White House: Shutdown hurts ability to enforce sanctions on Iran, Syria

Well that's pretty good. From the National Weather Service, a federal agency that has been subject to furloughs and could face pay delays: 

Our own @ForecasterEnten notes that the original forecast discussion containing the joke was replaced almost immediately by one without the joke.

(h/t @SarahNEmerson)

The market have not discovered any sudden love for paralysis in Washington, and the dollar is touching long-term lows, Reuters reports:

Major stock markets rose on Friday but posted a second week of losses while the dollar hovered near an eight-month low on fears the budget standoff in Washington will drag on until politicians reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.

Meanwhile here's an unsettling Gallup headline: "Economic Confidence Plummets as Gov't Shutdown Begins: Current -34 three-day average is worst since December 2011:

Gallup's Economic Confidence Index's three-day rolling average stands at -34 for Oct. 1-3, down 14 points from Sept. 27-29, and the lowest such average since December 2011.

Read the full piece here. 

A clean House spending bill: still not happening. Cox Radio's Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) tweets: 

For third time, the House has rejected a procedural effort by Democrats to force vote on a "clean" funding bill

And for the third time this week, that type of House procedural vote on a "clean" CR was straight down party lines

Cover Story II

(h/t: @GrahamDavidA)

To get you through the weekend:

Reid says when he met with Boehner this week, he challenged him to risk his speakership and do what's right. Reid says he asked Boehner, "What is more important, our country, or a position of leadership?" 

Senate majority leader Harry Reid says Democrats have already made significant concessions in budget negotiations. He says passing a spending bill derived from $986bn in baseline spending, as the Senate did on 27 September, was a deal that took weeks for the leadership to put together: 

I'm not sure anyone comprehends how difficult it was to negotiate the number Speaker Boehner said we would have to get to to get a clean CR... that we would have to accept $70bn less than what I passed on the Senate floor.

I lived up to my end of the bargain. He didn't. [...]

We have negotiated our hearts out.

Senator Patty Murray, chairwoman of the budget committee, says the slew of House Republican mini-bills to fund slivers of government are transparently cynical and false. Murray calls on Republicans to

Stop scrambling to make it look like they care about families that are affected: do something.

The White House has released a statement highlighting what Durbin was saying about how the US ability to enforce sanctions has been hurt by the shutdown, Reuters reports:

The Treasury office of foreign assets control is unable to sustain core functions due to furloughs, the White House says, including implementing sanctions for Iran and Syria.

As Carney speaks, Democratic Senate leaders convene a news conference.

Dick Durbin, the majority whip, is hammering on national security issues. He says 72% of employees in the intelligence community have been furloughed and says "90% of those responsible for enforcing sanctions against Iran" have been furloughed. 

"Speaker Boehner may think that he can declare a time out in the war on terrorism, but he can't," Durbin says. "And neither can the Tea Party."

Durbin ridicules the House Republican tactic of passing mini spending bills to fund slivers of government. It's as if every time a Democrat takes the floor to highlight an impact of the shutdown, Republicans move to cover it, Durbin says:

"Maybe we should come to the floor of the House or Senate and read the directory of government agencies," Durbin says. "Would they open the government then?"

Senator Chuck Schumer chimes in:

I think I know what Senator Cruz will do tomorrow. Since we mentioned Iran sanctions today, he'll put a bill on the floor... It's getting ridiculous.

Carney's asked about Boehner's stated intention not to pass a "clean" continuing resolution to fund the government (that means a spending bill that doesn't mention Obamacare).

That's an astounding position to take. And it's disappointing.

From the beginning, the president has stated what his position is. And it has not changed. And it will not change.

They ought to simply open the government. Pass the CR... the president would sign it today and people could go back to work tomorrow. If they acted really fast, some could go back to work this afternoon.

Follow-up for Carney: Why would anyone say such a thing?

"I cannot parse or explain every quote that appears in whatever article you all write," the White House spokesman says.

Carney takes on the "we're winning" quote published in the Wall Street Journal this morning. He says the administration "utterly disavow[s]" the notion that the White House doesn't care how long the shutdown lasts.

"It is categorically our position that the government should be reopened today. Now," he says.

Looks like the White House would sign one of those House mini spending bills after all.

"The White House said on Friday that it would support a bill ...that would retroactively pay federal workers who have been furloughed because of the government shutdown, Reuters reports: 

"This bill alone, however, will not address the serious consequences of the funding lapse, nor will a piecemeal approach to appropriations bills," the White House said in a statement, again urging the House to vote on a Senate-passed stop-gap funding measure. 

The White House has threatened to veto other House mini bills and called the piecemeal approach "not serious or responsible." Except, apparently, when it is.

Carney is at the podium.

BuzzFeed's Dorsey Shaw (@DorseyShaw) catches some BREAKING NEWS on CNBC:

(h/t: @batterdippin)

Republicans are working on a plan that does not include a "clean" stopgap spending bill.

Which, according to the president just now, is the "only way to do it."

From the pool report at the end of lunch: 

Once he was back inside WH grounds a reporter asked him how long shutdown would last and whether he was close to a deal.

"Only way to do it is to call a vote" Obama said.

Here's a measure of the distance between the Republicans and Democrats.

Update: read Costa's conversation on Twitter with presidential adviser Dan Pfeiffer here.

Robert Costa of the National Review describes where Republicans are going. The key phrases are (1) "[NO] clean CR" and (2) "connects debt-limit [and] government funding":

It hasn’t been announced, and you won’t hear about it today, but the final volley of the fiscal impasse, at least for House Republicans, is already being brokered. And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides — it won’t end with a clean CR, or with a sprawling, 2011-style budget agreement. It’ll end with an offer — a relatively modest mid-October offer that concurrently connects a debt-limit extension, government funding, and a small, but strategically designed menu of conservative demands. 

Now for the Democratic view:

White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked yesterday about (1) a"clean" continuing resolution to fund the government: "Does that mean you have to have a clean CR before [Obama] negotiates anything else?"

Carney answered: "Yes." 

Here's what the president said yesterday, extremely publicly – in a way difficult to backtrack from – about (2) connecting the debt limit to anything:

There will be no negotiations over this. The American people are not pawns in some political game.

Who sees a way to compromise?

"No one is winning" as long as the shutdown lasts, President Obama told reporters Friday afternoon, saying "there's no winning" when people are out of work.

The president spoke to reporters during a lunch outing with vice president Joe Biden. 

"Part of the reason we're here is we're starving," Obama said, according to a press pool report. "The other reason we're here is that this establishment [Taylor Gourmet] is giving out 10% off to furloughed [employees]. This is an indication of how ordinary Americans are looking out for one another. "

This morning, House speaker John Boehner accused Democrats of playing a game with the shutdown. Boehner flagged a Wall Street Journal report quoting an unnamed "senior administration official" as saying: “We are winning…It doesn’t really matter to us” how long the shutdown lasts “because what matters is the end result.”

Obama said "right now" the House has the opportunity to end the shutdown, which "could be over today."

"I'm happy to have negotiations but we can't do it with a gun held to the head of the American people," he said, repeating an analogy he used in a speech Thursday.

Here's a partially shuttered government bureau that Eric Cantor isn't bringing up in news conferences: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which failed today to publish monthly jobs numbers. 

"During the shutdown period BLS will not collect data, issue reports, or respond to public inquiries," the BLS web site says.

Well...

Well.

...Lunch? 

Sure.

The president has no events on today's official schedule. 

UPDATE: They ended up at Taylor Gourmet "in the HuffPost building," reports HuffPostBlog managing editor Erin Ruberry.

How does the current four-day shutdown compare with shutdowns past? No government shutdown period has ever gone past four days without lasting 10.

Tammy Frisby of the Hoover Institution has charted the length of the 12 government shutdowns since 1977 (the chart depicts shutdowns that happened in quick succession around one budget impasse as single shutdowns). (See full size image at Wonkblog here.)

Six of the 12 shutdowns lasted three days or less. One shutdown, in 1983, lasted four days.

The remaining five shutdowns averaged just over 18 days, with the median shutdown lasting 17 days.

But four out of five of the long shutdowns were back in the Carter years. Only one shutdown since 1980 has lasted longer than 4 days. That was the Newt-Bill show of 1995-96, which lasted a sum total of 26 days.

The White House has renewed its "veto threats against House GOP bills to restore funding to selected parts of the government," CBS' Mark Knoller tweets.

Cantor just named six new such bills to be added to the five already passed.

On Tuesday, the first day of the shutdown, White House spokesman Jay Carneysaid the approach evinces an "utter lack of seriousness":

Even that proposal shows the utter lack of seriousness that we're seeing from Republicans. If they want to open the government then they should open the government. A piecemeal approach is not a serious approach.

Republican lawmakers ... are twisting themselves into pretzels. They're contortionists now.

Update: Here's the official veto threat:

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of piecemeal fiscal year 2014 appropriations legislation that restores only very limited activities. Consideration of appropriations bills in this fashion is not a serious or responsible way to run the United States Government. Instead of opening up a few Government functions, the House of Representatives should re-open all of the Government. The harmful impacts of a shutdown extend across Government, affecting services that are critical to small businesses, women, children, seniors, and others across the Nation. The Senate acted in a responsible manner on a short-term funding measure to maintain Government functions and avoid a damaging Government shutdown. The House of Representatives should allow a straight up or down vote on the Senate-passed H.J. Res. 59.

Here's a window into the difficulty John Boehner may have in crafting a budget strategy his caucus will agree to that has a chance of passing Congress. Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, a member of the House hard-right, tells Bloomberg that Republicans expect to "get something" for raising the debt ceiling, calling for exactly the negotiation the White House has ruled out: 

"As long as we understand we need to get something for the CR and something for the debt ceiling, then everything’s on the table,” the Idaho Republican said yesterday in an interview, referring to the continuing resolution to extend government funding.

Labrador wouldn’t say exactly what he’d ask for in such a deal, saying that “we all want” entitlement reforms and that Obamacare should be “on the table.”

The White House says that even flirting with default is damaging. 

Were there signs of maneuvering that could produce a deal in the news conference with House Republican leaders, just concluded?

All the talk of Obamacare would not seem to be encouraging.

"Our goal wasn't to shut down the government," Boehner said. "Our goal was to bring the American people fairness under Obamacare."

Then majority leader Eric Cantor pitched in, saying the last few days have shown that "Obamacare is not ready for prime time. A dysfunctional web site is the least of [its] problems."

Cantor accused Obama of an unwillingness to negotiate:

The president continues to refuse to sit down with us Republicans. And sadly, that is a hallmark of his presidency. 

Cantor also made much of the piecemeal spending bills the House has been passing. He named no fewer than six new mini-spending bills the House would pass, on top of at least five the House has already passed. 

"Today we're going to vote to open Fema and the National Weather Service ... and to provide nutrition services for women and children in poverty," Cantor said. Next week, he said, the House would pass bills to fund head start, and legislation to guarantee furloughed employees pay. 

Treasury secretary Jack Lew argues that it is crucial for Congress to raise the debt ceiling in a remarkably straight-faced and methodical editorial published in USA Today:

If the United States cannot pay its bills in full and on time, each and every American will be affected, including seniors who rely on Social Security, veterans who depend on disability payments, children in need of food assistance, and doctors and hospitals who treat Medicare patients, among others.

The stock market, including investments in retirement accounts, could tumble, and it could become more expensive for Americans to buy a car, own a home and open a small business.

Read the full piece here. 

Cover story. 

Good morning and welcome to our live blog coverage of day four of the partial government shutdown.

In a frozen landscape, the most intriguing zone of activity – of what we can see – is Republicans chasing a big budget deal instead of a simple spending bill that would reopen government. The big deal could reportedly include an agreement to raise the debt ceiling or even modify the tax code.

House speaker John Boehner is meeting this morning with his caucus in an attempt to outline such a deal. However, there are signs that it will not be easy to get the Republicans in the House to agree on anything a catchall deal.

Another catch: the Democratic Senate leadership has said they won’t take up any larger budget questions until the House passes a spending bill that doesn't mention Obamacare. The president has vowed not to horse-trade around the debt ceiling. "There will be no negotiations over this," Obama said Thursday.

The president announced late Thursday that due to the shutdown he has canceled a trip to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that was to begin Sunday. Earlier in the week the White House had announced the trip would merely be shortened. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend in Obama's stead.

Over the last two days the House has passed bills to fund chunks of government including veterans' services, national parks and museums, health research, the payroll of the National Guard and military reserve members and the municipality of the District of Columbia. Senate Democrats reject the bills out of hand, insisting on reopening all of government.

The stopgap spending bill the president wants the House to pass – the one passed by the Senate on 27 September – would keep the government running through 15 November, one month less than a bill passed earlier in the House.

Furloughed federal employees and union leaders have planned a rally near the Capitol today to "Stop the Government Lockout."