It is only July 21, but the way Congress operates, it may as well be the day before the deadline to raise the debt limit, as more and more signs are indicating that lamwakers may have to approve a short term increase in the debt limit - because there's just no agreement on how to solve this high stakes political impasse.
While President Obama met separately with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders at the White House, all kinds of meetings were taking place in the Capitol, in the hopes of some kind of a breakthrough on the debt limit, but few believed it was about to happen.
"We're still in choppy waters right now," said Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), who told me that while he wants to support the work of the Gang of Six in the Senate, there's one major problem with that idea.
"The bill isn't written," Boren said flatly. "The devil's in the details."
And while twelve days to the deadline might seem like a long time to many of my readers, it would be almost impossible to hammer out the details of a grand bargain along the lines of what the Gang of Six has produced, and get that on to the floor of either the House or Senate by August 2.
And leaders of the Gang of Six were publicly admitting exactly that on Wednesday.
"We've always said it's not a part of the debt ceiling," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who joined several meetings during the day with fellow Senators on the long term budget plan that would save $3.7 trillion over ten years.
What may happen is that we could see a situation much like earlier this year, when Republicans in the House passed a series of short-term budget extensions - with $2 billion in budget cuts for each week of the new stop gap budget.
The idea this time is to allow an increase in the debt limit, but only if Congress then approves budget cuts which equal that amount.
After his White House meeting, Speaker John Boehner returned to the Capitol for a two hour meeting with freshmen Republicans, who are keeping the heat on the Speaker as he tries to figure out a way forward.
"The freshman that came up here, they felt that they were given the message to cut spending, to downsize the size of government," said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA).
So, as the sun set last night, the question was - what's next? Nobody had that answer.
"Our leadership is basically holding their cards close to their chest," said Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who said the message was for lawmakers to sit tight and be available in coming days.
But with no concrete plan to vote on, GOP leaders announced last night that the House will not be in session this weekend.
While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had threatened to work Senators this weekend, it was clear yesterday that there might be a way to either avoid a weekend session, or make sure there were very few (or no) votes.
The bottom line right now - there is no deal, and there won't be a deal produced today most likely.
