Sen. Dick Durbin warned Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face the Nation that if the Congress did not come to some sort of agreement on raising the debt limit by today, Sunday, they're risking hitting a tipping point where the bond markets start reacting. Durbin also warned against just doing a short term extension and putting us through all of this dangerous nonsense again in a few months.
DURBIN: Well, we absolutely do not want to default, but this notion that we're going to replay this movie in four or five months, that we're going to face this whole thing all over again, the American economy is too fragile at this point in recovery for us to allow that to happen. We've been warned, not by political advisers. I hear the Republicans, they want to make this a campaign issue. Ignore the political advisers for a moment. Listen to the economists who are telling us, all of us together, do not lurch from one five month period to another when it comes to the credit rating of the United States of America. Not at this moment in history. It's going to hurt us. It's going to stall our recovery. And I might say to Speaker Boehner, he should remember six words. If you break it, you own it. […]
Tim Geithner, our Secretary of the Treasury, has warned us that at some moment, there's a tipping point here. These political negotiations will go on too long and people will start paying the price. And it won't just be the politicians. It's going to be the average working family in America, the average business that'll face this new burden from this failure to reach an agreement that they are all going to sense and feel. They're going to see in their savings a reduction in value, I'm afraid if we don't extend the debt ceiling. That's why it's critical for us to reach an agreement today.
I'm wondering if they've already messed around for too long because the market downturn could start when the Asian markets open up this evening.
UPDATED: John Amato via The Note:
Asian markets? They are on their own. A Republican source tells ABC News negotiators do not expect to have a deal or even the framework of a deal on the debt ceiling by 4 p.m. today, as House Speaker John Boehner had said he wanted to steady jittery Asian markets when they open.
In fact, the source says a deal today is now looking unlikely.
The principals are speaking over the phone while the staffs work on the numbers. Congressional Democrats and Republicans continue to try to hash out a compromise, but they are not there yet.
Separately, the source says that the big "grand bargain" now looks, once again, to be "pretty dead" -- not buried yet, but not really breathing either. Despite the positive comments by Boehner and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this morning, the large deficit reduction plan seems to be too much, too late to accomplish by the Aug. 2 deadline.
"A deal is still elusive," said one top House Republican.
This should have been a clean vote and always has been except there's a Democratic president now so if a Grand Bargain is off and our safety net benefits are not slashed, that's all well and good for me.
(I changed the title of the past to reflect the new information)
