As the US partial shutdown nears its two week anniversary, progress remains scant on resolving the political impasse. Senate Republicans voted down a Democrat proposal to suspend the debt ceiling through 2014 (with 53-45 in favour, falling 7 short of the required numbers), and Senate Democrats rejected a proposal put together by a group of moderate Republicans that involved pushing the next debt-limit fight to the end of January and extending government funding at current levels for six months (too short and too long respectively for the Democrats). It also involved a couple of compromise tweaks to “Obamacare”.
There is still some optimism that a version of this proposal will be found that is acceptable to both sides. New talks have also begun between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with the hope being that these two are sufficiently far away from the White House and the House of Representatives to be able to find some common ground. Time is beginning to run out for getting any agreed legislation through before the 17 October lapse in the Government’s borrowing authority, though the Congressional Budget Office estimates payments would not start to be missed until some time after 22 October.
Meanwhile the University of Michigan consumer confidence series fell 2.5 points to 75.2 in October. Given everything, it could have been worse.
