![]() The bad news is that there will be very little growth and very few new jobs. That will happen because there’s no way the Republicans will chance another hostage-taking taking a month before the next elections. That means there will have to be an agreement on a CR for the first part of FY 2015 by next October 1. So, I think the shutdowns and debt ceiling scares are over until after the elections. I believe they know this, and that many of them are increasingly willing to chance getting primaried by tea party candidates in order to avoid probable defeat from Democrats, if they toe the tea party line and then try to run. We may have shutdown and debt ceiling threats before the 2014 elections but we will not have either of these types of crises, because the cost in public opinion, if it keeps trending the way it has been, will be too heavy for many Republican candidates, except for those in the reddest gerrymandered districts, to bear in 2014. Here’s how I answered the question: “Growth and Jobs or Shutdowns and Debt Ceiling Crises?” There I analyzed the political situation and made a number of predictions about the short-term future. I wrote a post called “What Happens Now?” just after the Government shutdown ended last October. So, now we have had agreement on a budget partially rolling back the sequester, and the Republican leadership appears to have decided not to have another debt ceiling crisis. Now it moves on to the Senate, where it is expected to pass in time to allow the Treasury to keep issuing debt instruments. At this writing, the bill passed with 28 Republican and 193 Democratic votes. Today, John Boehner bowed to the inevitable logic of the impending political season and placed a “clean” debt ceiling increase bill on the floor of the House.
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