I don’t know if he will ultimately vote to confirm Chuck Hagel as our next Secretary of Defense, but it doesn’t sound like Chuck Schumer is going to engage in any negotiations with the Republicans over the debt ceiling. Without the Senate being willing to even discuss the matter, the GOP appears checkmated. I can’t find the right metaphor for this situation. It’s like a teenager who plans to drive daddy’s car into a telephone pole but can’t get ahold of the keys. I anticipate a big tantrum.
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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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So I guess that means we can look for Boehner to hold his breath until he turns…………well…another color.
They really are between a rock and a hard place. The Tea Party requires them to talk tough and stand tough or face primary challenges but Wall Street, corporate benefactors and the public at large will castrate them if they take down the economy. Perhaps I should say their balls are between a rock and a razor blade.
I ‘m missing something. Why do they need to engage with Schumer to not vote to raise the debt ceiling?
The Senate will raise the debt ceiling and send it to the House without negotiating with the House. The House will then own the hot potato and the consequences of not passing it.
Okay. So they don’t pass it. The consequences are what, everyone hates them?
They say, “We want X from the Senate before we pass it.”
The Senate says no. Everyone hates the House harder.
They say, We still want X.
The economy teeters.
The Senate says, well …
The say, X. Maybe X + Y.
The economy starts to collapses.
Then what?
The House will fold. Take it to the bank.
I hope you’re right. I know what I’d do if I were a Republican, but maybe actually-existing Republicans aren’t as hardcore as my make-beleive Republicans.
Chuck needs to demonstrate the commonsense form of Stand Your Ground. We’ll see, I guess.
::
I anticipate a big tantrum.
This is why Obama keeps beating them so effortlessly.
They should breathe a sigh of relief and consider this a great gift. The absolute last thing Republicans should ever do is engage in another round of deadlined negotiations with the President. No more deadlines. Ever.
Pass the debt ceiling raise of any arbitrary amount by some half-empty chamber voice vote on a Friday evening and never speak of it again. Then call the President on his lies regarding the sequester, absolutely refuse to consider raising any new revenues this congress, and work to “fix” the spending cuts during normal appropriations business. Democratic congresses routinely subverted Reagan; congress is at its most dangerous when it’s doing boring committee stuff.
The GOP isn’t tougher than Barack Obama. They aren’t smarter than Barack Obama. They aren’t more popular than Barack Obama. But Congress as an institution is plenty powerful when it just stays in its own fucking lane.
They’re gonna make Boehner cry. Again.
thoughts on these numbers because it seems to be fueling the right today.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/01/04/read_the_poll_that_convinces_house_republicans_they_can
_win_on_the_debt.html
Read the poll – as always, the questions were not specific enough. If you drill down and ask people WHICH programs they want cut, it’s always “welfare” or “fine arts” or “foreign aid” or something else that doesn’t amount to a tenth of a percent of the federal budget. The average person has NO CLUE what the budget is composed of, and when you list “oil company tax breaks” or “defense” or Medicare or THEIR community’s earmark, it’s NOOOOOOO you can’t cut that ! So, the discussion ends. If the average Joe was familiar with what the Simpson-Bowles commission ACTUALLY proposed, or what the Ryan Budget consists of, they reject it every time. We need better propaganda.
Doesn’t matter if the Senate Democrats take a stance. In the fiscal cliff negotiations, Reid wanted to hold firm but Obama dispatched Biden to cut a deal with McConnell. And after repeated concessions by Biden, a deal emerged.