Hmmm. GOP Grand Bargain? What's that?

House Republicans tell me Speaker John Boehner wants to craft a “grand bargain” on fiscal issues as part of the debt-limit deliberations, and during a series of meetings on Wednesday, he urged colleagues to stick with him.

The revelation came quietly. Boehner called groups of members to his Capitol office all day, taking their temperature on the shutdown and the debt limit. It became clear, members say, that Boehner’s chief goal is conference unity as the debt limit nears, and he’s looking at potentially blending a government-spending deal and debt-limit agreement into a larger budget package.

“It’s the return of the grand bargain,” says one House Republican, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “There weren’t a lot of specifics discussed, and the meetings were mostly about just checking in. But he’s looking hard at the debt limit as a place where we can do something big.”Beyond Boehner’s office, the leadership is sending out a similar message through its emissaries. The House GOP’s top fiscal strategists, Dave Camp and Paul Ryan, are reassuring nervous members that the shutdown may be painful in the short term, but a budget deal is in the works.

During Wednesday huddles, Ryan and Camp, along with members who met with Boehner, talked about what kind of concessions they could potentially win from Democrats on the debt limit, should Republicans hang together. Per sources, entitlement reform, an elimination of the medical-device tax, and delays to parts of Obamacare are all on the table.

Ryan and his allies believe Democrats want a delay of aspects of sequestration and, of course, a clean CR and debt-limit extension. Instead of making separate deals on each front, Ryan, and now, it seems, Boehner are looking at combining the different issues into a single pact.

If we wanna do more deficit reduction, I’ve already– put out a budget that says, “Let’s do it.” I’m willing to reform entitlements. I’m willing to– you know, cut out additional waste that may be there. And I’m spending time, even without pressure from Congress, trying to figure out how we can cut out waste in the system.

Most House Republicans privately concede they’re fighting a battle they’re unlikely to win, and to avoid a prolonged shutdown and a disastrous debt default, Washington has to create a package so big that lifting the borrowing limit and funding the government is merely a sideshow.
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“I want to get a budget agreement,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told POLITICO on Wednesday. “That’s what we’ve been about all along. So yeah, we think the issues are converging — [the continuing resolution] and debt limit — and from the get-go, we wanted to get a budget agreement to grow this economy and get this debt under control, especially before the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates. I think it’s in our nation’s interest to do that. And that’s one of the things we’re fighting for in addition to relief from Obamacare — or fairness from Obamacare.”
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White House officials remain deeply skeptical that a grand bargain can be reached as long as Republicans refuse to raise tax revenue. But there are fresh signs Republicans would consider new revenue if they are not raising tax rates, and key Republicans told POLITICO that they would be interested in some of the items discussed by Boehner and Obama in 2011.The collision of a number of factors has sparked renewed talk of a grand bargain.
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So with government shut down and the debt ceiling rapidly approaching in the next two weeks a large number of Republicans see a grand deficit compromise as the only plausible way out.
Members throughout the House Republican Conference are sounding a new tune on a potential deal. Republican Rep. Steve Stivers, a close Boehner ally from the Columbus, Ohio, area, said “guys like me” would consider revenue in a potential deal.

“We’re getting closer to the point that everything’s intertwined — government funding, the debt ceiling and spending — and so the best way out, I believe, and the only way for everybody to find an acceptable long-term solution is a big negotiation of everything that includes something on entitlements, tax reform, something on a spending level and wrap it in one box,” Stivers told POLITICO.