Nate Silver earlier this morning

That plan has been outmoded by a new plan hammered out by the White House and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, still being finalized. When it's completed, it will be attached as an amendment to Reid's bill (Reid will be able to recall that legislation by voting to filibuster his own plan, knowing it's doomed anyhow).

It’s difficult to see how it could have ended otherwise. Virtually no Democrats are willing to go past Aug. 2 without raising the debt ceiling. Plenty of Republicans are prepared to blow through the deadline. That’s not a dynamic that lends itself to a deal. That’s a dynamic that lends itself to a ransom. But Democrats will have their turn. On Dec. 31, 2012, three weeks before the end of President Barack Obama’s current term in office, the Bush tax cuts expire. Income tax rates will return to their Clinton-era levels. That amounts to a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years, three or four times the $800 billion to $1.2 trillion in revenue increases that Obama and Speaker John Boehner were kicking around. And all Democrats need to do to secure that deal is...nothing.

What happens next, from TPM And while we wait, here's a piece from Ezra arguing that the Bush tax cuts are the undiscussed other side of the coin, the shoe that's yet to drop.That, of course, requires some trust in the White House to either stand firm or cut taxes in an election year.

Trust, we'll note for the record, is currently in short supply.