With just hours left before the point where the U.S. Treasury says the government will run out of money, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins has a plan.
“The best hope is a group of 14 senators who have been working hard over the last two weeks to forge a compromise,” she says on Morning Joe. “We’ve essentially reached an agreement.”
Key to that plan? Everyone gets a win.
“What the 14 of us have tried to do is offer an end to this impasse, to offer a path forward, where each side can point to provisions they like,” she said.
It's what the GOP has demanded from the beginning; Indiana Republican Rep. Marlin Stuzeman put it bluntly earlier this month.
"We're not going to be disrespected," he told The Washington Examiner. "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
A group of fourteen senators, lead by Collins, have mapped out a deal to fund the government, while adding income verification to Obamacare, delay the medical device tax, and create a budget conference between the two chambers to establish a long-term budget plan.
Collins said she doesn’t know if the House of Representatives will pass her bill, but “if I were the leaders I would take hard look at what 14 senators have been able to come up with a possible template of what we can solve this once and for all.”