Democrats hint at possibility of budget deal without jobless aid extension
A senior Democrat said on Sunday he hoped an emerging deal on the US budget would include an extension of unemployment benefits but added that his party would not necessarily walk away from an agreement that left it out.
"I don't think we've reached that point where we've said, 'This is it, take it or leave it,'" Senator Richard Durbin told ABC's This Week, when pressed on whether his party would insist on including jobless aid in a final deal.
Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said that based on what he had heard from Senator Patty Murray, the lead Democratic negotiator on the budget, the fiscal talks are making progress and moving in the right direction. The House of Representatives and Senate budget panel, created after the government shutdown in October, is discussing a two-year accord that would ease the impact of across-the-board spending cuts known as the "sequester" and lower the short-term risk of another damaging fiscal showdown.
Then there is this rather classic bit of double speak from The Hon. Ms. Pelosi.
The House of Representatives Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, said last week that Democrats "cannot support" a budget deal without an extension of unemployment insurance, and President Barack Obama appealed to Republicans on the issue in his weekly address on Saturday. Pelosi later clarified that she would like to see jobless benefits included in the budget deal but that she would be open to the idea of passing it under separate legislation.
It sounds like we have more Democratic negotiation. Offer to give things away before you get anything in return. The positions of the Third Way seem to have gained traction with much of the Democratic leadership.