I’ve always thought it was pretty likely that in the end Obama would get a clean debt ceiling vote along with a sternly worded letter from Congress. I agree that would be a good thing.
Tying the debt ceiling to a grand bargain was always a dumb idea, and one the administration embraced or claim to have embraced. Governing by crisis is an undemocratic way for our overlords to try to avoid accountability. So all hail Mitch McConnell.
Non-binding resolutions are the last refuge of wusses. I remember all that Lieberman talk back in the day that Congress should pass a resolution condemning Clinton’s consensual relationship with an intern. I hoped that they’d do it and that Clinton would then an issue an executive order telling Congress to kiss his ass.
over_educated
But… but… he sold us down the river!
So basically, Obama gets everything he wants (effectively a clean raise of the debt ceiling) and the Republicans get a sternly worded letter. Wow, Obama is such a terrible negotiator!
Dave
Unsurprisingly, over at the GOS you can read a recommended diary about how this was – wait for it – a huge sellout by the President!
Han's Solo
Now, per TPM, Boehner’s spokesman said the following:
You see? It was the Democrats that took the debt ceiling hostage!
Our media is stupid and unaware, but I doubt even the media will fall for this stupidity.
General Stuck
This is what the wingnut great stategery playing chicken with Obama and the debt ceiling has come to. Mcconnel getting some pol theater votes in the election run up, so he and his fellow whigs can chug the gut medicare kool aid in hopes that baby jeevus will rule medicare ungodly, or at least unRepublican, and just make The New Deal vanish, along with the ACA abomination. Fairy Princess Politics with a year and a half supply of libtard retardant Pixie Dust.
This proposal, when the House Tea Tard get their pin heads wrapped around it, will likely ignite a wingnut civil war like we haven’t seen for awhile. How very interesting and comforting in an odd way.
The Moar You Know
We’ve got 18 more days. I think Obama should tell them to fuck themselves and make them cave some more.
Martin
Wut?
The President and Dems asked for a clean debt ceiling vote months ago. It was the GOP that demanded the vote come with an equal amount of spending cuts and the GOP would still be driving that bus if Obama hadn’t demanded something even bigger, that the GOP couldn’t agree to, and run out the clock.
Sweet Jesus, atrios is a moron.
cleek
let’s not get all celebrate-good-times-come-on yet. this was only a proposal from McTurtle. AFAIK, nobody has actually agreed to it yet.
you know, just like Obama saying vaguely scary things about SS doesn’t actually mean they become law.
danimal
They have a word for smart poker players that convince less smart poker players that the smart poker player is a terrible card player: Rich.
To all the firebaggers and teapartiers that think they are better poker players than Obama: The check cashing window is that way.
Fools, utter fools. AGAIN.
Steve
A rough assessment of my Facebook friends suggests that there are quite a few takers for the proposition that the President is engaging in scare tactics by saying Social Security checks may not go out, as opposed to the proposition that a lack of Social Security checks will be among the dire consequences that result if Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit. Personally, I think Obama has shown quite a bit of restraint by not playing that card up until now, but either way it’s the flat truth.
Republicans always want to cut spending in the abstract without accepting any responsibility for the fact that specific, popular programs are going to get cut.
Lol
The Thomas Friedmans of the left are going to stuck claiming that if you just give them another six months, you’ll see how Obama will totes cut Social Security and Medicare for reals this time.
geg6
efgoldman @6:
Yup, it’s like he dropped Fat Man and Little Boy on them all at once.
Hee.
ed drone
So President Obama either gets his “Big Deal” or Congress lets him do what he wants? Which of the eleven dimensions did this move come out of? Did they switch the penultimate reel of this movie and I didn’t notice? Wha Hoppen?!
I think they should just scrap the whole “debt ceiling” thing anyway, since NOT raising it means default and disaster, so it’s not really a ceiling, is it? And, to boot, it’s likely unConstitutional. That’d be enough reason for me to junk it, though Congress probably sees enough reason for it they’ll keep it.
Ed
Roger Moore
@Han’s Solo:
Heaven forbid we try to deal with the problem of our burgeoning debt by raising taxes! The next thing you know the deficit will go away and the Republicans won’t have an excuse to gut programs that protect the poor. We can obviously never allow that to happen.
Lolis
McConnell’s proposal is total capitulation because it weakens the GOP bargaining ability and clearly states that raising the debt limit is necessary. There was still a decent amount of time for the House to try to take more hostages so they must be fuming about this. The president will undoubtedly get better offers as the days go on.
Han's Solo
@The Moar You Know:
While that would be cathartic, I don’t think it is a good idea. They are only caving because Obama is winning, and Obama is winning because he is perceived as being willing to, “Bend over backwards,” to compromise with Republicans.
The way I look at it is that any big deficit reduction plan needs revenue increases to pass. It is likely that those revenue increases will cause a civil war within the Republican Party. Republicans don’t want that, so McConell’s plan to shirk the vote became the contingency plan.
The question is, will the contingency plan cause a civil war within the Republican Party too?
Obama is just outplaying the GOP, the media and his own party. All my contributions, my time and my vote were well spent!
JGabriel
I’m looking at the photograph of Mitch McConnell that TPM is fronting, and, is it me, or has McConnell’s chin completely vanished?
I mean, McConnell looks like a chinless alien trying to disguise himself as human with some sort of artificial dimple mimicking a chin between his mouth and neck wattle.
Is that mean? Am I being mean to Mitch McConnell? Should I feel guilty?
.
LarsThorwald
1. The House is where the action’s at. Let’s see what the Crazy 88s do (yes, I know there are only 87 GOP Freshmen or whatever. Fuck you.)
2. The Obama Dissatisfied will come away from this not recognizing how shrewd a negotiator he is, but how he was “positioned” to sell Medicare and Social Security down a river, which is horseshit, so fuck you.
I’m in a snit. Fuck me.
Bulworth
Truly.
Although TPM is the only Internets place that is reporting this. So, unclear what the final agreement would be.
If this is the final deal, it’s a pretty massive GOP Fail, since it essentially gets them $0 in cuts compared to the $4 trill or so Obama was offering them.
LarsThorwald
McConnell looks like Mason Verger in that TPM picture.
cleek
@ed drone:
the GOP loves it because it’s gives them an excuse to cry every few years. and the Dems won’t touch it because that would give the GOP an excuse to cry.
someone should propose to rename it the “Time To Change The GOP’s Diapers Again Act”.
stuckinred
You fuckers love this “overlord” and “master” shit. Well, they just dropped the dime on McConnell.
cleek
@JGabriel:
reminds me of Kif from Futurama.
Tom Q
As Martin says, Atrios is not gracious enough to state the obvious, which is, “Obama is winning this decisively, and I’m too committed to trashing him to acknowledge that” (also — TIMMEH!)
To me this says clear as day that the GOP has been negotiating with an unloaded gun. I’d assume they’re getting the long-awaited calls fromm Wall Street and other boardrooms telling them to knock this shit off right now. These may not be the final terms on which this issue is settled, but it certainly tells us which direction the wind is blowing, and blowing hard.
geg6
For all the criticism I’ve given him lately, Josh Marshall is totally correct here, I believe:
NonyNony
Reading up over at TPM, this looks more like McConnell figuring out “oh shit – if Obama keeps the hard line on this we lose all our leverage in the 2012 election”:
The fuck? Congress essentially says “we’re abdicating our authority to do anything but whine about the choices you make”. Essentially this makes the debt ceiling into a permanent political football – it removes the ability to actually use the debt ceiling to crash the economy while still leaving it in play as a political tool for electioneering purposes. And it also forces spending cuts into the Executive Branch when it’s supposed to be fucking Congress that decides what we’re supposed to be spending money on.
If I were Obama I’d hand this steaming pile of crap back to McConnell with a big helping of “fuck you too, Mitch, now give me a clean vote on a debt ceiling limit or you fuckers in Congress figure out how to cut spending”. This is a rube play by McConnell to put the ball back in Obama’s court and make it look like Democrats are rejecting something “reasonable” and they’d be fools to accept it instead of calling it out as McConnell trying to pass the buck while simultaneously keeping the Republicans favorite political football in play.
Bulworth
That’s what’s wrong with Facebook. It started off being the greatest thing, I couldn’t get away from it. Then I started noticing all these people I went to school with had become Teabaggers. Oh well, back to TV.
RP
He’s basically parroting Boner’s spin that it’s the Dems who have been holding the debt ceiling hostage. I can’t believe I followed his blog so closely from 2002-2006. Was he this stupid back then and I just didn’t notice?
Taylor
I see there is more than one river in Egypt.
A few GOS chuckleheads like Chuck Schumer were also taken in by Obama’s rope-a-dope strategy.
Which he apparently has been laying the groundwork for since they day after he was elected.
Clearly the Deficit Commission, which Obama put in place despite Congressional opposition, was all part of this master strategery.
It’s all way above the heads of mere mortals like me.
Or perhaps what really happened is that Obama realized that Cantor wouldn’t allow Boehner to give him the political cover to prove his fiscal bona fides, and suddenly that cliff edge is coming up real fast….
jl
If is is true, as TPM reports, that the GOP were such idiotic negotiators, and hapless overmatched bluffers, that they could not even deliver votes for the smaller $2T cuts, then Obama should shove it down their throats very publicly as soon as appropriate.
I will wait until something is signed to celebrate. The GOP cynicism and incompetence seem to be staggering, and may be truly beyond what any normal person can imagine.
They could blow the country’s finances up just trying to untangle themselves.
Let’s wait and see what happens. Need to give time for Cole to plan the celebration commenter BBQ anyway.
Han's Solo
Remember a few days back, when Republicans were insisting Obama interject himself into the debate?
Yeah, I bet they sure feel foolish now.
Remember a few days back (and pretty much every day here at BJ) when the firebaggers were mocking those of us who thought Obama knew what he was doing?
Yeah, they are still morons, and if they had above room temperature IQs they would feel foolish now.
joes527
If the R’s go through with this, then I’ll be impressed.
I’ve been of the opinion that they were going to take us all down because Republican Jeebus was whispering in their ear that default wouldn’t be all that painful, but it would sure make that black man look bad.
There is still time for the R rank and file to tell the leadership to go fuck itself, and I wouldn’t break out the happy dance until it becomes clear that _someone_ has the votes to pull it off.
But if it goes, then the R’s are saner than I’ve been giving them credit for (yeah – low bar) I didn’t think that Obama could play them, not because he isn’t all eleventy dimensional, but because when your opponent is a block of wood, finesse doesn’t buy you much.
Comrade Mary
McC looks like an astonished turtle in that picture, or maybe a freshly goosed turtle. If you can actually goose a turtle, of course. I have never tried.
(nothing I have said above is mean. If I had said instead that McC looked like a turtle who had just been introduced to the concept of SURPRIZE BUTTSECKS, that would be mean, which is why I didn’t say it.)
Georgia Pig
Wow, that’s some weakass shit from McConnell. Not sure what Atrios is trying to say, maybe it was a dumb idea that Republicans came up with and Obama simply offered to take them to it’s ultimately stupid conclusion? Atrios seems to be a guy with a not too demanding job who writes one sentence to launch a barrage of “Frists!” and then goes drinking.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is something that got some prominent discussion a few moths back, but I can’t remember where so I can’t speak to the details, but one of hte Republicans great tools is the definition of “small business”. When pols talk about small business, they think of mom’n’pop hardware stores, small plumbing outfits, the house cleaners who turned a one-person operation into a business with five vans and twenty full time employees. When a Republican says “small business” the definition gets (IMHO, not an expert) not so small.
chopper
first boner, then bert the turtle. at this rate O is going to punk every member of the gop leadership.
jl
I do not see at all what is wrong with criticizing the proposed increase in the Medicare eligibility age. IMO, it was very bad policy.
Anyway, perhaps the hyperspace Moebius manifold ultrachess master WANTED the base to push back. Ever think of that, you mere tiny minded finite mortals.
That would be a nice hyperspace move. Obama proposes eligibility increase, base pushes back, base proposes alternative expenditure cuts that do not reduce benefits, Obama pushes back against media tripe about extreme bases preventing Compromise with “Whadday talking about, dopes? I can WORK with my base.”
These puny minded mortals think they can out think the Master? What pathetic conceit!
Lojasmo
What? None of the usual bitches scurrying around talking shit about how ineffective obama is?
Color me shocked.
Jim C.
I’ll do a massive bow to the president if this ends up being the end-result. I do worry about the precedent set that this can happen again a year from now or so with the Republicans a bit better prepared.
Essentially I worry that now that they know they CAN pull this trick they’ll do it next time and manage it better. Will they just keep trying this game until they win it and end up with huge cuts to popular programs?
I also wonder what Obama would have done if he’d read the Republicans wrong and they had jumped at the 85% cuts 15% tax increases offer he had put on the table?
Linda Featheringill
The Social Security “checks”:
Quotes are because the benefits show up as direct deposits in your bank account. If you don’t have such an account, SS will assist you in setting one up.
“Paydays” are on Wednesdays, 1st Wednesday, 2nd Wednesday, 3rd Wednesday, or 4th Wednesday. I think people are divided up by the last digit of their SS number or something like that. At least one group excepted from the Wednesday rule include those getting “special help” [that’s what it’s called] with the premiums, perhaps from Medicaid. That group receives the bank deposits on the 3rd of every months. There may be more exceptions.
In the month of August, there will be people expecting something from Social Security on Aug 3, Aug 10, Aug 18, and Aug 25.
There probably won’t be a complete avalanche of complaints on Aug 4, although as word got out that the first batch of payments were missing, everyone would want to join the freakout.
Quicksand
@Cleek
Since when do they need an excuse?
JGabriel
cleek:
Yes. A decidedly a strong resemblance to McConnell.
You know, I wonder if McConnell really is an extraterrestrial alien. I mean, if you were visting the US from another planet and wanted to blend in, how many states are better than Kentucky for that purpose?
Not a lot, I’d wager.
.
Linda Featheringill
jl #39
Do you think we could push him into holding out for the Big Deal, the 4T debt reduction with some cuts and lots of revenue?
J.W. Hamner
The question that people like Atrios need to ask themselves: would this have happened if Obama hadn’t called their bluff?
I think probably it would have… there is just no way that the GOP business side would let a default happen, Tea Party be damned… but it seems likely that Obama milked the maximum political benefit from doing it his way.
Chyron HR
@Taylor:
But Cantor must have realized that Obama realized that, so he placed the poison closer to him!
(Not that your theory sounds anything like 11-Dimensional Chess, which is something that only delusional Obots believe in.)
Sentient Puddle
What the fucking fuck. Evidently, Grover Norquist came out in support of McConnell here. I’m still trying to figure out when precisely it was that I departed reality.
Tsulagi
Seriously doubt it. Guessing it’s more likely that by 2 August there will be quick passage of a small ceiling increase to allow legislative time for whatever compromise deal gets struck.
Will be funny to see teanutbaggers’ response to McConnell’s plan. Commander EE already has his flashing red siren going at RedState alerting his weasel buying warriors. Over/under on McConnell walking back automatic debt ceiling increases faster than Tiffany Addict Newt on his Ryan Plan “radical social engineering” comment?
However, if this outline of McConnell’s plan is accurate, it would be a good deal for the R-baggers. Politically too.
In exchange for Obama asking for $2.5T debt ceiling increases in three steps, he would also have to submit plans for spending cuts in greater amounts. The president himself would have to request a debt increase, which is not popular with the public. Then submit spending cuts himself which would not be popular with the recipients. Actually kind of a win/win plan if you’re trying to knock off a president during an election cycle.
taylormattd
Yeah, all hail McConnell indeed.
What a pathetic response. The GOP caves utterly, and it’s all “Obama wuz bad negoshitur, thnk gawd the rethugs rescued him!!!!!!”
danimal
I managed to get myself in moderation by using a card game analogy to mock the haters out there. Upon further review, McConnell’s plan is a perfect compromise. Obama gets a functionally clean debt ceiling raise and the GOP gets some chances to grandstand and play politics. It’s a win-win solution, giving both sides what they really want.
Taylor
Agreed. The GOP led their hatred of Obama blow an opportunity to get the Dems to tear themselves apart.
But perhaps the reaction on the GOP side would have been the same, but for obviously different reasons.
I would say interesting times still lie ahead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
nothing
It wasn’t “policy”, it was something (apparently) suggested in a middle of wide-ranging negotiations in a context that has not been part of the story. We don’t know who brought it up, in response to what, in return for what, etc. It was IMO something that should never have been brought up (outside, perhaps, the idea of a total Medicare buy-in program). The problem is that people like Krugman and Greenwald want to reduce the entire Obama presidency to that one (alleged) out-of-context proposal.
JGabriel
@efgoldman:
It’s not. SCOTUS will knock down any law that lets the president make spending cuts without a Congressional vote — just as they’ve done with the line item veto.
.
Lolis
Wow Grover Norquist endorses the McConnell plan. This is getting interesting.
jl
@45: Not sure. I know enough that if the GOP are so incompetent that their leadership could not deliver votes for even $2T in cuts after months of braying about being deficit hawks, then they are dangerous lunatics, regardless of their intentions.
TPM says this:
“The Worm Has Turned
Grover Norquist, Grover Norquist!, has come out in favor of Mitch McConnell’s proposal to go ahead and raise the debt limit and leave spending cuts up to Obama”
Edit: minor edits to get rid of dashes.
Looks like the GOP is a sad sad worthless bunch. But, again, so worthless they could blow up the joint just trying to get out of their own mess. So, I will wait until something conclusive is agreed to.
Han's Solo
@Sentient Puddle:
Yeah, me too.
I’m going to go ahead and say it, Obama is a master at eleventh dimension chess. Oh, and Firebaggers can suck it.
NonyNony
Tsulagi
Exactly.
Which is why if Obama’s response is anything except “Haha Mitch you asshole, I know you’re not serious” and then ask for something else – like a clean debt limit vote and for Congress to just do their damn jobs and find their own goddamn spending cuts – he’s getting rolled.
Steve
I think the McConnell plan is constitutional up until the point where it tries to force Obama to propose a bunch of hypothetical spending cuts. I don’t think they can force him to do any such thing.
jl
@53; you are indeed to literal.
OK: it would be very bad policy if enacted.
I am not judging everything by that one proposal. I am saying that it was a bad proposal and should be changed.
So sorry, if that is not permitted.
drkrick
I think it was worse than that. They couldn’t deliver $2T of proposed cuts, let alone the votes to pass them.
During the campaign last year, we kept hearing that it wasn’t the right time to discuss specific spending cuts. Apparently a third of the way through your term of office is too soon, too.
Sentient Puddle
I don’t see why a lot of you people think the requirement to propose spending cuts is great politics on McConnell’s part. It’s not binding, and Obama could just say “OK, I’m cutting $2 trillion from defense” or somewhere else that would be popular among the public. Nobody will care enough to look into the details of what exactly he proposes anyway.
agrippa
A lot of this is black comedy.
The debt ceiling has to be raised.
If Congress was, in fact, interested in a balanced budget – it would write one.
Call it “kabuki”; I call it a black comedy written by Seinfeld.
JPL
The McConnell plan is screwy…we’ll give you 700 billion now 900 billion later yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s basically a way to cave but also cause the President embarrassment. Maybe the President can put together one big package and send all the requests at once.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A lot of people are. Just like they did when Obama broke the promise he never made to advocate for gay marriage, and just like they will when Hamsher, Greenwald and Krugman move the tantrum goal posts again. I give it ten day, and once more before August 1.
Han's Solo
@Tsulagi:
Per The Hill the cuts would not be required.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/170987-mcconnell-fall-back-plan-that-leaves-debt-ceiling-hike-to-obama
Martin
Well, time is a key variable in all of this. If you play the card too soon, then there’s time to rebut it in the media. I actually figured he’d wait a bit longer, but maybe they could see McConnell’s knees wobbling.
I suggested a while back that Obama was making the deal so large as to be impossible simply on the basis of time – big budget deals require quite a bit of time to write up, get scored, run through committee, deal with amendments, vote, resolve between houses, etc. Obama making the deal larger and larger, publicly forcing talks to continue, basically made it impossible to do anything at all.
And for those worried about Obama’s threat on SS checks, just because he says that ‘they may not be able to go out’ doesn’t mean that they won’t. I’m sure at the 11th hour they’ll make sure those checks go out and someone else gets fucked over instead. But it’s necessary that people at least realize the magnitude of what the GOP is forcing, and the only way to do that is to put it in terms that people can immediately and directly understand.
JGabriel
@JGabriel:
On second reading, it’s not clear to me that McConnell’s bill does require or permit the president to make cuts himself. But the mechanism, where the president submits cuts rather than have having them start in the House, still seems constitutionally shaky.
.
drkrick
The President submits a budget every year. To enact them you have to use a process that starts in the House, but this isn’t supposed to be a substitute for that.
piratedan
doesn’t this all kind of come back to what Rachael Maddow has been saying all along, That John Boehner simply isn’t very good at his job like Nancy Smash was?
Congress has taken more time off this session than the last one, all the while where they’re supposed to be working on “jobs, jobs, jobs” and all that’s come out is “abortion, abortion and abortion” in the way of legislation.
Boehner had to have known the Ryan Plan would get them crucified, yet they stood right up and lemminged off that cliff anyway.
Had to have known that the debt ceiling had to be raised, knew it would be raised and instead showed up for this “gunfight at the OK Corral” armed with balloon animals knowing that the people that hold the purse strings would never allow the government to burn down.
active dissent in his own chamber with his No. 2 guy ready to toss him under the bus in the name of political expediency while trying to adhere to the keeping the backbenchers on the team in the name of “party unity” that is being mandated by Faux News.
surprised he isn’t on the golf course more….
JGabriel
Martin:
Yeah, I wasn’t too worried about SS, SSI, and Disability.
But welfare, veteran’s benefits, and all those other monthly checks paid out of the regular tax receipts and not backed by a separate fund of Treasuries like SS? That’s a real concern.
.
jl
@65, OK, probably they are, I agree with that.
I myself supported Obama, and worked my ass off during the 2008 election phoning, and registering and knocking. Will do the same in 2012. I disagree strongly with about 40% of what he does. Not sure it would be any different for anyone else, since that is the natural situation when two people have independent thoughts.
I disagree very very strongly with Obama’s macroeconomic policy. But is there anyone in the Democratic party who would do better? HRC? I don’t think so.
So, please don’t count me among those who think Obama is a terrible awful bad no goodnik, who schemed to betray our sacred trust. He is doing the best he can by his lights.
I can’t help making fun of those who insist on turning themselves into pretzels trying to explain why his every move is genius (2010, anyone?) or that nothing can be done, or he is forced to do this or that by that evil media or GOP.
Maude
Atrios writes snide posts that ramp up his Obama hater commenters.
Somebody should do something.
cyntax
@Lolis:
Yeah, I wonder how much it will help having Norquist along. I’m skeptical of this making it very far since it gives their base nothing to go on, and the Repubs are usually pretty careful about supplying some kind of red meat, but we’ll see.
trollhattan
Something good about being president–after spending endless days smacking around congressional riffraff, you get to hang with a Leroy Petry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/leroy-petry-army-ranger-awarded-medal-of-honor/2011/07/12/gIQA4XU0AI_blog.html?hpid=z1
MBunge
“I remember all that Lieberman talk back in the day that Congress should pass a resolution condemning Clinton’s consensual relationship with an intern.”
I know it’s a lost cause, but I’ve got to point out that doing what Bill did with Monica would get you in serious trouble in just about any corporation in the country. Lying about it after the fact would almost certainly cost you your job. Now, maybe you think the President of the United States should be held to a lower standard than some middle manager at Widgets, Inc. However, thinking otherwise is not exactly outrageous.
Mike
JGabriel
@drkrick:
True. But the McConnell bill still looks iffy. Maybe you’re right and it would pass constitutional muster.
Even so, I’m not sure Obama should take it instead of a clean bill to raise the debt limit. This looks like McConnell knows he has to cave and is desperate for a way to keep the debt limit alive as a partisan wedge.
Since McConnell has to cave anyway, why give him a gong to keep beating the debt limit issue?
.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay, sorry. There has been a lot of “AH HA! I TOLD YOU ALL ALONG HE WAS THE MANCHURIAN REPUBLICAN!” over this
Spaghetti Lee
If Norquist is for it, I think there’s gotta be a catch somewhere.
Martin
But that’s not the problem here, IMO. The problem is that at no point does Congress actually approve raising the debt ceiling. It reads to me that the debt ceiling gets raised ‘automatically’ by Congress saying that Obama can’t do it himself, and then Obama vetoes that and then, “oh well, we tried to stop him”. Well what’s the fucking difference between that and Obama saying “I raised the debt limit in order to implement the budget those asshole sent me. If they didn’t intend me to issue bonds, they shouldn’t have sent me a budget with more spending than revenues.”
Martin
Sure, it invites Obama to violate the Constitution out of an agreement with the Senate so that the House can impeach him.
Han's Solo
@JGabriel:
Because above all Obama needs to appear willing to, “Bend over backwards to compromise.”
Obama won this fight be being reasonable. If he wants to keep the victory he needs to remain reasonable.
over_educated
If you are a worker bee, maybe. If you were CEO, CFO or practically any member of management? Yeah, right.
joes527
The imaginary spending cuts might be the juiciest part of this deal…
He doesn’t have to propose realistic or passable cuts, just meet a $$ amount.
Obama could propose popular (sounding) cuts. Bloated defence contracts, corporate welfare, Texas, Florida … that kind of stuff.
In response, the House sends him a sternly worded letter, takes no action on the cuts and ups the debt limit.
Who looks stupid there?
I assume that if he proposes a cut and the House doesn’t act on it, he can repropose the same cut the next time he is due for his sternly worded letter.
And the R’s are _asking_ for it.
This could be comedy gold
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not in the business world, but a consensual affair? Also, the entire legal rube-goldbergism it took to get Clinton to be asked about it is hard to imagine in a non-political context. That said, I think if Starr and Tom DeLay hadn’t gotten involved, if Linda Tripp had gone to the press instead of the GOP, Clinton would have had to resign. IMHO.
moonbat
Except Obama’s already on the record saying his one non-negotiable condition is that this issue has to be resolved out to 2013 so it cannot be used as a political football during campaign season. My guess is he is going to say “Thanks but no thanks” to McConnell (the Amazing Wonder Turtle) and followup with something more like: “If you don’t want to tackle the deficit send me a clean bill.”
les
@Bulworth:
no, it’s over at NRO too, where the commenters can’t decide whether to hang McConnell in effigy or for reals.
arguingwithsignposts
There are no taxes in mcconnell’s proposal, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that grover fucking norquist is supportive. He’s not a debt-ceiling hawk.
Suffern ACE
Jim, Foolish Literalist – the problem was solved the way it is often solved – “the problem” was moved to another job in another building so that the staff wouldn’t get upset that someone had a favorite.
moonbat
Besides, time is still on Obama’s side. If they want to leave deficit reduction in his hands all he has to do is let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year. Boom! he has addressed one of the major long term contributors to the deficit in a way that the vast majority of Americans approve. And kept a campaign promise to boot.
les
@NonyNony:
It only forces cuts if Congress overrides a veto of their bedwetting motion. First, the motion doesn’t get out of the Senate. Even if it did, the override takes 2/3 of both houses. If the Dems can’t come up with 1//3 of one house, we might as well surrender anyway.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@ Sentient Puddle
Hear fucking Hear! I was about to write something similar, but you beat me to it.
First “tranche”: “Well, it looks like we’re pulling every swinging dick out of Iraq, effective immediately. Just gotta do it. It’s that debt thing, you know. Don’t really want to do it, but I’ve got to. The numbers demand it. Sorry. I trust most of the American people will understand and be OK with this.”
Second “tranche”: “Well, it looks like we’re pulling every swinging dick out of Afghanistan, effective immediately. Just gotta do it. It’s that debt thing, you know. Don’t really want to do it, but I’ve got to. The numbers demand it. Sorry. I trust most of the American people will understand and be OK with this.”
And by the time of the third “tranche” of this plan, the election will be nigh and the Republicans will have already forfeited just because they wouldn’t want people to see just how fucking bad their candidate would get their ass beat. Better to just concede and start planning for 2016.
Hell, McConnell’s plan gives him fucking PERFECT COVER to do the right thing.
cleek
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
exactamundo.
datarat
Obama took any 14th Amendment ‘options’ off the table over the weekend, and told the GOP that short-term solutions were a non-starter. Then comes the turn card…SS checks may not get sent out.
The GOP has just realized they are holding a hand they should have folded long ago. My money says that Obama does nothing and lets the GOP tell Mitch to pound sand…
Evolved Deep Southerner
joes527 @ #85
Even fucking better.
Seriously, if I were Obama, my answer would be “Oh no, Mitch, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t throw me into that briar patch! ANYTHING but that briar patch …”
ABL
right?
grover norquist is the most powerful man in washington that no one ever voted for. he’s a menace II society.
General Stuck
Yes, and Obama used that power within the GOP to play the goopers in congress like a cheap fiddle. Not bad for a skinny black dude.
Jennifer
Obama should tell McConnell et al to blow it out their asses.
He makes a statement saying that the ONE thing that is non-negotiable is for this thing to get done piecemeal. So of course McConnell comes up with a piecemeal proposal, one that is designed to keep the issue front and center from now until the elections and allows the Republicans to disavow and disapprove every raise in the ceiling, without having to take the heat by voting for them or the blame for not voting for them and putting the country in the shitter.
Not just NO, but HELL NO. Obama should say, thanks, but no thanks, guys. Your choices are: vote to raise the ceiling or I’ll go around you via the 14th amendment.
At least then he won’t have to have a bunch of pants-wetting pussies weighing in with their “disapproval” every time the ceiling gets raised.
Besides which, isn’t it the JOB of the House to oversee finances? But now, they want to be relieved of that duty when it’s politically convenient, thanks to an almost-crisis that they created with their eyes wide open. This could have been handled months ago with no fanfare, but now that they’ve just figured out how hard they’ve stepped on their own dicks, we have to have these cutesie ways around normal procedure to pull their asses out of the fire? FUCK THEM. These guys have been posturing themselves as financial gatekeepers and wizards since forever. They need to put up or STFU.
Heliopause
Not sure why anybody considers this proposal a “win” for the President. It is nakedly political and would more or less require the President to act in a nakedly political manner as well. The overweening cynicism of this farce would be obvious to all, just as they’re trying to persuade voters of their sincerity in time for the 2012 election.
It suits McConnell just fine, since politicians of his ilk have built careers out of doing absolutely nothing constructive. But Obama’s brand is seriousness and Grand Bargaining, so participating in this would make him look foolish, I would think.
Martin
Depends on the company. I know of one senior VP that got fired for sending a personal photo from his corporate phone – just an innocent picture of his kids that got sniffed by the security geeks. Corporate policy, HIPAA rules in effect, he was out the door before lunch. And no, there was no ulterior motive.
Might certainly be the exception, but I think corporate tolerance for stuff like that varies quite a bit.
Judas Escargot
Probably this: But the Norquist angle confuses me. That’s the exact quarter I’d expect to want a default, as a dream come true.
So… why?
Joel
He’s a Deep One.
Mnemosyne
I know there are skeptics, but Mike’s absolutely right. In fact, sex is probably the only thing that can get a CEO fired at this point. You’ll keep your job no matter how much money the company loses, but drop your pants and you’re outta there.
Ed Marshall
@Judas Escargot:
Because Norquist knows that he would just lose. If he goes along with it, he can still pretend to be a kingmaker, but if he goes against it and it fails (and it will fail, the masters of the universe are not going to allow the GOP to blow up the world) he looks ineffectual.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Jennifer @ #99
I love to see you post here because I almost always enjoy reading your stuff and agree with you, but I think in this case you’re thinking about it all wrong.
If I understand the McConnell proposition correctly, as it’s laid out now, this is a GOLDEN opportunity for Obama to get really damn creative every time he goes to the debt limit well. With every round, get more and more populist with the hypothetical cuts and pay for what you’re spending with relative ease.
This is the STUPIDEST possible response they could have, ceding that kind of latitude to Obama in the run-up to the election. My God, if the man decides to exercise some “audacity,” this could end up becoming the worst deal since the Minnesota Vikings traded their future to Dallas for Herschel Walker.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Mr. Marshall at #105, I think you’ve got Norquist pegged exactly right. He thinks this is a shrewd retreat because he thinks he knows how Obama will approach those debt-limit hurdles. In other words, he believes himself so smart that he can predict the actions of someone who is so liberal, so radical, so Socialist. (That is snark, of course.)
If Obama were smart, he’d pooh-pooh this idea mildly over the next couple of days, see if a critical mass of support gathered behind it, and if it did, reluctantly accept their offer. And then fucking destroy them with the possibilities it offers – things that are yes, radical to the GOP, but popular as hell with the even-average-intelligence. Defense. Oil Subsidies. Farm Subsidies. Radical bid contracts on Medicare and Medicaid similar to the kinds of contracts the VA has negotiated for itself.
If I were him, my main danger if offered this deal would be to try to keep a semblance of a p*k*r face and not drool. They’re giving him rope, yes. But you can do a lot of neat shit if you have enough rope. Only self-destructive types use it to hang themselves. Something tells me if Obama has a lot of rope hanging around in an election season, he can find a heap of helpful things that rope is good for.
FlipYrWhig
I have no idea what’s going on here. Is it possible that the Republicans truly think they can ride the “debt ceiling issue” to victory in November? Something that arcane? I don’t get it. I don’t get what their “evil genius” proposal accomplishes at all. If I were Obama I’d take the deal, and every few months point out that, sure, for now I’m borrowing money, but all along I am reducing the deficit to address the long-term fiscal stability of the country, cracking down on unnecessary and underperforming areas in the budget, and that I have always been willing to do even more… but the Republicans didn’t have the stomach for it, because they’d rather play games than get serious about getting the nation’s house in order.
Now, were I benevolent overlord, would I have spent this much time on any of this? Hell no. But it sounds to me like a winning line of argument in the political climate we’re forced to occupy for now.
Evolved Deep Southerner
FUCK! I tried to put asterisks in the word for that card game, and I STILL got sent to the moderation holding pen. FYWP.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I think that some Democratic agitator’s characterization of it as an “evil” proposition or McConnell as an “evil genius” is a clever way of suckering them into it. That Grover Norquist has put his imprimatur on it … oh, God, it just shows that the man may sound smart if you’re a dumbass wingnut, but he really ain’t shit and deserves to be embarrassed.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Shit, it wasn’t “p*k*r” that got me in trouble. It was fucking Soc*alist! Fuck!
Tom Q
Evolved Deep Southerner @ 110 — Don’t rule out the possibility there’s some Democrat out there who believes in the deep down inevitable success of it just because it’s a GOP position. Some Blue Dogs believe Republican propaganda no matter how many polls there are to tell them the opposite is true.
joes527
While I have no objection to abject surrender from the Republicans, the more I hear about the deal … the more it sounds unconstitutional on its face.
The congress never passes a debt ceiling increase, instead it passes something that say “The black usurper occupying our WHITE house can’t increase the debt ceiling” and when he vetos THAT he has the power.
Someone please tell me that the evening news got this all wrong.
If not, then I would suggest that the congress convene tomorrow and go back to reading the constitution. They seem to have lost track of it.
If there is no need for an affirmative action from congress to raise the debt ceiling, then there is no need to even be talking about the issue. Obama should just do the unilateral thing that he said wasn’t going to happen.
Rick Taylor
I’m not going to celebrate until a bill is passed and the threat to force the United States to default is disarmed, but McConnell’s proposal sounds like a good deal overall for Democrats to me. It will enrage and disillusion the tea party, and they’ll lose at least a portion of that force in the next election. Who knows, maybe it would bring a measure of sanity back to the Republican party.