Here’s another thread. The old one was full. I assume you have an opinion on the debt ceiling that you would like to express.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Question for you: what happens in 2013? I think the Republicans have a very good chance of taking over the Senate; at the very least they will be able to filibuster shit. Do you think they will just refuse to take the debt ceiling hostage then? With Mike Lee, Rand Paul, DeMint and god knows what other freakshows will get elected in 2012?
I have my own opinions on this, but I want yours.
I suspect that we’ll never be able to lift the debt ceiling again without overcoming a filibuster. Certainly not in the near future.
This is what happens when one of the two major parties becomes a deranged, racist, xenophobic, fundamentalist religion-fueled tool of corporate power.
Liberals can start getting serious about how big of a problem it is to have this develop in our country, or we can complain about the president’s testosterone levels.
Do you have a strategy of how we avoid this in the future? If not, I’m just picturing this playing over again: we win the House back with 260 seats, the presidency, and hold 51 Senate seats (absolute best case scenario).
Will we be able to claim “electoral mandate” and force a clean raise; or will we be extorted again and then told by the media and the president that we “just don’t have the votes”?
I mean, you can trash the liberals all you want, but throwing your arms up and exclaiming we can’t do anything because the Republicans are insane isn’t helping. We need to be thinking about this right now.
No. There is absolutely nothing we can do. We’re fucked.
Obama can win 49 states and we can win back the House and we can hold the Senate and we’re still fucked.
Actually, if we managed to do all that, we’d have a slim chance of neutering the filibuster. So, in theory, we can avoid being fucked.
But only in theory.
No, we face a grim future or one where the Republican vision of America actually gets a serious try-out.
Those are our choices.
And this is why I think we should use the 14th amendment. I’m not even thinking of right now, I’ve been thinking of the future consequences.
But a downgrade would still occur.
Frankly, it still might.
W/e. We have a Constitutional Crisis, and I think we need to get it over with now. What’s to stop a downgrade in the future? The ratings agencies have a political agenda, and it’s not on our side.
Yeah, that’s easy to say from the comfort of your keyboard. It’s like people who declare we gonna have a war with Iran sooner or later so let’s get it over now.
Indeed, it is easy for me to say from the comfort of my keyboard. I also have prominent politicians backing it, including the last Democratic President.
We’re going to be held at gunpoint again. And again, and again, until it’s finally resolved with a means to get rid of the gun holding.
The last Democratic president caved every time a gun was held to his head (DADT, DOMA, Welfare reform). And then he took bribes for his other acts (repealing Glass Steagall, NAFTA, PNTR, Telcom Act, deregulating derivatives).
Jamie Dimon doesn’t fly to Miami to party with Clinton for nothing. http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/lots_of_magic_at_bill_dinner_qIf6ZEDlOjKPbax9HwpxDL
The fly in the ointment is this. A Constitutional crisis either works itself out through the political fight between the President and Congress or there is a case that settles it in the Supreme Court.
Now, consider the current composition of the Supreme Court. That should give you pause. They only support Presidential power and unitary executive theory when a Republican is the unitary executive.
Look.
I read a piece by Jane Hamsher today where she mocked the idea of primarying Obama with Bernie Sanders because, in her opinion, Bernie Sanders is little more than chew-toy provided to us for our entertainment and distraction while we’re being sodomized.
Okay, her point is taken. But we have to work with something.
Once you realize how screwed we are, you can accept the situation and think about realistic solutions. She doesn’t, but it’s possible.
Ok, just as a general point, we are not “screwed.” Unless we’re pretending that conditions aren’t still pretty fucking unbelievable by the standards of even relatively modern history of mankind.
While Americans are commiserating about unresponsive politics, some random Syrian dudes are getting ground up by tanks half the world away. Let’s not blow things out of proportion here.
because he voted for ACA.
Remember how she threaten to unseat him if he didn’t filibuster it.
There are in fact, no realistic solutions.
Weed got a lot of people through the Nixon administration.
Yeah, I remember those times… sorta.
“Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”–Freewheelin’ Franklin
The Nixon administration might have been more progressive.
I make it a personal rule to ignore anyone who will go on to Fox to attack healthcare legislation. Jane sits right next to Ron Paul in my pantheon of political hacks.
Obligatory dump on Jane Hamsher noted. What are these realistic solutions we’re supposed to think about? More of the same from Obama seems to be the only game in town. The American people may vote out the teabaggers, but remember that they voted them in in the first place; the people will bounce back and forth between irrationalities ’til the cows come home. There’s no magic light-bulb that’s going to suddenly turn on in their heads and make everything from 2012 on smooth sailing.
Rats. I was hoping something mildly positive was lurking inside this: “Liberals can start getting serious about how big of a problem it is to have this develop in our country, …”
No?
We get serious when we’re out of power.
Big price to pay. Plus, we need to get serious about more than just getting power back after we’ve lost it. We kinda just did that. Then again, we managed to protect Social Security during the last Republican run, so maybe things didn’t get “bad enough.”
I take it you don’t see the Dems changing the filibuster rules if they hang onto the Senate in’012 then? What’s the argument behind that? I’m not saying that’s an incorrect assessment, I just don’t understand why they didn’t do it last year when they had the chance. We all know the first thing the GOP will do if they take the Senate will be to end the filibuster so Dems can’t do what they’ve been doing for the last 10 years.
They live under the illusion that they will someday use the filibuster like the Republicans do. The experience of 2003-2007 says otherwise. They sure stopped PATRIOT ACT extension, the confirmation of Roberts and Alito, and…because they wanted to “keep their powder dry”.
And this January when they could have ditched the filibuster, they didn’t. The problem is quisling Democrats who wrap themselves in Republican positions. That problem is why we’ve lost everything that we have lost since Obama became President.
if/when they retake the Senate. Because they know what goes around comes around which is why the Democrats didn’t end it
We have to run on this issue and run on the fact that Republicans can not govern. People are recognizing this: in WI, in OH,and in FL as they regret their votes for governor. Similarly, this is occurring in NJ and PA. The House is a great foil for the Democratic party because they’re fucking shit up and people are beginning to notice.
Now, outside groups like Crossroads (funded by 4 billionaires) will try to muddy the waters. But shit is shit and it stinks; this stinks.
Democrats need to stop firing at each other and make that crystal clear case forcefully and constantly from now to Nov. 4, 2012.
Make them regret this hostage taking as they’re going to regret the Ryan budget; it’ll make them think twice about doing this again in 2013.
Agreed. The fight for the election begins now, since the ugliness of the Republicans has been fully exposed.
I hope you’re right, but I’m not so sure. I don’t think the Republican Party will ever moderate itself. It’s going to continue digging until it’s dead. But as a nationally contending party, it will still win elections. That’s frightening.
This self-defeating attitude and unwillingness to go to the mat in the face of defeat is why Democrats lose. They believe the fact that they are self-evidently correct is enough and don’t work for victory.
In defeat, Republicans work for victory.
The President is facing a House in the control of the tea party. They are crazy enough to destroy this country and have the power to do it; and the fact that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid felt like forcing them to vote through the debt ceiling was good politics and would force them to govern is why we are here. Just as the fact that Reid, Feinstein, and a host of other senators refused to go on record against the Bush tax cuts in ’10 is why they were extended. Just as the fact that progressives like Feingold stood in the way of GITMO closing or getting on board for health care (Nelson, Libermann, fucking Bayh) again stood in the way of this presidency.
Congress has been the problem during this administration and has refused to act at crucial times and has actively, in the last year, stood in the way of success for this country.
Right now, the President is standing between the tea party and the country and all Democrats should be standing with him rather than throwing their hands in the air and bitching and moaning and crying over the fact that we’re losing. No shit. We lost and election and elections, as everyone is so fond of saying, have consequences. So should governing, or not governing as is the case here.
Self-defeating attitude? What, you want me to wake up with roses and dream of a GOP that will moderate itself when it loses the 2012 election (as of right now I believe they will lose both the presidency and the House)?
I don’t believe this to be the case. I believe they will continue to dig in even worse than they already have. The Freak Show controls the party now. They’re afraid of a primary more than the General Election. There’s no going back. This party will continue its extremism until it is dead.
I don’t have a self-defeating attitude: I will continue to make sure Democrats get elected. But I also believe that Republicans will never be sane ever again. Sure, they “moderated” after 1964’s loss…but Buckley’s types controlled the party. Those days are over. This is a war to the death.
The Republican Party moderates itself when the crazies lose office or saner heads get elected in numbers sufficient enough to change the party.
The Democrats move in a progressive direction when the Democrats who are the problem lose elections and more progressives are elected to replace retiring members.
See above.
I would hope so, but I’m not confident. In the meantime, we’ve got Harry Reid as head of the Senate, who’s had the Sword of Damocles in the form of always-close-to-losing-to-a-Republican hanging over his head for years and, consequently, is not a strong leader. Combine him with Obama, whom we have no leverage over, and we’re hosed for at least another 5 years.
of the GOP taking the Senate (given the number of Dem seats up, this is probable) and the Presidency, in which case I think they will simply blow up the filibuster.
I have no firm opinion yet on the so-called compromise. Maybe by Tuesday night at midnight I will.
I have nothing to say about the debt ceiling per se, but as for politics in general, I’m about ready to take a vacation from political discussions in general over the intertubes at this point. Mentally, I think I’ve already checked out, but I find that I enjoy reading the various post and blogs that I frequent, but I’ll tell ya the truth, I’m a little tired of all the drama. I’ll be honest, I did not become dialed into politics until 2008. I’ve always tried to pay attention to the issue, and I’ve always voted Dem since I turned 18, but I did not really pay attention to the underbelly of politics until now, and I don’t like what I see. Is it a new thing that everything is a crisis, or is that some new phenomenon? Not being dialed in before then, I don’t know if it is normally so neurotic.
I hate this much drama and neurosis in my own personal interactions with people, forget about trying to do it over the anonymity that is the internet where I can’t at least have eye contact or physical interaction and context available to read and react the way I would like to situations
This debt fight and all the other fights has really opened my eyes to the other side and I hate to say it, but I can honestly understand why most people just decide to tune all politics out and just go to the booth and vote
Am I making sense…probably not. That’s probably my cue to go to bed now. I’m babbling…lol
Well, Reagan’s two-terms were revolutionary in their way, but not suffused with manufactured crisis.
Poppy Bush started us along this path by failing to deter Saddam Hussein from taking over Kuwait and then regretting his decision and putting us in a war in the Middle East.
As soon as a Democrat took office after twelve years of Republican rule that had empowered the previously quietist religious right, we had one crisis after another. And it hasn’t stopped.
Whitewater
Government Shutdown
Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr
Monica Lewinsky
Impeachment
Gore v. Bush
9/11
War in Iraq
Ohio stolen election
Katrina
Privatize Social Security
Abu Ghraib/Secret prisons/torture
NSA warrantless wiretapping
the U.S. prosecutor scandal
General Betrayus
ACORN
Birth Certificate
Death Panels
Economic Catastrophe
Death Panels/Birth Certificate
Debt Ceiling
It won’t end. It’s a virus.
We’ve already had enought serious republican tryouts to inspire a change. The maturing of this country is also a possibility.
Gosh – should we focus on the voting process?
Is a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court appropriate?
Should we protect our communications, our health, our safety, our environment?
Can we create meaningful livelihoods for our children?
So – take action or take to our beds?
Apparently, preventative measures such as vaccines play an important role in the treatment of viral diseases. Haven’t we been immunized enough?
I think we just might see an educated, involved citizenry someday, if we ever get tired of calling each other stupid.
public education is a big part of that – and that’s why the radical right is attacking public education
Yup. They’re attacking public everything.
It’s becoming obvious to all Why Democracy is Public: The American Dream Beats The Nightmare
We’re still all in the same boat, but not without paddles.
Actually we should take action and take to our beds – liberals are being outbred at an astounding rate. We need more smart kids being raised in tolerant, open minded households.
The movie ‘Idiocracy’ is pretty much based on that idea. Worth watching, though I can’t decide if it’s a comedy or a tragedy.
You know I first heard the term “Breeding for stupidity” 10 years ago. Its basically pointing out that the Intelligent people tend to have fewer children and the more average people tended to have more children. Of course that was talking as a given that intelligence is genetic, which I would have some issues with, but its certainly true from an environmental perspective. More children are born in environments where they are not nurtured.
I’m afraid that smart people will always be outbred, because so many smart people think there is more to life than breeding.
Then step away from the TV and blogs. I go through periods where I get immersed in this stuff and I always have to claw my way out.
Just don’t forget to vote or fail to encourage your family and friends to vote.
Hell, that would be an improvement. Too many people tune out politics and stay home on election day. If everyone outside of the 27-percenters just went to the booth and voted, it would be the end of the GOP as a national party.
The what-ceiling?
I’m drawing a blank.
I wish someone could tell me what the dems got out of this thing. It appears to me the rethugs got nearly everything they wanted and now they’re whining about the Pentagon cuts.
So what did we get exactly???
Pentagon cuts, maybe some tax increases, maybe more Pentagon cuts, maybe some actual good changes to Medicare.
And political damage to the Republican Party. They look like crap to the public, and their most motivated wing is rebelling.
And you know what else we got?
We got it over with.
Amen.
No so fast. The bill is not signed. Heck, I can’t find where the legislative language is. They are probably still writing it and putting the Christmas three baubles on it. Wonder if the GOP will get any earmarks to bribe their reluctant Tea Party members?
social security and Medicaid were untouched.
defense getting cut.
default and downgrade is averted which prevents a hike in interest rates and general economic crash. It shouldn’t be this way but panics (1907, 1929, 2008) always hit the middle and poor the hardest. When a crash happens, the rich stay rich and the working class end up on bread lines.
The country isn’t going to collapse and the world won’t go into a depression as the USA defaults for the first time in history.
The sooner Democrats start screaming about the fact that Republicans tried to lead this country to default; the better off we will be.
We got the baby back. (Missing a few legs, but still alive.)
We also got a hostage for next time–do nothing and the DOD gets cut, along with Medicare providers but not patients. Nice looking baby ya got there, Ms Bachmann.
Also no SS or Medicaid cuts in whatever is negotiated. And did I read it right that the SuperCongress bill can’t be filibustered?
Any DoD cuts will just be put back with supplemental bills.
Then any cuts anywhere, anytime, are not really cuts, are they?
And no, I don’t believe that will happen…for obvious reasons.
Better argument, please.
Huzzah! This is why Atrios has been saying what he’s been saying: worrying about this shit 10 years into the future is stupid because it’s not binding.
I’d like to hear those obvious reasons.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2011/8/1/84252/29036
What do you think of Paul Waldman’s troubling thoughts about the ‘Super Congress”?
http://bit.ly/o7oWpu
On target.
Deficit ceiling. Balanced budget amendment. SuperCongress. All are mechanisms by which the individual members of Congress duck accountability for taxes and spending.
I just heard a BBC news reader – headline news – refer to Republican and “democrat” leaders talking about the crisis.
Two thoughts.
al Jazeera English does the same “Democrat Party” thing. I think the reporters stationed in DC get inducted into the Village by doing this. It is a rite of passage for media folk. Acculturation.
Yep, BBC and now AJE has been calling them that a long time. Has inured me to the sound finally.
And here y’all are, gumming about “What’s gonna happen next!!!”
The same shit that just happened is what.
They’ll play you like the shmoon you are.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Obama should have accepted the McConnell plan when it first emerged. It was a moment when the Republicans were showing weakness on the debt ceiling issue. But Obama rejected it because he wanted a Grand Bargain that included debt reduction and entitlement changes.
Anybody who defends what Obama has done, leading up to today’s deal, must explain why rejecting McConnell’s proposal was the right move.
Obama actually supported the McConnell plan, It was Boehner that ran out on it.
Obama full heartedly endorsing the McConnell plan would have been the quickest way to kill it. I think his actual stance, saying he could accept it reluctantly, may have given it the best chance it had.
simply raising the ceiling without a reduction doesn’t avert a ratings downgrade which would spike interest rates, which (like higher gas prices) has a regressive impact on workers.
obama didn’t want a grand bargain, he wanted a deal to extend unemployment benefits and a payroll tax holiday for middle and low income wage earners.
there was never any indication Boehner could secure the votes, especially with cantor working against him.
What you are saying is that if the debt ceiling had been raised through a clean pro forma bill, the ratings agencies would have downgraded US bonds? Was there any evidence of this before Congress’s confusion made the ratings agencies think that US debt was unreliable?
If this is true, the ratings agencies have been meddling in US politics and are holding the US government to a higher standard than they hold private securities. And might have become a front group for GOP strategy.
Well, there have been allegations of the rating agencies colluding with big companies before to manipulate ratings. I mean the agencies are not international lawyers or international law agencies, they are just companies like all others, paid by other companies to give rating on bonds. You can imagine the pressure that they must be under at all times from a whole host of companies and interests since their importance has grown.
Its not a big stretch to think they could be meddling for less than totally pure reasons.
last week that the issue was whether the GOP would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
For a while it looked like they might, but in the end they saved themselves.
If this is victory, I would like to know what defeat looks like. It is simply not possible to view this as anything other than a historic defeat – the GOP is going to get their entitlement cuts, and they are going to get them in a way where the underlying reality is hidden.
I don’t have much good to say about Obama in all of this. The decision not to demand the debt ceiling increase in the Tax Bill is the worst mistake a Democratic President has made in my lifetime. He went out of his way to offer an increase in the Medicare retirement age.
If we start from the premise that we are screwed, than the question is how we unscrew ourselves. Our ideas are simply invisible in the national debate.
I think that means a primary challenge to Obama is warranted. It is, in fact, a sign of how screwed we are that there won’t be one. We have almost no liberal leadership with any sort of national stature. Unlike 30 years ago when there was a Ted Kennedy waiting in the wings, there is no one.
I keep thinking about Goldwater and how his forces spent 16 years trying to take over the party after he lost. The Goldwater people went to their local GOP meetings, they built their institutions, and the found a standard bearer who ran twice before getting the nomination.
In November of ’64 they certainly looked screwed. I can’t help but thinking that their path is the one to follow if we want to fundementally change politics.
I also cannot help but think that what they did in ’64 is a hell of lot more effective then bloggin.
Indeed, the best thing you could do right now is join your local democratic committee and push for decent candidates. It gives you a little bit of power over the process.
And the opportunity to experience what real power struggles look like.
I will, to paraphrase John Cole, crawl over broken glass to vote against the far-right extremists in the Republican party.
I’m fairly disappointed with Obama’s performance on economic issues though.
“Is this the deal I would have preferred? No,” Obama said. “But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need.”
He’s surrendered on so many economic arguments against the disaster capitalism favored by the Republicans. I’m not sure he deserves re-election but I do know the American people don’t deserve what they’ll get if the lunatics on the other side win.
Given that The Pope of Hope was surrounding himself with advocates of disaster capitalism from the early beginnings of his campaign back in 2007, it’s no surprise that he’s appearing to surrender. The truth is, he believes in disaster capitalism every bit as much as his Republican counterparts. He might offer disaster capitalism with a “happy face” as it were, but that’s it. Somehow I don’t all the lovely hope and change talk and branding as especially inspiring. I’ll go elsewhere for inspiration, thank you.
Is there a convention of corny ass white dudes that come up with corny shit like ‘pope of hope’?
When you make assumptions, you just make an ass of yourself.
Do you remember when he addressed the nation early last week? Remember what a great speech that was?
He talked about the need for compromise, yes. But he also said that the sticking point was that his side wanted to balance all those cuts in programs for the less fortunate with tax increases on the ultra-rich.
Here we are, less than one week later, and he’s caved on the one issue that he said was the sticking point.
Obama’s defenders here and elsewhere will rationalize this somehow, just as they have his betrayal of every other principle he’s caved on. But you can be sure that Obama’s right wing opponents have learned from this: they have confirmed what they suspected at the start of these negotiations — that Obama will grant every concession the right wing wants if the right wing just stands their ground long enough.
In that context I read this: I’m not sure he deserves re-election but I do know the American people don’t deserve what they’ll get if the lunatics on the other side win. Until now I agreed with this. Now I’m not so sure. In 2009 there were clear differences in the policies that Obama implemented versus what a Republican would have. In 2010 the differences were becoming less clear — triggered apparently because the Dems lost the 60th seat in the Senate. In 2011 it’s very, very hard to articulate any difference anymore.
Seriously, the one thing that we cling to with Obama is that “at least he won’t appoint far right judges to the SCOTUS”. But can we even count on that anymore? Let’s suppose one of the SCOTUS slots suddenly became open now. We can be sure that the GOP would filibuster any normal Obama nominee and would demand that Obama effectively let them choose the new nominee. We can also be sure that Obama would desperately try to appear centrist and would bend over backwards to accommodate the GOP. Perhaps pressure on Obama would grow due to the increased number of 4-4 non-decisions. Eventually he would capitulate, nominate a GOP judge in the cloth of Roberts, and say something like “this is not the choice I would make myself, but this compromise allows us to move forward.”
Tell me, after the drama of the past 8 months, that this scenario is not only plausible but in fact likely.
And if that is the case, I don’t see the benefit of keeping Obama president. If we are going to get awful Republican policies we might as well have them be clearly identified in the public’s mind as Republican. Otherwise the Democratic party will follow down the path of Labour in the UK – to the point where no one knew what they stood for.
“But he also said that the sticking point was that his side wanted to balance all those cuts in programs for the less fortunate with tax increases on the ultra-rich.
Here we are, less than one week later, and he’s caved on the one issue that he said was the sticking point.”
Oh for goodness sake. What he actually said was that his bottomline was that we could not have this fight again in 6 months. He got that.
And the cuts are NOT going on the less fortunate. What part of “Medicare providers” don’t you understand?
And what we got were the same 900 billion in cuts over the next 10 years that were agreed with Biden months ago. And now for the first time the Pentagon is facing the hatchet of cuts. That’s progress at least. And if you think the pentagon is one of the less fortunate I don’t have a cure for your Obama derangement syndrome.
Seriously, stop carping on what your fantasy deal is and start reading whats in the actual deal.
This was hashed out in the previous posting’s threads – cuts to the providers affect the beneficiaries.
The Pentagon is not facing cuts if the super committee comes up with enough cuts of their own to domestic spending and safety-net spending; the Republicans on the committee will make sure there are no tax increases. (True, the super committee is another case of kicking the problem down the road and there is no guarantee they’ll come up with a compromise when the time comes.)
Oh and if you for any reason think president Backmann would be better than Obama you are out of your goddam mind.
If you weren’t disappointed with Obama’s performance on economic issues, there’d be something wrong with you, because he’s performed pretty fucking badly on them. I say this despite the fact that I’m convinced he’s been the best President of my lifetime. (My lifetime began in 1978, so the only real competition is the Big Dog.)
This whole debt ceiling mess wasn’t part of that. Indeed, the Republicans had very little to do with his mishandling of the economy, which began in mid-2009 when the Democratic Party decided to pin its hopes on a recovery that turned out to be extremely weak.
That was the mistake, and it was a real, substantive mistake. The framing argument, though, was lost long before I was born, and fighting against it would have just been pissing into the wind.
I don’t get your optimism here. This whole thing is a disaster. The policy details sound bad enough. How about the strategy? How about the politics?
Obama and the Democratic leadership should not have allowed the GOP to so easily use the credit of the US as a economical terrorist negotiation. If they had called it what it is- a completely ahistoric, nihilistic act by a Party which is not interested in governing well- it could have made it very difficult for the Republicans to proceed.
Yes, the radicals may have done it anyway.
Yes, the media might have played the ludicrous he said-she said game, making the Dem’s works difficult.
However, by not kicking up a holy racket, the Democrats have legitimized holdup of the debt ceiling as a tactic. That is incredibly dangerous.
The bigger problem yet: the economy will still be bad in 2012. Obama has thrown in with the GOP’s right-wing talking points which are economically illiterate. Pulling money from the government WILL hurt the economy, but Obama has been joining the nihilists in claiming that autonomy will restore “confidence” and “certainty” to the markets. Confidence and certainty will quickly become a scarce commodity for you and I, however.
We now have a Democratic President who has proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security. It appears tonight that Democratic Party Congressmembers will be the ones who will carry the largest percentage of “Yes” votes for the largest spending cuts in the history of our Nation, massive cuts which will threaten the Big Three social programs and other important initiatives which have helped many hundreds of millions over the years and been a major achievement of our Party. These failures will be seen with Dem Party fingerprints all over them.
What appaling outcomes!!
You missed his point in an earlier diary. Per BooMan, we are screwed until we have a decent US Senate. That can’t happen before 2014 at the earliest. Therefore, the idea that winning this fight or having Obama weather an actual default was going to strengthen our position is illusory. So getting the best deal we could was an optimistic outcome, and this was the best deal that we could get, given the Senate.
TarheelDem, I’m trying to find your comment, among your many cogent comments from the weekend, on the stages of defeating the extreme right wing agenda, but I cannot find it. I think it’s pertinent here – some of the “Obama caved, we’ve lost everything” comments seem to me to presuppose we could land at Normandy and then everything would be solved. Harrowing, intricate and bloody though Normandy was, it was just the beginning of the end.
In many ways Normandy was the easy bit. The horrific fight into France FROM Normandy was the hard part.
And that’s where we are now!
It’s clear that positive policy options are very narrow, due to the sickeningly radical House and filibustering Senate. I know better than to demand complete policy victories in this and other fights.
The big problem in this debate is that our Democratic Party President became a cheerleader for austerity. Americans who don’t know their history and aren’t paying close attention would believe by listening to the President that cutting the Federal budget can pull the economy out of this recession. Based on history and current experience around the globe, this is exactly wrong. More importantly, austerity and the extension of the Bush tax cuts at a time of multiple wars does terrible damage to the enterprise of liberal governance. We simply won’t have the money to continue the New Deal/Great Society programs, or the money to regulate businesses and protect the environment, workers and consumers.
Can you imagine how radical a Presidential candidate will be when he proposes Keynesian solutions to economic problems? “More radical that the Maxist Obama”, the radicals will say. To the middle, it will seem a foreign language.
In addition, many Congressional Democrats voted for an austerity-laden package with no new revenue assured or, in my initial view, likely to come from this bill. I am pleased that the Republicans had to carry the vast majority of this shit sandwich. I didn’t think that would happen Sunday night, and am enormously pleased that Pelosi didn’t whip the vote and told Boehner to pass his own shit.
Kabuki is almost over. Once more, the ruling class scores, and the rest of us pay through the nose. Once more, my low expectations have been met. But alas, I still have unfinished popcorn – but not for long.
The credits aren’t rolling quite yet.
Gives away 2.4 trillion – gets zero in return.
One thing I wonder about is how exactly legally is this trigger were talking about supposed to work? As I understand it, if congress doesn’t pass additional cuts later, the trigger will cut money from defense and from Medicare. But how does that work? What actually happens if the congress sits down and passes a budget that allocates more money to defense than the trigger says they can. They can’t do that because. . . .? Does the trigger somehow make future spending legislation impossible, or at least somehow more difficult?
enacted. If the trigger is enacted only discretionary spending gets touched to the tune of $1.5T – $750B from defense, $750B from domestic.
Now cuts in Medicare payments to providers are on the table for the “Super Congress” committee (as is tax reform). That committee will come up with a suite of recommendations and those recommendations will be fast tracked through congress. If the committee does not come up with recommendations or if the congress does not approve the recommendations it comes up with then the trigger comes into effect.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Okay, go read Paul Krugman (who knows lots about economics and less than nothing about politics); before you blow a gasket and swear Obama is to the right of Genghis Kahn, take a look at Ezra Klein, who knows plenty about economics but also knows lots about the politics of all this:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-deal-that-found-the-lowest-common-denominator/2011/07/11/gIQAde9TmI_blog.html#pagebreak>
If you see this deal in the context of Obama’s tunnel-vision determination to EFF-UP the Republican party in 2012, you might agree that he has allowed Boehner to save face in the short term while stockpiling some extremely useful tools for the next election. What’s not to like about the probability of massive defense cuts? Hell, that’s one of those weird places where we overlap with Ron and Rand Paul. As usual, those who are predisposed to call Obama a caver would do well to actually examine some of the details of the deal and think about it for a moment before spewing their ineffectual venom.
Well put.
Better yet, those who call Obama a caver should perhaps give us their detailed plan on how they would have done it better. And no broad brush assertions need apply.
There aren’t going to be massive cuts to the defense budget. If we’re lucky, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will wind down, and the savings we would have gotten anyways will be counted towards the trigger. If not, no one’s going to pay attention to the debt ceiling trigger, especially if there’s a conflict and that can be demagogued. What, we’re really not going to send troops, because of the triggers? The cuts to Medicare will happen, those to defense won’t. Maybe the cuts to Medicare are defensible, but that’s what’s going to happen.
If the trigger comes into effect it is all discretionary $1.5T – $750B from defense, $750B from domestic.
Medicare cuts to providers are on the table for the “Super Congress” to look at as is tax reform. If the Super Congress does not make recommendations or if Congress votes down those recommendations then the trigger comes into effect.
Now we can argue that if the trigger comes into effect will those cuts stay. I tend to agree that both domestic and defense cuts will not stay ay $750B each. That over time that will be whittled away.
I’m sure the cuts to defense won’t happen, unless the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down and know knew expensive conflicts erupt, in which case we’ll count the money we would have saved anyway. I’m less sanguine about the cuts to domestic spending; any attempt to rescind them will be attacked as being stuff we can’t afford. They’ll certainly extract concessions for rescinding them. Regardless, when the committee fails, Republicans will use it to demagogue how Democrats are so committed to raising your taxes, they stuck to it even when it meant stiffing our troops. Why we’d want to give them this advantage, I do not know.
You do not have to. You can read DeLong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/department-of-huh-debt-ceiling-deal.html
A pleasure
My view is rather simple.
It is what krugman says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html
A pleasure
The President always goes for ham sandy approach to governing. Sometimes it is more effective than eating nothing and other times, the food could kill you. This is probably a bad metaphor.
I was always struck by this quote last December. http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/08/01/flashback_quote_of_the_day.html
I do agree with Yglesias that this does not bode well for Dems in future standoffs and the GOP will only be empowered for more hostage taking.
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/01/284051/the-hostages-next-time/?utm_source=feedburner&am
p;utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29
Although, Dems got smoked in November and this is the painful policy result.
My issues with Admin is the BS belt tightening metaphor, Booman has mentioned before and that the President even put Medicare on table. There is a Politico article today pushing that House Dems had advantage on Medicare due to Paul Ryan but now maybe it is neutralized because of these negotiations. The article is horse crap but guarantee that “Obama put Medicare on the table” will be a GOP talking point to counter Dems attacks on Paul Ryan’s Voucher Care. I see Cross Roads running misleading ads on it. It will sound credible to those who do not pay attention, its actually based in some truth and “Both Sides” media will never explain any nuance. It just made Pelosi and Israel’s job winning back the House much harder while getting nothing in return for the gesture.
However, I was impressed at President’s ability to get public on board with his positions and make strong revenue arguments to counter the anti-tax zealots.
After reading around, the various commentators seem to be in surprisingly broad agreement about this deal
Steve Benen is fairly typical
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_08/dont_call_it_a_compromise031218.php
Seems the only person that really likes this is Harry Reid.
I’m going to have to frame this: Jane Hamsher calling out a “progressive” for his blatant ass hypocrisy! I guess when it’s this obvious she can’t ignore it. Nancy Pelosi and every damn so-called progressive on the hill was prepared to embrace the Reid-McDonnell plan that had not a damn penny in revenue but it’s only when REID’S name is swapped for Obama’s on the same damn plan that “progressives” get “outraged”. Fake ass outrage and fake ass progressives go hand in hand. I noted days ago that the only Democrat still talking about revenue was the President. I’m pissed with the President for that reason. If he was going to accept a deal with no immediate revenue he shouldn’t have kept talking about it. But as for Reid, Pelosi and their respective caucuses, they had already signed-on to a deal with no revenue, PERIOD! So they can kill this retroactive protest and outrage bull shit!
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/07/31/grijalva-statement-opposing-the-bill-he-voted-for-yester
day/
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I do not see a deal being passed in Congress today, what has changed? The US economy is off for the worst …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Budget Control Act Amendment
There it is in all its 74-page glory. Bon appetite!
Latest details. I was wrong regarding the short-term cuts.
Indeed the effect on 2012 budget of the whole set of non-defense spending cuts (first and triggered) is only around 50 billion during the first year.
This is a fiscal drag of roughly 0.2% GDP and maybe 0.1-0.2% higher unemployment.
This is something that QE3 can easily undo.
Having said that, the number for 2013 look bad, but for 2014 is a freaking disaster, it is a massive shock for the economy. If the economy is not very robust by then, the US is going to enter something worst than a lost decade.
Still, the four leg fiasco is now only three leg: Precedent, weakness and austerity. Precedent in dealing with terrorists, weakness as Obama=Carter II and austerity as conceding the argument.
From end of the world, we now only have disaster of epic proportions.
A pleasure