From The Financial Times:
Barbara Mikulski, Democratic senator from Maryland, best captured the turn of events in the critical US debt talks.
After emerging from a lunch meeting on Thursday with members of her party and Jack Lew, the White House budget director, Ms Mikulski said her colleagues were feeling “volcanic” about the prospect of a $3,000bn deal to cut deficits and raise the debt ceiling that did not include any higher taxes, adding that it was “like Mount Vesuvius” in the room.
Harry Reid, the US Senate majority leader, added: “This can’t be all cuts, there has to be a balance.”
Facing a possible revolt from within Democratic ranks, White House officials immediately dismissed the notion that the president would strike any agreement with Republicans to implement significant spending cuts – including reform of treasured government programmes such as Medicare and Social Security – without garnering any new revenue in return. They also invited Democratic leaders back to the White House for a second straight day of talks in an effort to shore up their support in the negotiations.
Read the whole thing here.
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