My understanding of the White House’s thinking is imperfect at best, but I believe that they are confident that Speaker Boehner will eventually conclude that he has no choice but to go to Nancy Pelosi for the votes he needs to raise the debt ceiling. And the White House doesn’t seem overly concerned that this might cause Boehner to lose his gavel to a real mouth-breather.
I think we ought to be a little more pro-active here, because it’s not enough to win this battle outright if it isn’t going to stop the cycle of governing by crisis and hostage-taking. Forcing the House to capitulate would go a long way towards breaking the cycle, but not if it results in Boehner being replaced by a more implacable foe.
Perhaps the most likely result here is that Boehner will eventually do the responsible thing and then resign. But that is not an optimal outcome. The best outcome is that the Tea Party’s grip on the House is broken entirely so that we can pass legislation, including immigration reform, a more rigorous background check for gun purchases, and appropriations bills.
If Boehner is going to be challenged and defeated by his own party, we ought to at least offer to save him up front. Make a deal now, and agree to lead a sane coalition, and he can keep his job. If we let him twist in the wind and then resign, we won’t end this crisis on the most favorable terms.
It’s unlikely that Boehner would be willing to serve in this new role, but we have no reason not to offer it to him now, rather than later.
The best outcome is that the Tea Party’s grip on the House is broken entirely so that we can pass legislation, including immigration reform, a more rigorous background check for gun purchases, and appropriations bills.
That won’t happen. As soon as it looks like The Tan Man has capitulated, the GOP will get together and vote him out as Speaker. If he’s not replaced by Cantor he’ll be replaced by someone like Hensarling. They won’t let the betrayal last very long. As it is now, “Tailgunner” Ted is doing an end-run around The Tan Man.
I think Boo’s point is we could save him with Democratic votes. He’d then lead a coalition of the sane.
I guess the real question is how many other Republicans are in the Still Within Shouting Distance of Reality Caucus. Basically there would have to be enough Republicans willing to cut the Tea Party loose that they and the Democrats could govern without them.
And fortunately the number doesn’t have to be very large. And not all states are gerrymandered up to here, so there are Republicans who have to worry about the general election, not just the primary.
But they’re all afraid of a primary challenge from the right. That’s why I think the 20 or so will not present themselves.
Just hit me that the subtle frame the White House is pushing with “Congress must pay the bills that it has racked up.” is:
Congressional Republicans playing games with the debt ceiling are deadbeats wanting to avoid paying the debts they racked up.
Looks like they tore up their “fiscal responsibility” argument pretty well.
Boehner won’t lose his gavel to a mouth-breather. He will lose it to someone very much like himself politically but without the personal weaknesses. Mouth-breathers don’t even trust each other.
I’m honestly not sure your suggestion is for the best. I get where you’re coming from. But sometimes an old paradigm needs to collapse before something new can take its place. This is a Republican civil war. Let it play out. Let the crazies think they won. Let them have to actually govern. When they implode, then the crazy will have broken. The only question is how much of the country will be left by then — and so I certainly understand the impulse to want to step in. But it’s like rescuing an alcoholic. These people need to be beaten into submission. Not just the Teahaddists but their enablers too. In other words, the entire Republican party as it currently exists.
I don’t think any of us should be willing to let it burn just so the Tea Party gets extinguished. If we can prop up Orange Julius so he can serve our ends in the interim, so be it.
I think making Boehner the de facto speaker of a coalition of not-crazy Republicans from the Northeast/Rust Belt + Democrats would be incredibly demoralizing to the Tea Party. After all their shenanigans, they didn’t get to burn it all down.
Jonathan Chait’s comparison of the R’s to a 1969 Weatherman gathering was spot on. That whole paragraph nailed it. What can the White House do to prop up Boehner that doesn’t pour fuel on the fire? It’s gotta play out. The question is: at the 11th hour, does Obama abandon his no negotiation stance to save us from disaster? His responsible instincts will take over. I always kinda liked Boehner. Not his politics obviously, but his sentimentality shows more humanity than most R’s.
It’s easy to get more emotional when you’re wasted all the time.
that’s not sentimentality. That’s the emotional overreaction you see in drunk people.
Better than being an angry drunk, which I suspect many of them are.
Oh, please, god, no. Let Michelle lock him in a closet if he even looks like caving.
I’m listening to general speeches on the House floor this morning; it’s one asshole after another, lie after mischaracterization after absurd personal attack after lie. Congressmembers Foxx and Poe are particularly despicable and stupid, but there’s plenty more Stupid coming.
It may be edifying to the Tea Party to be forced to have their hand share the wheel of governance; they already exhibit a ton of control over the current Speaker. However, we cannot let the Tea Party have full control of government for even a moment. It’s one awful thing for them to execute their full vision in states, but they can keep their filthy paws off my Federal government, thanks.
If ever there were a weekend where Boehner would go on a drinking binge, this one qualifies. In the meantime I have this picture of his staffers following him everywhere…grabbing the bottles hidden in the men’s room…and keeping him well supplied in hankies.
Is it just me or does it seem no one on the R really wants his job, Cantor mum, McMorris gaining stress weight…
Not sure I could take a time out right now because Boehner needs to blow his nose.
Nobody wants the job, because it’s impossible. Tea party loons have a blocking minority for Republican-only legislation and a primary challenge knife to the throat of every other R congressman to stop deals with the Democrats. The other candidates will wait until the Republicans have either a more tractable caucus or until they’re in the minority and can go psycho without consequences.
For this reason Boehner’s gavel is very safe now. There’s no sane Republican who’s going to try to replace him now. I doubt a Tea Party crazy could even get a majority of Republicans to overthrow Boehner, never mind that Pelosi would control the deciding votes on any motion to overthrow.
Actually, they probably had enough votes last time, but they didn’t communicate to their peers that this was the plan. Poor communication and planning is what saved Boehner’s hide last time, as the coup was “called off” 30 minutes before it took place.
I suspect this time around they have more than the 25 needed to oust him.
Last time the House was holding an election for an unfilled seat. Boehner needed an absolute majority, and no Democrats would vote for him. 25 Republican hold-outs then meant no majority for Boehner and so could force a different speaker.
Currently you need an absolute majority to force a new Speaker election, and the Dems can’t vote for Pelosi on that, because it’s yes/no. The Democrats will only vote to remove Boehner if the alternate speaker (who will be a Republican) is preferable for them, and that’s very unlikely. All a Speaker replacement vote will do now is give the Democrats an opportunity to extract concessions from Boehner, and even the Tea Partiers know that.
But consider, for instance, California’s 21st Congressional district. Currently held by a Republican, David Valadao, who won fairly easy in 2012, but note that the district is 71% Hispanic, so Valadao has a pretty strong incentive to break with the Tea Party on at least that one issue.
But meanwhile, the Tea Party really aren’t the kind of people you can disagree with on just one thing, especially when it’s something that gets the xenophobic core of the whole movement. What they’re looking at is 11 millions new voters who will reliably vote against them, so of course any support for “amnesty” will be regarded as high treason.
Well, in other words, there are enough of these kinds of Republicans–the ones who have to worry about the general election as much as the primary–to make all the difference here.
David Valadao should be toast in ’14 given the lean of the electorate in the district. Don’t know why/how he got elected in the first place unless he campaigned to the left of the guy he faced in the general.
Don’t know if that’s a Hispanic name, but I’m seeing more and more Hispanic Republicans in the Chicago Suburbs. It actually makes sense. The entrenched Democratic Party doesn’t want new blood. “We don’t want nobody that nobody didn’t send.” Preferably Irish or AA. An ambitious young Hispanic without connections has no choice but to run as a Republican on a populist and anti-corruption platform. The Republican Party here does open it’s arms to them, particularly if they are anti-abortion Catholics. The Evangelicals accept them as anti-abortion fellow travelers and the business Republicans just want to hold onto power. Besides, it may be heresy, but many Hispanics are businessmen too and particularly adept at exploiting their own people. They know which buttons to press and which not to press.
I don’t know but he was in the CA state legislature previous to his current job. And he was the big underdog in the race despite that.
I get your point, but the only way this sheet gets stopped is to defeat the CRAZY! at the ballot box. A Dem deal with Boehner may save us in the short term, but if we want change we’re going to need to see those chickens come home to roost. And yes, that ain’t going to be at all pleasant.
I believe that Nancy Smash has already given Orange Julius this out….but, he has to be willing to pay the price
This.
(Yes, another edition of “what rikyrah said”.)
Texas old-timers remember when a young dashiki-wearing Mickey Leland and the rest of the Black Caucus at the State House deserted the white liberals, and cut a deal to elect a conservative Speaker in exchange for committee chairmanships and clout. (In Leland’s memorable words,”We done sold de plantation.”)
More recently, Willie Brown cut a deal with a few Republicans to keep his Speaker’s chair in the California Assembly after the Republicans won a majority of seats in the 1994 election.
So the question is: does John Boehner have what Mickey Leland and Willie Brown had? (And if so, where has he been hiding it all these years?)
If the Tea Party is not broken, expect a down grade irregardless of whether this latest tantrum runs to an actual default. And we will deserve it.
Obama may have a cure in his pocket. I hope to god he does. But it has to be settled this go round or the confidence in our currency is gonna take a huge hit. We will prove our vulnerability to blackmail. Exactly what the hippies said the last time. But nobody listens to hippies.
The cure is simple–if the Republicans don’t raise the debt ceiling, Obama says to hell with the debt ceiling and orders the Treasury to keep paying the bills. The Republicans denounce him as a tyrant worse than Caligula and start the impeachment proceedings, but meanwhile the pressure on them to act responsibly won’t have let up in the meanwhile.
They’ll have gone to threatening to default on our debts to trying to force the president to default on our debts. And all you need is a couple dozen Republicans who are willing to cut the Tea Party loose, and you can either raise the debt ceiling, or better yet abolish it, and suddenly the whole thing is moot.
Agree. it has to go.
The bond markets ignored S&P’s last downgrade. The mortgage derivative fiasco taught them what those bond ratings are really worth.
Not too knowledgeable on finance, but did’t the points go up about 500 and the cost of borrowing…. “The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that the delay in raising the debt ceiling increased government borrowing costs by $1.3 billion in 2011 and also pointed to unestimated higher costs in later years.”
So our bonds were selling, but they had to payout more for maturity. Isn’t that right?
Have to research that for a definitive answer. 500 points would be 5% A huge move. I know that didn’t happen.
Yields went down! Prices went up per this: http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/08/markets/bondcenter/treasuries_downgrade/index.htm
For a more reliable source: http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2011/08/treasury-tuesdays_15.html
Yes, interest rates actually went down the last time this whole fiasco played out – everyone parked their money in the ‘safe’ asset, which is generally seen as Treasuries.
I think you’ll see the same move this time around, but if an actual default (technical or otherwise) plays out, you’re going to see a slow, long bleed in yields higher as the dollar becomes viewed as unreliable and no longer a true safe haven.
More likely you will see yields drop as the economy tanks.
I went all in for small-caps last week. They may drop but I’m betting we will weather this and come out stronger with a healthier economy once the crapola is done with.
In the current Republican primary environment, supporting a coalition with the Democrats is equivalent to retiring as of the next election. Boehner can’t offer a coalition because he’s not going to be able to find 25 or so Republican congressmen willing to retire. He can offer an occasional open vote on an absolutely critical issue and that is eventually how we’re going to get a CR and a debt limit hike. But that will only happen with a major crisis that provides him cover. We’re not going to get immigration reform or restrictions on guns purchases by criminals that way.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359813/house-gop-cheers-delay-cr-they-head-toward-impasse-obama
-jonathan-strong
Shut Down here we come!
Lord, I saw your link and though Tom Delay had given them a pep talk. LOL
Seems like we’re going for a shutdown. Someone tell the GOP that this is the reason elections are held – and they lost in 2012.
Suck it up, sore losers.
But it wasn’t a legitimate election. Only the ones they win are legitimate.
I’m pretty much convinced the Teabagging fringe wants a shutdown and a default. I just made the mistake of reading the comment section at Politico, and it’s been taken over by wingnuts full of Ted Cruz/Sarah Palin starbursts in their eyes.
I hope their base enjoys not getting their mail in the middle of anywhere, not getting their Social Security checks, and all the other sweet, sweet government welfare that they all actually live on.
And I read the comments over at National Review, which were largely anti GOP. Better that than fighting in the streets I suppose.
Both mail and social security checks will continue during a shutdown.
The tea baggers will hear from the retailers and service providers (Joe the Plummer) if 1.5 million federal workers get laid off and I have no idea how many federal contractors. Walmart, McDonnalds, Starbucks, Olive Garden, or your neighborhood laundry mat are going to freak if the shut down lasts more the 2 days. I predict it hits the fan Thursday…..the congressional phones and internet cites crash.
I think what you’re proposing has a better chance with another sane Repub than tan man. For Tan to do it is too transparent a betrayal. No one would want to be seen that way. My God, it could drive him to drink ;}
If there are 25 or so sane repubs available for a coalition of the sane, one of them would have to be ready to step up. Dems could let the Orange-atang get booted, then unite behind a moderate Repub who will replace the Hastert rule with a rule than any bill with a reasonable likelihood of passing hits the floor. That would give the moderates back control of the House, although the Repubs would still control where they are strongly united, or where the Dems are divided, which, OK, they are the majority.
PS, the way to sell this would be not a Dem coup, nor saving the Orange, but a return to bipartisanship – sells well with Indy’s and has the advantage of being accurate.
At this point I think only a large number of deaths would change this.