
At a meeting with John Boehner and nineteen other Republicans at the White House this afternoon, President Obama rejected the GOP’s latest proposal, which would raise the debt ceiling for six weeks and call on Democrats to enter budget negotiations. According to the Times, Obama rejected the offer because it would keep the government shutdown in place. Nevertheless, “both parties saw it as the first break in Republicans’ brinkmanship and a step toward a fiscal truce.” That’s the glass-half-full analysis, we suppose.