Afternoon News Roundup: Shutdown Ping-Pong Turns to Budget Chaos
TODAY IN ONE PARAGRAPH: Shutdown ping-pong continues, as Democrats are pledging to block any budget extension that attacks Obamacare and Republicans pledge to block any budget extension that doesn't. The Senate voted this afternoon to strip anti-Obamacare provisions from the budget-extension bill and, for a second time, send the measure back to the House. Now, the GOP has to decide whether to drop its Obamacare attack or send a third version back to the Senate. But splits persist within the GOP caucus and, according to Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska, Republicans right now "don't have the votes to do anything." The House is scheduled to take its next vote sometime after 6 this evening.
TOP NEWS
STATE OF PLAY: PRELUDE TO A SHUTDOWN: As Capitol Hill and the rest of Washington gears up for the shutdown—and hatches eleventh-hour attempts to avert it—National Journal is chronicling all the important updates. (NJ)
A ONE-WEEK EXTENSION?: Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans floated a plan Monday morning for a one-week spending measure to give Congress more breathing room to broker a deal. But a House Republican staffer said he didn't foresee the GOP agreeing to it, while Democrats bashed the plan. Sen. Barbara Boxer taunted: "What about five minutes? Maybe they want to send us a 3 1/2-minute CR? Grow up and just step up to the plate." Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, derided the plan as the product of a "Banana Republican mindset."
HOW WILL THE SHUTDOWN AFFECT YOU? Washington could lose$200 million a day. Public workers, foreign governments and people with the flu will be among the first to feel the shutdown. And a handy interactive from The Washington Post breaks down how each federal agency will be impacted. (WaPo)
AND WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY? Businesses and consumers alike are jittery, which could spell added trouble for the recovery even if the shutdown doesn't actually come to pass. Uncertainty is up, confidence is down, and economists are making nefarious, gloomy predictions. (Cronin/Reddy, WSJ)
DON'T FORGET THE SEQUESTER: When the budget-war dust finally settles (whenever that may be), "we'll remember the Great Budget Negotiation of 2013 as little more than a chapter in a far longer story: that of the sequester." (Kevin Mahnken, TNR)
TECHNICAL SNAFUS HAMPER OBAMACARE ROLLOUT: Insurance marketplaces open Tuesday, and that can only mean one thing: field workers are scrambling to get everything ready and glitches are plentiful. But with or without a shutdown, implementation of Obamacare is set to proceed. (Weaver/Martin/Radnofsky, WSJ)
TOMORROW IN ONE PARAGRAPH: The government is (possibly) closed for business beginning at midnight, but that won't stop Obamacare's insurance exchanges from opening around the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver an afternoon speech at the United Nations that will focus primarily on Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry begins a trip to Tokyo and Bali, Indonesia, and the first day of the new fiscal year begins.
TOP LINES
NETANYAHU: Israel's prime minister met with the president in the Oval Office today and lobbied Obama to keep economic sanctions on Iran amid possible breakthroughs in long-frigid U.S.-Iran relations. (Julie Pace, AP)
SYRIA: President Assad promised on Sunday to comply with the U.N. resolution aiming to rid his country of its chemical-weapons stockpile. (Ryan Lucas, AP)
NSA SPYING: As American tech giants go on the defensive post-Snowden about privacy concerns, overseas companies see an opportunity. (Dwoskin/Robinson, WSJ)
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Ten "stealth trends" are reshaping the world's financial order. (Noah Smith, The Atlantic) HILLARY FLICK: CNN announced it is canceling a planned documentary about the life and times of Hillary Rodham Clinton after the director walked away. (Dylan Byers,Politico)
EGYPT'S PRISONS: Smuggled letters from an American and two Canadians, all still imprisoned, reveal the horrors of the volatile country's harsh prison conditions. (David Kirkpatrick, NYT)
TOP READ
THE MISSISSIPPI TWOSOME THAT TRIED TO POISON OBAMA: The story of Kevin Curtis and Everett Dutschke is "a story of human dismemberment and righteous causes, of martial arts and murder intrigues, sexual perversity, political conviction, and resentments dearly held. What lies behind Mr. Curtis and Mr. Dutschke's spectacular collision? A lot of odd and complicated things. But in the simplest sense, perhaps it's that these gentlemen simply had too many dreams in common, and in their particular America, there are only so many dreams to go around." (Wells Tower, GQ)
