Things look different when you are sitting in the Oval Office. In 2006, Senator Obama (D-IL) voted against raising the debt limit. Now he says, essentially, that he was acting irresponsibly.
Obama “thinks it was a mistake,” presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. “He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration’s policies, you can play around with.”
We can all have a debate about the role of the “protest vote.” On the vast majority of votes a lawmaker knows the outcome in advance. This frees them up to vote against something they would support if their vote was determinative of the outcome. Senator Obama would have voted ‘aye’ if his vote was required to raise the debt limit, but because his vote wasn’t required he was able to say the following on the Senate floor:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem.”
Maybe he had a point and maybe he didn’t. But he was definitely involved in some political posturing. And he’ll pay a price for it now that the shoe is on the other foot. In any case, the protest vote has its place, but it isn’t ever going to be venerated by the people. People don’t like it when people have to explain that they didn’t really want the outcome that their vote implied. It’s a variant of John Kerry’s “I voted for it before I voted against it” explanation for why he voted to fund the war in Iraq. Did Kerry really want to leave the troops in Iraq without ammunition if he didn’t get his way on the details? Was the war in Iraq right or wrong? But, hey, looking for consistency in a politician is a fool’s errand. The protest vote has its place, but it also has its problems. In philosophical terms, it violates the Categorical Imperative that we always act in a way that can be universalized (not that I buy Kant’s moral philosophy).
But there is a key factor to the protest vote that isn’t necessarily being considered by the Republicans who are threatening to default on our debt. It’s a protest vote. The whole point is that the thing passes despite your protests. I mean even Larry Kudlow is concerned now. Sure, he blames Obama for moving to the left with his speech on the budget yesterday, but what’s the bottom line?
My final point is this: President Obama’s harsh-rhetoric rejection of the Ryan budget and his new (presidential) campaign to raise taxes on the rich sets up a huge confrontation with House Republicans on the eve of the hugely important debt-limit expiration.
Sometime in mid to late May, the debt ceiling to allow the government to borrow more money is going to run out. The Treasury can move money inside government accounts to forestall a debt breakdown for another couple of months. But the potential for a major political conflict on the eve of this process sets up the worst possible outcome: Failure of the U.S. to pay the interest on its own debt.
This is unnerving to financial markets. Instead of compromise, the president decided to seek confrontation.
Caveat emptor. Investors beware.
We’ll see how confrontational the president becomes in the coming weeks, but he’s not the one threatening to welsh on our debt payments. He’s cast a protest vote on the debt limit before and he knows he was bluffing. He’s hoping the Republicans are bluffing, too. But, you know, increasingly it appears that rank-and-file Republicans and their backbenchers in Congress actually believe their own bullshit and don’t have the sophistication to understand the difference between voting against something you don’t want to pass and voting against something you do want to pass.
