order to throw their support to a funding and debt
limit bill? A birth-control related provision that allows the
owner of a non-religious company to opt out of covering birth control for their
female employees, citing religious reasons.
Coverage for birth control
copays is one of the provisions in Obamacare, but Republicans have claimed that
it requires employers to cover abortion. It does not. And, in fact, the
administration has already compromised on the birth control point by exempting some organizations from this provision.
Two things to remember
about this latest push: First, even if this is the magic puzzle piece to get
House Republicans to approve their leadership’s proposal, it’s not going to go
far. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has already indicated that the House proposal is unworkable
in the Senate, and this will only make it more unpalatable to Democrats there.
Second, this fight originated over government funding and the
country’s debt. It has always been about economics and budget. This demand by
Republicans has absolutely nothing to do with the country’s finances, and shows
just how little their demands have to do with our fiscal future.
For House Democrats And Republicans, The Answer Is No
Rep. Chris Van Hollen
(D-MD) tells the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the
House Republican’s plan has “no Democratic support,” and that “a vote for this
is a vote for default and for keeping the government shut down.” House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says there is support, however, for the Senate’s
plan.
Meanwhile, Republicans aren’t seeing enough support for Republican
leadership’s bill on their side of the aisle, either. CNN’s Dana Bash reports
that House Republicans don’t have the votes to get their proposal passed.
House Tea Party Demanding More Obamacare Provisions
Not content with just
requiring members of Congress to enroll in the exchanges set up under
Obamacare, the Tea Party Republicans are now demanding a provision to force all staff on
Capitol Hill to enroll in the exchanges without an employer contribution.
Seventy-five percent of a Hill staffer’s insurance plan has been
covered for a long time by their employer, the government. But thanks to some
language added by Republicans onto the health care law, all Congressional staff
now has to purchase insurance through the exchanges. A few months ago, the
Office of Personnel Management ordered that staff can still receive their
employer contribution, but they are not eligible for subsidies. This proposal
would take away contributions, too, meaning that staffers (even those making
earning the lowest congressional salaries) would be required to pay 100 percent
of their insurance costs.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Slams House Plan
Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-NV) said he was “blindsided by the news from the House,” and that
it was a “waste of time,” particularly related to the House language that
removes the “extraordinary measures” authority from the Treasury, and for
removing the budget committee proposed in the Senate plan. “For weeks,
Republicans have claimed they want to negotiate,” Reid said. “They’ve
complained about a lack of a budget, now they don’t even want us to negotiate a
budget.”
“Let’s be clear,” Reid added, “the House Republican legislation
will not pass the Senate.”
Boehner Gives Little Guidance At Press Conference
House Republican leadership today held a brief press conference
around 11:00 am. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) gave little indication of what
might happen next. “There’s been no decision about what exactly we will do,” he
said. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Eric Cantor (R-VA) also spoke,
but offered little more than talking points about working “on both sides of the
aisle” to reach a deal.
White House Rejects House Plan
The Obama administration is not interested in what House
Republicans are offering. “The President has said repeatedly that members of
Congress don’t get to demand ransom for fulfilling their basic responsibilities
to pass a budget and pay the nation’s bills,” Amy Brundage, a spokesperson for
the White House, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the latest proposal from
House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group
of Tea Party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first
place.”
Is The House Plan Constitutional?
The proposal in the House bill that would force members of
Congress onto the exchanges established under Obamacare without employer
subsidies is unconstitutional, if it’s set to go into effect right away.
The 27th amendment to the Constitution stipulates that “[n]o law, varying the
compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take
effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”
How House Leadership Is Trying To Get Their Party On Board
National Review has obtained a copy of the House leadership’s talking
points on their new proposal.
Clearly, the talking points
show they’re trying to make their proposal sound like a big hit to Obamacare.
The top-line talking point reads, “House Republicans are proposing several
common-sense changes to make the emerging bipartisan agreement in the Senate
fairer for the American people, who are being forced by Washington Democrats to
live under the president’s train wreck of a health care law.”
From there, they say that their proposed requirement that members
of Congress get health care under the exchanges established by Obamacare (and
without any employer contribution) forces members of Congress to “live under
ObamaCare” and to “not be shielded from the law.” On income verification for
recipients of subsidies under Obamacare, the talking points say their proposal
“[shuts] down the Obama Administration’s plan to invite rampant fraud by
relying on the so-called ‘honor system.’” They also sell the removal of the
treasury’s “extraordinary measures” by saying that their plan “[increases] the
transparency of the federal budget process,” and their replacement of the delay
of the reinsurance tax with the delay of the medical device tax by saying
they’re eliminating “protections for labor unions.”
House Bill May Not Get Enough Votes
Some of the more moderate House Republicans are telling reporters
that they’re happy to support the House bill but, as Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) put it to TPM’s Sahil Kapur, “I don’t know if the
votes are there to pass it.” Despite the fact that the new bill maintains
sequestration levels of spending, the further right side of the House
Republican caucus is worried there aren’t enough spending cuts. Rep. Mo Brooks
(R-AL) even told reporters that he wants a bill that connects the debt limit to
a Balanced Budget Amendment — a proposal to amend the constitution to require
the United States to maintain a balanced budget. Such an effort is not only dangerous for the nation’s economy, it’s also
totally unachievable since it would require 3/4ths of the
United States to ratify it.
Could Ted Cruz Kill The Emerging Consensus?
In order for the funding
and debt bill to pass quickly, it needs what’s called “unanimous consent” in
the Senate, which means that every Senator would need to give their okay on
expediting the process. So even if the House and most of the Senate can agree
on a measure to fund the government and lift the threat of default, that
measure could never see the light of day if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) decides to singlehandedly block it.
On Monday, Cruz hinted that he might not consent, telling Politico, “We need to see what the details
are.” Meanwhile, his tea party partner in crime Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he’s
willing to move ahead with a bill, and that he “never really planned on trying
to obstruct any of the process.”
Here's Where Members Of The House Stand On The New Proposal
The House’s proposal seems to be relatively popular right now.
It doesn’t have support of the far-right tea party crowd but, Robert Costa at
National Review reports, that small group’s opposition isn’t
influencing the roughly 150 more moderate Republicans who could make or break
its passage.
There’s a real chance this proposal could come to the House floor
for a vote and pass — particularly given the reports that Speaker Boehner won’t bother doing what’s called a ‘whip count’ to
gauge his party’s support for the measure. That means it could rely on
Democrats for passage, and get passed without a majority of Republicans.
House May Leave DC After It Passes Its Bill
This tidbit from Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review spells trouble,
if the Senate doesn’t like the House’s proposal:
About The Extraordinary Measures Provision
Rumors are that the House’s
emerging deal would end the Treasury’s ability to take what are called
extraordinary measures to avoid default. Here’s Neil Irwin’s explanation over at the Washington Post of how
extraordinary measures work:
The Treasury has regularly used a variety of cash management tools
to enable it to continue to carry out normal spending operations when the
nation runs into the legal cap on debt issuance, including timing tricks around
public employee pensions and use of the “exchange stabilization fund”…. it’s a
little like a family juggling its bills by holding off making a contribution to
their 401(k) for a while. So technically, we hit the
legal debt ceiling of $16.699 trillion way back on May 19, even though Oct. 17 is
the D-Day that the Treasury has identified as when the debt ceiling needs to be
raised if the nation is to meet its financial obligations.
Eliminating these
accounting tricks (the full list is here)
means we’d actually wind up hitting our debt limit even sooner, and there’d be
no temporary way for treasury to stave off default. Extraordinary measures have
been used by the Treasury for decades, under both Republican and Democratic
administrations.
When removing extraordinary measures was originally floated last
week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said of the proposal, “It certainly isn’t very smart.”
The Emerging House Deal
We told you about the emerging deal in the Senate — now, here’s its
House counterpart:
·
Funding the government at sequestration levels until January 15
·
Raising the debt limit until February 7
·
Income verification for recipients of subsidies under Obamacare
·
Delay of the medical device tax for 2 years
·
A requirement that all members of Congress and members of the
cabinet sign up for the exchanges offered under Obamacare, with no employer
contribution
·
Ending the ability of the treasury to take ‘extraordinary measures‘ to avoid default in the future
More On The Reinsurance Tax
Actually, it looks like Democrats have decided to drop the reinsurance tax, so scratch
that. Instead, rumors are that Boehner will counter that proposal with a 2-year delay of the medical device tax, a 2.3 percent tax on medical
devices that Republicans and many Democrats support repealing.
On The Reinsurance Tax
A little bit more on how the “reinsurance tax” part of the Senate
deal would work: The Transitional Reinsurance Program was established as part
of Obamacare to help spread the inherent risk that comes from accepting
everyone (including people with pre-existing conditions) onto insurance plans.
It works by taxing all insurers — and, yes, that cost is passed down to the
people, to the tune of about $63 per person — and then taking that revenue and
reimbursing the individual insurance plans that take on the sicker patients
during the first two years (2014-2016) of the new law. The Senate deal would delay
the intake of money, but not the payments out.
Tea Party Republicans Say No
After a meeting with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last night, it
seems that House Republicans are set to reject the deal Reid and McConnell came
up with. As National Review’s Robert Costa reports, the tea party wing of the
House Republicans is furious that the Senate came up with a deal without their
input:
A flurry of phone calls and meetings last night and early this
morning led the consensus among the approximatley 50 Republicans who form the
House GOP’s right flank. They’re furious with Senate Republicans for working
with Democrats to craft what one leading Tea Party
congressman calls a “mushy piece of s—t.” Another House conservative warns, “If
Boehner backs this, as is, he’s in trouble.”
This is bad news, since House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has thus far
refused to bring any legislation to the floor that doesn’t have support from
this far-right contingent. Politico adds, “One House Republican said they would
be lucky to find 20 GOP lawmakers willing to vote for this proposal.”
The Senate's Proposal
Last night, Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly came up with a proposal, which McConnelll plans to
bring to the Republican caucus this morning at 11 am. Here’s what’s in their
deal:
·
The government would be funded through January 15th
·
The debt ceiling would be extended through February 7th
·
The budget cuts known as sequestration remain in place, and
January 15 remains deadline for an additional $21 billion in cuts
·
Federal agencies get flexibility in how they make the cuts
required under sequestration
·
A committee would be established to have further talks on budget
cuts
·
The committee would need to present a proposal by December 13th
·
A reinsurance tax that is part of Obamacare would be
delayed
·
Recipients of subsidies for their insurance under the exchanges
established by Obamacare would be subject to income verification
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