A Congressional Showdown Over Budget looms greater with Pres. Obama & Speaker Boehner

SHUTDOWN WATCH - David Rogers: "The threat of a shutdown looms greater with President Obama and Speaker Boehner still too hesitant or too vulnerable to embrace a deal. Yet for all the high stakes - affecting close to $1 trillion in nondefense spending over the next 10 years - the politics can be so high school-like that it has spawned not one but two 'Gangs of Six,' ... [including] the half-dozen Senate and House aides and administration officials trying to broker some compromise. ... For the 55-year-old [White House budget director Jack] Lew, it has been a sometimes rocky re-entry, given the success he enjoyed in the 1990s as Clinton's budget negotiator with Congress." http://bit.ly/h6X2JO

--Fred Barnes op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "Republicans Are Winning the Budget Fight": "Republican dissidents fear jumbling proposed budgets with the debt issue will confuse voters and allow Democrats to block cuts. It might. At the same time, Republicans would be looking at a target-rich environment for cuts that reduce the size and reach of Washington. This is all the more reason for the GOP not to provoke a government shutdown. Yet dissatisfied Republicans are willing to risk one by opposing further short-term extensions of spending."

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