Neil Cavuto Pessimistic About a Deal; Optimistic About Imus's Ability to Scare People

Kind of like Imus and his audience, Republicans and Democrats stand little chance of reconciling any time soon. Only, as Neil Cavuto pointed out, lawmakers are feuding over the consequential raising of the debt ceiling, whereas Imus is sparring with his audience over the crummy e-mails they write him. 
 
“They are really, really far apart,” Cavuto, who has a bunch of important titles at Fox News, said of Congressional leaders and the President. “I guess the middle ground is to do a temporary deal, but the question is: how long is temporary?”
 
Should a big deal not be reached ahead of next week’s August 2^nd deadline, Obama could agree to a deal through the end of this year or the end of next year, however, Cavuto thinks even that seems unlikely at this point.
 
“The President wants to, I think, push a shutdown,” said Cavuto, as Imus mocked shooting himself in the head by placing a finger next to his temple.
 
Admitting he’s “not the smartest guy in the world,” as if  his guest didn’t already know, Imus observed that while watching Obama and Speaker Boehner in their primetime addresses last night, he thought both men sounded reasonable and put forth plans for deficit reduction that made sense.
 
“They have some commonalities,” Cavuto said, then noted that even if the debt ceiling is eventually raised, it would likely only be for a couple of years at the most. “People forget—the same ones bemoaning the fact that it would be a breach of responsibility not to raise it voted unanimously to raise it in 2006, including then-Senator Barack Obama.”
 
Should August 2^nd arrive without any whiff of a deal, Cavuto supposed the U.S. would “limp by, month after month, to pay our major bills,” hoping a deal comes up in the interim. A pre-deadline agreement is not, in his view, a foregone conclusion, and should Congress and the President fail to hammer something out, the federal government will have to start prioritizing, and fast.
 
It became clear to Cavuto over the weekend that this debate has gone from political differences to personal differences between Obama and Boehner, as the country’s credit rating hangs in the balance. Standard & Poor’s indicated they could downgrade the U.S. debt ahead of next week, which would be “a huge leap,” in Cavuto’s opinion, though he didn’t count out a downgrade after the fact.
 
“It likely could happen,” he said. “Because then the ratings agencies are in the position of having to prove whether they mean what they say, and they can act on the threat.”
 
Should all parties remain deadlocked come next week, Cavuto believes it would be “a pox on both their houses,” but conceded that Obama benefits more from a shutdown, as Bill Clinton did in the mid-1990s, even though this situation is much different.
 
“We’re in a lot deeper debt now, our economy is in a lot deeper trouble now, the global economy is in a lot deeper trouble now,” Cavuto said. “So I wouldn’t want to be president presiding over a possible downgrade of U.S. debt, if not a potential default.”
 
His prediction? “I think no deal,” Cavuto said, then wished Imus, aka “Boo Radley,” a joyful day at the Imus Ranch, where he will sit on a porch and scare people until it’s time to go to sleep.
 
-Julie Kanfer