Time to regroup?

“We’re discussing the possible virtue of a short-term debt limit extension so that we have a better chance of getting the Senate and the White House involved in discussions in March,” Ryan, R-Wis., revealed during an off-camera discussion with reporters tracking the retreat. “What we want to achieve at the end of the day is a two-way discussion between Democrats and Republicans and, out of that, hopefully, some progress being made on getting this deficit and debt under control – because we really do believe that our obligation is to help prevent a debt crisis from hitting this country.”

Ryan declined to detail the terms of a possible short-term extension, but said that given “the realities of divided government” challenging lawmakers, he hopes Republicans “achieve consensus on a plan to proceed so that we can make progress on controlling spending and deficits and debt.

“Our goal is to make sure that our members understand all of the deadlines that are coming, all the consequences of those deadlines that are coming, in order so that we can make a better-informed decision about how to move and how to proceed,” said Ryan, who was easily reelected to another term in the House.

Unless this is a simple ploy to buy time, because the caucus is so divided over what to demand as a price of raising the ceiling, I don’t see the point. The bit about approaching deadlines is clear enough — the debt-ceiling deadline could hit as early as next month, then the sequester takes effect in early March, then the current continuing resolution for federal spending expires in late March. Rather than have the big debt-ceiling fight in February and have to deal with the other crap a month later, they could postpone it for a few weeks and try to resolve all three issues together. But they could also resolve all three issues next month too. If they’re asking for extra time, it’s only because they’re not ready to formulate their “ask.” Or, maybe, Ryan’s thinking that by tying the debt ceiling to the continuing resolution, they can put extra pressure on Obama and Reid to finally finally finally propose a budget of their own.

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Read more:http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/17/pa...ling-extension/

The sucking sound of half ask leadership. Ryan, you are a waste of space, just like bonery and that cracker whip cantor. Rush said yesterday they wou.d cave. They just do not have any ideal how to address this issue, do it this way dummies, cut every departemnt 30 % with a six month extension. Lay off the bs talk of entitlement, cut the operating budget by 50% this year and end tarp and the stimulus. You are not going to win talking about cutting grandmoms money. Dang fools, extend retirement for government employees to 66, for all not military, and extend military retirement to 30 years. And cut your own dang retirement.