Finally, Bipartisanship
Both the left and the right agree – Obama drank the GOP’s milkshake. The Wall Street Journal tries to convince balky Republicans that the McConnell deal is the best deal possible.
The reality is that Mr. Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson’s choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default. In the former case Mr. Obama takes the tax issue off the table and demoralizes the tea party for 2012, and in the latter he makes Republicans share the blame for 9.2% unemployment.
…
Republicans who say they can use the debt limit to force Democrats to agree to a balanced budget amendment are dreaming. Such an amendment won’t get the two-thirds vote to pass the Senate, but it would give every Democrat running for re-election next year a chance to vote for it and claim to be a fiscal conservative.
We agree with those who say that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can cut other federal spending before he allows a technical default on U.S. debt. No doubt that is what he will do. We’d even support a showdown over technical default if we thought it might yield some major government reforms. But Mr. Obama clearly has no such intention.
Instead he and Mr. Geithner will gradually shut down government services, the more painful the better. The polls that now find that voters oppose a debt-limit increase will turn on a dime when Americans start learning that they won’t get Social Security checks. Republicans will then run like they’re fleeing the Pamplona bulls, and chaotic retreats are the ugliest kind. By then they might end up having to vote for a debt-limit increase and a tax increase.
The WSJ is trying to spin this deal as giving Obama accountability but the truth is Congress said it couldn’t it do it’s own job. McConnell’s ploy might have worked to embarrass Obama if the GOP hadn’t spent 6 months screaming about the debt ceiling.
Kevin Drum agrees with the WSJ but states the case clearly. The McConnell proposal is acknowledgement that Obama won the PR war.
But I suppose there’s a bigger picture here than just McConnell’s cynicism. And the bigger picture, obviously, is that McConnell wouldn’t have proposed giving Obama his debt ceiling increase with only political strings attached unless he was convinced that Republicans were losing the PR battle for a more comprehensive deal. And since the only real stumbling block to a comprehensive deal was Obama’s insistence on revenue increases, McConnell must have felt that they were losing the PR battle even there. After years of owning the tax issue, this must have come as something of a tectonic shock.
Which is…..interesting. Obviously, Obama has been positioning himself all along as the reasonable, centrist guy, willing to agree to trillions in spending cuts as long as Republicans are willing to close a few modest tax loopholes. Last week Republicans derided Obama’s repeated focus on tax breaks for corporate jets as class warfare etc., but you know what? It must have been working. Somewhere down in the bowels of the GOP’s polling operation, they must have discovered that the public was buying Obama’s pitch that “the wealthy need to pitch in too.”
I’m amazed actually that Obama’s opponents continually underestimate him. You may not always agree with what he’s doing but he does have a plan. You’d think people would have had 2.5 years to figure this out. Is this one of Obama’s secret strengths?
Tags: Budget, Debt Ceiling
It’s too soon to declare victory. True, I am perpetually wrong about how events will be perceived by the public, but a WSJ editorial isn’t enough evidence.
There is every reason to believe that McConnell’s three debt votes will have exactly the PR effect Republicans hope for and will grind Democrats down during campaign season. The economy is not looking good (jobs, housing, foreclosures, gas prices) and it will be frighteningly easy for Republicans to make the connection with the debt limit, or anything else Obama does.
Actually, winning a clean debt extension with no tax increases might be a PR victory but it is not a victory for the economy.
“The rope-a-dope is performed by a boxer assuming a protected stance, in Ali’s classic pose, lying against the ropes, and allowing his opponent to hit him, toward the end that the opponent will tire and make mistakes which the boxer can exploit in a counter-attack.”
The key to the rope-a-dope is that once the opponent is punched out, the person doing the rope-a-dope comes off the ropes with surprising and unnerving strength and tenacity.
I’d love to see Obama come off the ropes and start land a few punches, but I’m not holding my breath. It isn’t his style.
Obama is not working at boxing here. The game metaphor that better applies to his style is poker.
Anyway, Newtie thinks that McConnell is a cheese-eating surrender monkey.
I love that Newt hates this.
Extending the tax cuts in December now looks like an even graver error, if this new deal doesn’t include tax increases on the wealthy.
Although, if we get a clean debt limit bill, then we get to move on to budget negotiations. Yay?
If they didn’t extend the tax cuts the job creators would have fled to Haiti and our unemployment rate would now be over 8%. Please try to keep up Sir.
Keeping the rope-a-dope metaphor going, TPM adds that this could change EVERYTHING if Obama wants to change everything:
Anybody know what Rush is saying about this?
Or, to put that in terminology that I had all but given up on, this is the perfect time for THE REVEAL!
Just prior to the McConnell story breaking, Rush said that Obama made the August deadline to coincide with Ramadan.
I’m not kidding.
“The game metaphor that better applies to his style is poker.”
Not as it’s played at the highest levels. His cautious approach might work against amateurs, but he’d be gone quickly in a competitive tournament situation.
The person to watch now is Cantor.
I do think Obama would prefer a deal however he brought out the we won’t be able to pay SS benefits card which obviously caused GOP panic. GOP is hemmed in by Wall St, Main St and teajadis in a lose-lose proposition.
Yes, the GOP will continue to bash Obama on the budget. He sure has a powerful counter-argument now, though.
Throwing the $4 trillion proposal in the pot was pretty bold. With Social Security and Medicare cuts, Democrats would have been screwed if Republicans had called that bluff.
To continue with the poker metaphor, what is Obama playing for? I think he simply wants the traditional rubber-stamp increase in the debt limit. I don’t think he wants any deal at all on taxes or spending.
If he gets a clean debt increase, then we get to argue taxes and spending all over again in the budget debate.
and just maybe puck, we get to go into the budget debate from a stronger position now that the R’s have so clearly shown their true agenda??
THE REVEAL! is back! I can’t wait!
Speaking of rope-a-dope, anybody care to mention the current mental health conditions of its innovator versus those he practiced it against?
It isn’t pretty.
and just maybe puck, we get to go into the budget debate from a stronger position now that the R’s have so clearly shown their true agenda??
It could happen that way. I have no idea how the public will react once the spin gets going. The spin usually goes the Republicans’ way.
For all the dance steps we’ve done over taxes and spending, we still have the Bush tax structure and no jobs bill. And we are still borrowing money to fund tax cuts for the rich. Until that changes, Republicans are still in the winner’s circle.
Oh crap I think I accidentally introduced another sports metaphor.
Yep, continually underestimated. How many times does Obama have to come out ahead before people will concede he knows what he’s doing? I guess never since he doesn’t do it the way critics want him to. Obama could’ve taken the tack that the GOP wouldn’t dare not raising the ceiling and refused to negotiate. But he did and who gets the blame for walking away and being unable to solve the deficits? The GOP. It looks obvious in retrospect to me.
“Throwing the $4 trillion proposal in the pot was pretty bold. With Social Security and Medicare cuts, Democrats would have been screwed if Republicans had called that bluff.”
The GOP could have gotten all of its longstanding goals accomplished on the cheap if it was not for the blood oath they all swore to Grover Norquist to never raise revenue – even through closing loopholes.
BTW to A1, – I knew you’d get a kick out of me bringing back THE REVEAL!
Even now Harry Reid is trying to give the GOP a budget cutting escape hatch.
SO, if Obama uses this moment to start being a leader, I will gladly agree with UI. If he slides back into his passive “victim of circumstances” role, I will probably say “I told you so.”
Obama hasn’t “come out ahead” yet.
There is also the possibility that Obama may be playing only for himself and not us – so he comes out ahead, while Democrats and the economy take a hit. That is basically how Clinton justified his triangulation (which I wasn’t totally opposed to): Clinton said something like “I had to decide between being the leader of the country, and the leader of the Democratic Party.”
The problem is at this time, the best interests of the Democratic Party and the country happen to coincide.
who gets the blame for walking away and being unable to solve the deficits?
I don’t know. We’ll have to keep watching the polls as the budget debate unfolds. And then we’ll have to keep watching the polls once the corporate dollars start airing the blame-fixing campaign ads.
It doesn’t matter much about playing at the highest levels, it matters that you win your hand. And since McConnell is busily trying to fold while also trying to limit the win, it looks to me like Obama played the better hand. It is useful to remember that the reason that we are even talking about deficit reduction as part of raising the debt ceiling is that the GOP took the debt ceiling hostage. And yet here we have puck completely suckered into the GOP line here:
For all the dance steps we’ve done over taxes and spending, we still have the Bush tax structure and no jobs bill.
These things should never have been yoked together *in the first place* and here it looks like Obama got them to release the hostage (although this certainly isn’t over yet). Why else do you think the teajadis are having a fit today?
If this Malkin post and the comment thread is any indication – teajadis are in full blown freak out.
I love the comments about “food inspection” being too expensive.
As an aside, the astonishing cluelessness of wingnguts is astonishing. Check out this comment from that Malkin thread.
Just look at the economic clusterfuck that is California now compared to the pre-prop13 days.
They are so precious, they actually thought Republicans cared about cutting spending.
Exactly. And what is mind-blowing about it all is that they actually could have had that. They just didn’t want to be a part of a responsible way to get there.
This is when you wish the Dems had the kind of message discipline that the GOP does — because pointing out that the GOP was more interested in the politics of this thing (avoiding the tough politics for them and inflicting the tough politics on Dems) than in actually getting any spending cuts should be hammered home at every opportunity.
UI: “How many times does Obama have to come out ahead before people will concede he knows what he’s doing?”
Cass: “it looks to me like Obama played the better hand.”
And it looks to me like you two are optimistically counting chickens after McConnell laid one egg.
Watching Obama operate is like watching a turtle race – you know, where they put turtles in a circle and the turtles wander around until the first turtle out of the circle wins.
Obama diehards don’t care which side of the circle he gets out of, as long as he “gets something done” and gets out of the circle, that’s a win.
But Republicans have a very clear idea which side of the circle is the winning side and which is the losing side.
…also, slow and boring, and I need a drink because I thought this was going to be over by 1:30 and it is fucking 3:00 in the afternoon and I have to get shit done.
It isn’t just one egg. And I think I’ve acknowledged that this is nowhere near done. These guys are in serious disarray here. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the GOP has proposed and walked back multiple deals and when Obama called their bluff by making the prospect of a bigger reductions seriously possible, they folded and ran. They were waiting for him to blink.
If you are basically getting your info from the TV news or the professional left outrage machine, I can understand missing this.
Obama diehards don’t care which side of the circle he gets out of, as long as he “gets something done” and gets out of the circle, that’s a win.
And if you would wrap your mind around the fact that *this* is exactly how this administration sees itself, you might be a smarter observer of these people.
“If you are basically getting your info from the TV news or the professional left outrage machine, I can understand missing this.”
If by “professional left outrage machine,” you mean Daily Kos and TPM – I plead guilty.
Is there still news on TV?
I do get the Republican disarray thing. That is something, if we choose to pursue it. They were incredibly overconfident about just how quickly they could implement their extremist agenda. And “Obama 2010” gave them plenty of reason to feel confident. Remember Paul Ryan sounding genuinely wounded that Obama wouldn’t cave into the Ryan budget and went on the attack instead?
But Republicans have been in disarray several times in the past, and each time Obama has offered them a hand up. Do you remember how pre-HCR we were talking about the demise of the GOP and how they would become a Southern rump party? Now we are talking about President Bachmann. And we still have the damned Bush tax cuts for the rich.
I do have a glimmer of an inkling that Obama means it this time. Not because of any Democratic ideals. I think Obama is now finally personally offended and pissed at Republicans. Remember this polite-but-vicious exchange with Cantor:
I’m sorry, Cass, I didn’t understand that comment — that this is how this administration sees itself.
I’m not getting my view of this from anyone but the sources; my analysis is my own. You really think Obama “knew” they wouldn’t take him up on cuts to SS and Medicare? If so, you’ve been drinking too much Flavr-Aid (the cut-rate Kool-Aid used at Jonestown). If Obama were “winning,” every issue would not now have a right-wing frame around it.
So a 3 to 1 cut to tax proposal is now a good thing?
Obama is going to cut $3trln and add 100billion over 10 years and UI says this:
I’m amazed actually that Obama’s opponents continually underestimate him. You may not always agree with what he’s doing but he does have a plan. You’d think people would have had 2.5 years to figure this out. Is this one of Obama’s secret strengths?
If by strengths you mean continually able to get people to admire him selling out the middle and lower class all to prove he isn’t going to spread the wealth around…then yes, his secret strength is being a Republican….
He’s what the GOP thought they had with Micheal Steele and now actually have.
Hell, Obama is the best thing that happened to the GOP
dv, the spending cuts are no longer part of the debt deal at this point. That discussion will be moving to the budget debate, which we will be having with a (presumably) weakened GOP. It’s not perfect but we are in a better place than I thought we would be.
Come to think of it, we have bunch of Democrats who said they wanted spending cuts to be part of the debt deal, including all of our delegation I think. Now they have to backtrack too.
You really think Obama “knew” they wouldn’t take him up on cuts to SS and Medicare?
No I don’t. And there is nothing about what I’ve said here about what he *knew*. And you do know that this grand bargain included more than just cuts to SS and Medicare, right (and cuts that should have looked familiar from the April budget reduction exercise)? He was getting into tax reform territory (which he spoke of in the SOTU) and part of the reason why the GOP ran away was not just that there were revenues involved, but that they would not be in control of *what* revenues.
I’ve been saying for months that this debt ceiling thing is the closest thing to an easy win against the GOP the Obama Administration would ever have. I argued each time that all he had to do was sit tight, because the business community would take care of it. He didn’t wait for the business community — he upped the ante and called their bluff. Now they’re running away screaming and making it clear everywhere that they never cared about cutting spending, they just wanted the politics of the thing.
If Obama were “winning,” every issue would not now have a right-wing frame around it.
If you weren’t focused on finding more reasons to criticize the guy, you’d would have remembered that “right-wing frames” aren’t entirely his fault. There’s an entire industry for this and a political media who don’t think that either information quality or accountability is their job.
And I guess I need to point out that I think that he is winning on *this*, so am not so sure what that has to do with “every issue”.
Spine found in unusual location – Steny Hoyer:
Read the article. It’s got some good quotes from one of the White House meetings:
This really is a radically different Barack Obama than we saw last December.
Obama, Pearl Harbor Day 2010, invoking Republican hostages to defend his tax cut cave-in:
And now Obama 2011, willing to throw hostages under the bus:
Wow. What a difference in six months. I think he might be evolving.
Faint rumblings of the THE REVEAL! perhaps:
“But Obama said he wouldn’t do the debt-limit increase incrementally and that he would veto a short-term bill.
“That’s when he got very agitated,” Cantor told reporters.
“Obama lit him up. Cantor sat in stunned silence,” said an official in the meeting. “It was incredible. If the public saw Obama he would win in a landslide.”
More of this, please.
“If you weren’t focused on finding more reasons to criticize the guy”
Check the archives, Cass. I stayed with him longer than most people here. It’s comments like that one that have made the rest of us write you off as a groupie.
Obama really can redeem himself by holding out for tax increases on the rich, which really would break the GOP. Supposedly Obama told Republicans yesterday he wouldn’t give in even if it meant the downfall of his Presidency. It is a shame he has to dig himself out of the deep tax hole he dug himself last December, but at least he seems to recognize it now.
Republicans are so committed to the Norquist pledge, I think a nickel of new tax on a pack of cigarettes would splinter the party.
I stayed with him longer than most people here. It’s comments like that one that have made the rest of us write you off as a groupie.
Now it’s you who needs to check the archives. It isn’t as though I’ve not had any criticisms of the guy. But if you’re busily arguing against points I haven’t even made, I can see how you wouldn’t have noticed that.
And I don’t much care about whether you are *with him*. But if you are making whatever case you are making with poor information, then I will care about that. But then, I spend the better part of my day sorting through information and data to make decisions with and I know that keeping that hat on here isn’t always useful.
If you are going to be in the business of accusing people of drinking the koolaid, you surely can’t object to some of the same kind of rhetoric sent back your way.