The president has convened a late night (for Washington) meeting tonight to solve the budget crisis before tomorrow night's government shutdown. 8:45 p.m. White House. Harry Reid and John Boehner will be there. Will you? Obviously not, because you're just some random person reading this website.

Note the way this is framed:

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling with Obama in New York that the president called the meeting because too little progress had been made in reaching a budget agreement.

Executives tend to survive budget impasses while the two parties in the legislature take a pummeling, and the President is making every effort to play Responsible Daddy here. Doesn't mean they'll reach an agreement or anything.

One thing to keep in mind if there's a shutdown over this: This continuing resolution for six months of funding, with only a few billion dollars and specific small cuts standing between the two parties, is peanuts compared to what's on schedule for later this year. Peanuts! Within the next month, the parties will have to agree to raise the debt ceiling so the United States of America doesn't default on its obligations. This vote will be much more difficult, because of the Tea Party. And then later this year comes the budget debate for the fiscal year beginning in October, for which the Republicans have just offered an official proposal that eliminates Medicare, converts Medicaid to state block grants, slashes taxes on the rich, and just about every other non-starter for Democrats that you can imagine. So the government will never stay open longer than a few days at a time for the rest of the year, and maybe we'll be fine with that because fuck all of these people. Did you hear that they have health care and stuff like that in Canada? Sounds like a good place to move, even with all the flappy mouths.

[Image of Tea Party protesters in Washington today via AP]