Senate leaders are still reportedly negotiating a way out of the current impasse in the hopes of reopening the government and lifting the debt ceiling before Thursday.

In the meantime, here's a little bit of evidence showing how much the government shutdown has blown up in the GOP's face.

Senator Bob Corker said on TV this morning that the debate at this point is really over the level of spending. Will it be current, sequestration levels, or will it be more, as the Democrats would like?

And on CNN, Senator Rand Paul insisted that any deal keep in place sequestration-level spending and that he could not abide by what the Democrats would have liked to see.

This is pretty amazing. The entire Obamacare defund/delay goal is shot. Republicans are just fighting to keep in place current spending levels, which they would have had automatically had they agreed to a clean continuing resolution right off the bat and never shut down the government.

But the plan has gone so badly, that just the status quo is something they're left fighting for.