The government shutdown is now into its second week, and there’s no sign of a bipartisan deal.
The chances of an agreement over the next several days are fairly low. Both parties are satisfied with where they are in this debate, and neither side is budging.
{mosads} Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) confirmed over the weekend that there is not a lot of dealmaking going on at the moment.
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Boehner said, “The American people expect in Washington when we have a crisis like this that the leaders will sit down and have a conversation. And I told my members the other day that there may be a back room somewhere, but there’s nobody in it.”
There is a high likelihood that any agreement will cover both the shutdown and the nation’s debt limit, which the administration says must be lifted by Oct. 17.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t trust the administration, claiming the Treasury Department likely has until early November.
So what is going to bring the parties together? A reeling stock market.
The financial markets have basically shrugged at the sequester and the shutdown, but the threat of default is another story.
The deeper this debate goes into October, the more the chances of a stock market plunge increase. That won’t hurt just traders on Wall Street. It will also endanger the retirement savings of millions of Americans.
After the first financial rescue plan failed on the House floor, the Dow dropped nearly 800 points. Since then, lawmakers have not scheduled a high-profile, controversial economic bill while the markets are open.
Regardless, if there isn’t a deal by mid-October, there is no telling what will happen in the global economy.
There is a chance that the markets might not get jittery then, but they certainly will by Halloween.
Once that happens, a deal will follow.