“With the government reopened and a debt default averted for now, Congressional negotiators on Thursday plunged into difficult budget talks to avoid a repeat crisis within months, and quickly agreed to lower their sights from the sort of grand bargain that has eluded the two parties for three years,” the New York Times reports.

“The question of what a new House-Senate budget conference can deliver by its Dec. 13 deadline — in time for Congress to act by Jan. 15 on funding to keep the government open — remained the subject of deep skepticism, well earned by past failures at reaching so-called grand bargains for deficit reduction and spending investments in the past three years.”

The Wall Street Journal says the “differences between the two sides remain stark, and a number of
congressional aides said the chances of devising a budget that both
parties can live with are low.”

Wall Street Journal: “The budget fight that ended Wednesday night marked a new low in an increasingly dysfunctional capital. Interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, congressional aides and administration officials about what transpired behind the scenes revealed that the traditional back-channel negotiations and 11th-hour bartering that produce most legislative deals didn’t happen. Instead, both parties focused mostly on trying to kill any plans that emerged–both from the opposing party and their own colleagues.”

“Both sides emerged more entrenched and distrustful of one another, and that bad blood could spill beyond the budget questions. Republicans, defeated in their bid to neuter the health law, are unlikely to provide assistance to President Barack Obama as he tries to get his second term on track. Democrats have less faith in House Speaker John Boehner’s ability to deliver votes from his own rank-and-file.”

Politico quotes Boehner in a private conversation with Obama: “I got overrun, that’s what happened.”

“The House has been sending over, we think, perfectly reasonable suggestions about trying to slow down the train wreck called Obamacare… The House has been very reasonable here in trying to get the Senate to at least engage in some adjustments to this Obamacare train wreck.”

— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in an interview with WHAS on the budget showdown, 9/28/13

“They knew I had a weak hand, given the time we had squandered on this quixotic venture that had no chance of success.”

— McConnell, in an interview with National Review, 10/17/13

“There’s nothing in this for conservatives. Not even a bright or shiny object. I don’t know how you negotiate up from this capitulation. I think the long faces are a result of the realization, if not the vocalization yet, that this sets the precedent for this Congress.”

— Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY), quoted by TPM, on the deal to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told The Hill that he will not allow another government shutdown as part of a strategy to repeal Obamacare.

Said McConnell: “One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid 1990s and the second kick was over the last 16 days. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. There will not be a government shutdown.”

He added: “I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is.”