Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to the latest Week When All Hell Might Break Loose.

Here’s the good news: The work week ends on Friday the 13th, which is the day U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators are supposed to produce a budget deal that forestalls another government shutdown.

Any takers on whether they get it done?

Well, here we are yet again. We’ve been through one of these government shutdowns already. It lasted 16 days and Republicans took the big hickey on that deal. The “crisis” ended when all the parties agreed to convene a conference committee chaired by two serious lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — to hammer out a new budget deal.

The stakes are big. Absent a budget deal, the government could shut down once more. We hear now about a major sticking point: whether to extend unemployment insurance for long-term jobless Americans. President Obama wants to extend the benefit; his “friends” on the Republican side in Congress, naturally, oppose it.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131207/DAAHG0F83.html

House Speaker John Boehner is actually making sense, suggesting Republicans could support an extension.

My guess is that the GOP has another — more pragmatic — reason to avoid a shutdown. It involves the Affordable Care Act.

You see, Democrats have lost their political edge over the ACA rollout. All that advantage they had over Republicans because of the shutdown dissipated when the ACA debut crashed and burned because of that faulty website. It gave Republicans loads of fresh meat to gnaw on. They’re still chewing on it and inflicting as much damage as possible on Democrats.

Do Republicans want to surrender that advantage? I don’t think so.

Therefore, I’m almost ready to suggest that the Murray- and Ryan-led committee just might cobble together a budget deal that heads off a government shutdown.