G.O.P. Senators See Outline for Debt Deal After Obama Meeting [View all]

[cali]

Republican senators emerged from a meeting at the White House on Friday afternoon expressing confidence that a deal could be reached in a matter of days that would end the government shutdown and extend the nation’s borrowing authority, but cautioning that details of an agreement, including the length of an extension, still needed to be worked out.

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Significantly, the president signaled that he could be flexible in reaching a deal, said Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. He said he was open to the idea of giving Republicans something on their policy wish list, Ms. Murkowski said, if they in turn agreed to give Democrats something — but only on the condition that the government reopens and the debt ceiling is raised.

“He said ‘space for trading,'” Ms. Murkowski said. “So apparently we are not talking about negotiation, we’re talking about some trading space.”

After the White House meeting, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, continued work on a proposal they hope could get bipartisan support in the Senate. The plan, according to an aide with knowledge of the discussions, would extend the nation’s borrowing limit through the end of January and include a stopgap spending measure at sequestration levels that would reopen the government and finance it through the end of March. Government agencies would have flexibility on how to handle the across-the-board spending cuts.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/us/politics/budget-and-debt-limit-debate.html