There’s general consensus that the caca on white bread served up by Congress is, indeed, a shit sandwich. Kevin Drum and James Fallows are fairly representative, but you can comfort yourself with the White House spin if you think fairy tales can come true.
Paul Krugman has the “Obama surrendered” column of the day. He thinks Obama could have done two things — bundle the debt ceiling increase into last December’s tax compromise, and push the legal end run harder as an option.
I’ll agree that in hindsight it might have been smart for Obama to bundle a debt ceiling increase with the tax cut capitulation last December. But I’d be careful about adopting that position, because it’s been clear from the start that the House Republicans were itching for an opportunity to hold a hostage. The debt ceiling increase was just the first convenient opportunity for a hold up. If it hadn’t been the debt ceiling, the budget would have become the next non-crisis crisis. As Krugman points out, Obama was well aware that there might be a hostage taking, and both he and Reid decided to let it happen. They did it because they thought it was the best option to play the poor hand they were dealt by the midterm catastrophe. I don’t think it was 11-dimensional chess or some reverse sideways flying kick that nobody could see: putting the debt ceiling on the table just got the inevitable “shutdown the government” tantrum started early.
Krugman’s other Obama woulda, shoulda, coulda is the “constitutional option” or maybe minting platinum trillion dollar coins. I don’t see how that would have “increased leverage”. The only way to get Congress to do something is to back them into a corner from which they see absolutely no escape. Obama signaled long ago that he wanted Congress to stop weaseling out of its responsibility as a policy-making body, and it’s part of a strategy on his part to have Congress play its constitutional role. If you don’t think this is smart politics and good government, then maybe you haven’t lived in a Congressional district where the Republican du jour runs a “Washington is broken”, “in it but not of it” campaign every two years. It’s really a neat trick to do nothing and blame everyone else, and Republican Congressional candidates have been doing it for a hell of a long time. Well, our Republican House just served up a huge shitpie. Run on that, you fuckers.
John X.
This may be the most political tone deaf place on the web. The Tea Party (AKA the GOP base) just won huge. They’ll be out in droves the next election, as victory energizes a base.
The Democrats lost. They lost hard and they lost embarrassingly. The Tea Party used the procedures of government against them like it was the Maginot Line.
And you guys are trying to figure out how to clap harder.
arguingwithsignposts
From TPM, here’s what Boehner presented to his caucus last night:
James Hare
All of the legal options ended up being “shoot the hostage” — they’re still there if the Tea Party doesn’t give up, but they would hurt too. The House would almost certainly impeach the President and the resulting uncertainty about the strategy used to avoid default would be a second hit to the economy – not as bad as default, but not good. We’d probably get downgraded as well.
Bob
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), the leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, who earlier in the day called the emerging debt ceiling deal a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich,” stood by his criticism in an interview with MSNBC following Obama’s announcement of the deal.
Liberal Sandlapper
Meh. This will give the Firebaggers and Clintonistas another excuse to wear sackcloth and ashes and sit on their hands again come the 2012 elections, so that the assholes become even stronger and take the Senate, so that people like Krugman and Hamsher will be happy in their fucked up little worlds.
Fuckit.
mistermix
@John X.: The Tea Party “won huge” in November, 2010. The rest was pre-ordained.
True defeat for Democrats is to accept the notion that what’s standing between them and a victory over the Tea Party/GOP base is better dealmaking by the President. There’s just not a hell of a lot that he can do. All Democrats can do is to work like hell to take the House back and elect as many Senators as the rural/urban divide will allow.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
For those who want Obama to invoke the 14th amendment, how will you feel when President Bachmann/Perry/Whoever invokes the same amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade?
ETA: For all you people who do negotiations, how do you negotiate when the do nothing situation is exactly what the other side wants? I’m imagining the prisoners’ dilemma where the other guy wants both of you to die.
JPL
The libertarian party finally gained hold of government but changing it’s name. How many tea party folks realize they are being used?
Murphoney
I get the feeling that I’m supposed to respect the White House for adopting a “lie back, close your eyes and think of the Middle Class” posture.
The problem is that I can’t imagine the White House thinking about anything but political calculus, and it’s the Middle Class that’s actually getting tea partied.
Mino
Do you really think Obama can dodge his responsibililty for this? If I were a cynic, I’d say that while Progressives thought Obama was talking to them when he said “Make me do it,” he was really talking to Republicans, and so they did.
This weakness is so bad for our government. The next time they hear “no”, the nhilists are free to set off the bomb. Now nothing else will convince them that Dems can’t be rolled.
But I don’t expect this president to ever say no to them. And he could well be the last Dem.
I’m having a hard time seeing myself even voting. (I live in Texas, so the only vote that counts is the city govt and Presidential.)
EconWatcher
I don’t know what’s in the deal. But politically, the most important thing for the Republicans was to wrest some “bipartisan” cuts from Medicare to give them cover for their own disastrous votes on the Ryan bill. If they did not achieve that, I think they lost (politically), because those votes on the Ryan bill may hurt them badly.
Now, as a matter of policy, I’m sure the deal is a crap sandwich.
DJAnyReason
Re: Belafon
Just fine – because then there’s an actual plaintiff with actual standing to challenge it. And, unlike invoking the 14th on the debt ceiling, there isn’t actually any colorable argument that the President can do that.
Emma
Belafon: Don’t be silly. Don’t you know that the Teatarians in government would never, ever, ever do that? Really.
The Constitution is fucked and I’m beginning to believe our side is as much to blame as theirs.
And DJAnyReason: with the Supremes we have — any Republican overturning Roe v. Wade with any sort of precedent will be upheld. Period.
A Humble Lurker
Still not ready to freakout.
We need a tag for the opposite of ‘clap louder’. Some kind of ‘the sky is falling the sky is falling run mothafuckas ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!!!!’ tag. Only, you know, shorter and actually clever.
Anonguest84
Obama screwed the pooch? Again?
No one could have predicted…
MattF
The debt ‘deal’ does suck pretty hard, but ‘solving’ the question by executive fiat would suck a great deal harder, IMO. Has everyone forgotten Mr. “I’m not going to negotiate with myself” GW Bush? Does everyone really believe that executive power needs to be strengthened in our political system?
Mistermix has a real point here– Congress has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into actual policy making, and this, believe it or not, is an advance.
Clever moniker
@Belafon:
What does abortion have to do with the full faith and credit of our debt? Contrary to what you may think, fourteenth amendment proponents saw it is invalidating the debt ceiling, not as a magical executive power device.
stinkdaddy
You’re kidding right? The House served it up, the Senate passed it, and the White House referred to it as “historic” “bipartisan compromise.” This thing is a mess all around, so the Republicans will just do the usual thing and make something up. Reality is suddenly a limitation?
As for this thing about Congress making policy… seriously? Yeah, we’re gonna get a double-dip recession and we’re guaranteed to see some sort of cuts to Medicare, but at least Obama got Congress involved in making that shitty policy! Sorry but that’s fucking insane. Outcomes matter too.
Aloysius
If Obama is so concerned that Congress play its constitutional role, why are we in Libya? It seems to me that this president has been happy enough abusing executive power in the past, and he plays the “it’s not the President’s job” card very selectively.
TheMightyTrowel
@MattF: I’m most confused by the distinct yearning for an authoritarian parental figure in the white house. Since when did americans want to have a king?
NamelessGenXer
The way I remember it, deficit reduction was considered a good thing when Clinton did it.
beltane
I have to disagree with this assessment. There is no silver lining here. In the minds of independent/low information voters, “Washington” just did something that is going to make their lives observably worse. This guarantees that when the Republicans run against Washington, as they always do, they will be met with success. Expecting a group of voters who have proven themselves clueless on every occasion to suddenly wake up and realize who is at fault is just one of the many flavors of wishful thinking that plague us.
Until the Democratic party develops a mindset that seeks to destroy the Republican party and those who support it, we will continue being the passive victims of these monsters.
Blue Galangal
I just want someone to help me stop reading Sully. Honest to pete. I just deleted his bookmark from my browser. It’s a first step, right?
Thymezone
Yeah, Krugman, who couldn’t win a 3 minute skirmish with George Will on tv yesterday, and who has never been in the political arena, would have been a better president in this crisis. The man argues like an old woman in person, but without the forceful presence.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Clever moniker: No, what the people pushing for the president to use it for is to do an end run around Congress. It’s intent was to honor debts collected during the Civil War. It’s been around longer than the law governing the debt ceiling. If the president wants to have the debt ceiling law made unconstitutional, then he will need to challenge that. It’s the Supreme Court’s job to declare these unconstitutional, not his.
And the point I’m making, which I will make again, is nitpicking through the constitution to make up some rationale for doing something that Congress is preventing you from doing. The right has been itching for a way to overturn Roe v. Wade. They’ll love the precedent of the president being able to interpret sections and make law that way. It’s not the executive’s job to make laws.
beltane
@stinkdaddy: Thank you. Middle-of-the-road voters are going to be hurt by this bill. When they say “ouch”, the Democrats will give them a convoluted explanation while the Republicans will give them a scapegoat. Humans, being the primates we are, always prefer to be given a scapegoat.
stinkdaddy
@NamelessGenXer: The way I remember it, Clinton wasn’t in the middle of a fucking depression.
eta: And a lot of people were hurt by Clinton’s ‘reforms:’ NAFTA, workfare etc.
Clever moniker
@MattF
If this is an advance call me reactionary.
And there’s no way Obama can separate himself from this compromise, mainly because he advocated so loudly for it. A week or so ago it looked like we had driven a wedge into the Republicans–it turns out they drove one into us. I bet Obama and congressional/state Democrats will essentially be running against one another.
shortstop
Hey, remember when the GOP and the media successfully convinced Americans that Democrats had just rammed through a bill that would cut their Medicare benefits while killing grandma? Remember who got elected in 2010 as a result?
We do not possess the tools with which to make the electorate aware that the Republican House just served up a huge shitpie. No one will know this.
WereBear
Where is this alternate universe that has A Clever Plan to get the Tea Party era Republicans to sign off on tax raises on the wealthy, leaving Medicare alone, and moar stimulus?
Because I’d like to move there.
On this planet, they are ready to plunge the world back into bead-swapping unless they get an amendment to the Constitution in one week.
EconWatcher
@beltane:
I don’t know what’s in Obama’s head, but I do think he’s a smart guy who tries to think about the big picture and the long game (however imperfectly).
He had to get a deal or the economy would tank even worse, spelling virtually certain disaster for him and putting real extremists completely in power.
There’s very little good here, but if Obama preserved the Dems’ ability to attack on (1) Medicare, and (2) on inability to pursue a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction while Republicans hold the house, and (3) pushed most cuts into the future, when (hopefully) the economy will be stronger, he may have gotten pretty much all there was to get in this lousy situation.
Alex S.
In some ways, Obama is a brave soul. He sees the damage and decline and tries to repair and reverse it. There were two ways to do it and he had to choose at the start: do it within the boundaries of his own vision, or outside of that, in other words, be the good government/constitutional guy the system is meant to produce or try Bush methods to achieve his goals. He chose the former and lost the political capital to switch tracks early in the process. (As a sidenote: there is a funny difference here between the pragmatic and the realist point of view…) Anyway… it’s too early to judge him now, though it may turn out that his way was too cautious. He plays the role history has bestowed on him: he keeps the New Deal/Great Society projects alive until demographic changes break through or global capitalism collapses under itself. I agree that the budget negotiations would have been the next manufactured crisis, let’s see what happens there…
A Humble Lurker
@beltane:
But you’re thinking these voters who have proven themselves clueless are going to understand what’s in this bill? How crappy a deal it supposedly is? The voters who believed the ‘death panel’ BS for so long?
If anything, the public will be happy with the White House for making a deal. They like compromise, remember? If there are problems with this bill, that ain’t one of them. The public isn’t paying attention like we are, as many have bemoaned on this very site in the past.
Mino
Another thing to consider is what US bond owners will be thinking about who appears to be really in charge over here. I don’t mean whether Moody’s et al. acts, but any smart person is going to look down the road and see that our situation is not gonna end well. I’ll be curious to see what happens with 20 and 30 year bonds.
OzoneR
@John X.:
except the Democratic base apparently
stinkdaddy
Cynical horse-race viewpoint:
1) Fuckload of spending cuts in a horrible economy
2) Medicare cuts
3) Super Committee and series of incremental debt ceiling increases keeps big government / tax and spend issue front and center in election year
Obama 12: He brought Congress back into the legislative process!
Sure thing.
no video at work
so – is it officially OK to be disappointed with Obama now? I have actively worked for Democrats for 50 years, almost without exception. But they have convinced me now, there really is no difference. Welcome to the third world kids.
4tehlulz
When is the vote scheduled? I have yet to see anything on the Intertrons about it.
stinkdaddy
@WereBear:
It’s funny how you keep on with this stuff as though they didn’t just roll the Democratic President and Senate to a degree that’s going to go down in history books. At some point, maybe we can all coalesce around a realization that the “we can’t control these guys” thing was a massively-successful negotiating tactic. Maybe not.
@no video at work: Nope, sorry. Still Greenwald’s fault. President Bachmann. Booga Booga! etc.
Murphoney
@OzoneR: What victory?
Norwonk
That’s not exactly what Krugman is saying. Here’s the key part of the quote he posted:
That was last December. Anyone see any sign that Obama realised what was coming here?
Comrade Javamanphil
You run a country with the nihilists you have, not the nihilists you wish you had. The great tragedy in all this remains the press and their ability to report the entire mess as “Washington is broken and both sides are to blame.” Well, that and poor people
eating T-bones and driving Cadillacsbeing too lazy to find a job and pull themselves up by their bootstrapshaving absolutely zero long term prospects for a better life. Morning in America, bitches.beltane
@EconWatcher: Obama may have gotten the best deal he could, but it’s not going to help him. Leaving the Democrats Medicare as something to attack the GOP with is not enough as most people will see this Obama joining with the Republicans to attack Medicare. Now, I have my 71 year old, old-style Democratic mother hoping for someone to make a 3rd party run. Until this past week, I’ve been a pretty strong supporter of the President, but his performance on the debt ceiling issue has been absolutely dismal.
John Puma
Indeed, “our Republican House just served up a huge shitpie.”
One question: “Who then immediately dipped a big spoon into said recently-delivered, steaming pile and began force feeding it to congressional Democrats?”
(Much like last December! See how terrorists are “emboldened”‘?)
JohnR
They will. Since everybody knows, and everybody will say, that this is Obama’s “victory”, they will be free to blame all the bad consequences on Obama and the Democrats. They’d do this anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t matter much, but when Obama worked so hard for his own defeat (and spare me the “political realities demanded that he give in early and often in order to get no concessions” BS), it’s hard to see an upside to this . Everybody gains from this except the Democrats and about 90% of the American people. Yeah, it’s better than default, I expect, but so is Mercury poisoning better than Arsenic poisoning. Well, we can keep agitating at the local level and try to rebuild some sort of responsive political party; it could be worse – at least we’ve got our health.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I’m trying to figure out if there’s any actual silver lining in any of this shit, outside of ‘at least we won’t default now’.
It’s hardly even a shit sandwich. It’s a shit (and a) sandwich. Republicans get the sandwich, we get the shit. Almost 100% of the entire fucking thing is GOP stuff, AND they get the excuse of ‘we didn’t get enough?!’ to keep the teatards riled to ensure they get to fucking keep steamrolling everything. Meanwhile, we got…what? A country that won’t default. All nice and well if not for the fact that this should never have even been a fucking crisis to begin with.
Fuck all, I just give up. There really is no fucking hope, this whole fucking debacle just seems to prove that the Tea Party has won the entire fucking country writ large. And don’t give me that Manic Progressive shit since when in the entire fucking debate did anyone even approaching a Firebagger have an actual voice or influence in the entire fucking matter? Krugman is the closest I’ve seen and he was entirely fucking ignored when the tangibles came.
Just…fuck it. I don’t care anymore. I’m voting out of habit and because fuck the Republicans, but even if Obama wins in 2012, it’s still entirely fucking obvious that we live in Tea Party America, and hahaha fuck you stupid fucking libs for thinking you really were American and actually matter.
Jason Kratz
The “economic crisis” part of this is the fact that it is doing absolutely nothing to deal with the jobs problem. Or what’s even worse is that unemployment has barely been mentioned over the last couple of weeks anywhere in the media.
But to think that the economy would have tanked had a deal not been reached is a bit far-fetched. There is the theatrics and the reality. I’d bet S&P, etc. were bluffing because the real data shows absolutely no reason to downgrade the credit rating of the United States. They’re not going to downgrade it based on the wonderful theater thats been happening in DC.
But come 2012 both sides are going to have to answer for this. We (not this website but the collective “we” of the US) have ourselves to blame for this mess based on who voted (or not) and who they voted for (or not). Hopefully some of the idealists out there on the Left will come back down to reality a bit and realize there is never a perfect solution. Gotta vote anyway. This comment in #10 made me cringe: “I’m having a hard time seeing myself even voting.” The excuse being the poster lives in Texas. That attitude makes me sick.
WereBear
I’m genuinely curious how you can say that when the Tea Party is apparently as pissed off as the liberals are.
It might not be great; but it’s not a “rolling.”
Keith G
@Liberal Sandlapper:
Please, lets just stop this shit right now. Criticizing the outcome of a long sweep of presidential decision making is not being a firebagger (whatever that actually means). Lumping any critics together with Hamsher is at the least silly and sloppy if not down right defensively emo and manipulative.
This did not work out well and anyway you chose to cut it, the poor and under served in this country will be worse off now then they have been in recent memory.
Like it or not, when things go south the President is likely to be splattered with a lot of the blame, unless he/she is able, like Truman, to vigorously (and pugilistically) push back and convince society that he/she fought the good fight and it was Congress who screwed up. I fear that by giving ground so early and so often, that Obama will be less able to make that argument effectively.
Nonetheless, President Barak Obama will still be the coauthor of policies that will pound the poor further into the dirt and still not address the long-term deficit.
Pointing that out is not and act against Obama, it is an effort to fight for the truth.
Clever moniker
Anyone have the polling on GHWB’s debt deal? Anyone remember it?
Ultimately, all that matters is the effect this will have on the economy. Even if the public isn’t paying attention like we are now, they’ll sound a lot like us in twelve months, even if they don’t remember this crisis.
In any event, I think this deal actually will hurt Obama’s approval ratings with his base–although I think you could argue the president did well during the past couple of crises (I certainly did), this agreement has more obvious consequences. I saw a denunciation from Carl Levin (who I hardly think is a firebreather, but I could be wrong), and Nate Silver noted anger could stretch beyond the perpetually-annoyed “Professional Left.” That’s what I’m seeing now.
White Trash Liberal
This was the price paid for health insurance reform.
At this point, the focus needs to be on 2012. Not just electing Obama, but more importantly defending the Senate and taking back the House. Further, we need local governments to turn liberal.
We are fast being backed into a corner by a fanatical well-funded minority. All of us blinked. All of us. There’s almost no one out there who believes that the Tea Party Caucus would have folded. We nearly all believed that they were crazy enough to burn down the world in order to win. That’s power. It’s the power history has afforded other revolutionary vanguards. Now it’s liberals that are stuck being the defenders of the status quo. A status quo that is far from liberal.
Fuck Godwin. This playbook is too damn familiar to avoid.
bkny
#10 — re the weakness displayed by obama.
just imagine the takeaway that netanyahu is getting from this … as if he already didn’t roll over obama previously; now i’m looking forward to: ‘alright, mr hopey changey, either you nuke iran or we will’ …
JPL
The republican tea party had a balance budget amendment and attacked entitlements and the pell grant.
How is this a win for them?
The Super-Duper Congress gets cuts across the board and fifty percent of this is from defense, if they don’t agree. How is this a win for the tea party?
Debt cuts in front of the Senate is an up or down vote. How is this a win for the tea party?
IMO…Both sides got screwed. There are no winners and losers.
mr. whipple
@Thymezone:
Epic.
beltane
@A Humble Lurker: Yes, they’ll see that the Republicans “compromised” and so won’t punish them for being crazy. They’ll also see that the President got rolled by these suddenly not-crazy Republicans so maybe he’s kind of weak, which is something low-info voters hate. Again, I’m not seeing any silver lining here whatsoever.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I just want to note, I will accept that maybe this really is the best deal Obama could’ve gotten out of this entire fucking mess. The point still is that it’s still a giant fucking pile of shit, and we should never have even gotten to the point where we’d have to lay back and eat it. And the blame for this fucking spectacular rolling hangs on all the fucking Democrats in Washington for being a spectacularly fucking worthless waste as a fucking functioning party. Way to play to ‘put on a good game’ against a party aiming to make the whole “Democratic” franchise die on the field.
stinkdaddy
@JohnR:
This is maybe the most frustrating thing. If the WH would stop calling every capitulation “historic” and framing each of them as ideal policy they’d at least leave themselves some wiggle room to change course.
At this point, my biggest hope is that Obama’s pro-austerity bullshit over the last few months ends up discrediting that as badly in the eyes of the public as the stimulus did Keynesianism. If we’re going to be hurting people with policy, they could at least figure it the fuck out.
OzoneR
@beltane:
Most Americans thought “both sides do it” So they won’t see the President getting rolled, they’ll see two partisan sides finally coming to an agreement. No one thinks the President is weak except the far left and the far right. The rest of America thinks both sides are just dug in to extreme partisanship.
sixers
Obama’s got this!
OzoneR
@stinkdaddy:
He said last thing it’s not perfect and wasn’t the deal he really wanted.
Rhoda
Where the fuck is this the Republicans rolled the Democrats thing coming from?
The Republicans CONTROL the fucking House of Representatives and have an effective veto over all legislation in the senate; this is divided government in one sense. The President can veto shit. And we saw the fact that the tea party runs things last week and they could give fuck all for public opinion; these motherfuckers voted out Paul Ryan’s budget.
This was set up on the Republicans turf from go; and the only thing that can be said was that the Democrats should have passed the debt ceiling and dealt with the Bush tax cuts in ’10. Well, the President tried to get them to and failed because (1) the likes of Feinstein and Boxer who didn’t want to run on tax hikes in blue Cali and (2) Democrats not wanting the responsibility of raising the debt ceiling and thinking Republicans will HAVE to deal with that which is on Pelosi and Reid too.
The more progressives make EVERYTHING about Obama, the more they fail. They made 2009 and 2010 ALL about the President in regards to everything and legislatively we won b/c we held control but politically as democrats entered the circular firing squad the Republicans mowed us down. That’s going to happen again if the focus isn’t put squarely on the Republicans and the fact they tried to ruin the full faith and credit of the USA and destroy this country. A week ago all Democrats were singing that song and it was getting through; now we’re divided and angry at being forced to eat a crap sandwich. Well, elections have consequences and we’re living with it.
Instead of talking about the President which obviously he can’t change; Krugman should be talking about the Republicans and what the fuck they just did. THAT is the fucking obscenity on the body politic and that cancer needs to be cut out in 2012 and it won’t be if Democrats don’t start taking a knife to Republicans and ONLY the Republicans.
We can have the food fights when we get back in power; meanwhile swallow the shit and keep it moving. Register some voters and when this debt shit comes up in conversation; blame the Republicans. From jump, for everything, until Nov. 4 2012 the Republicans should be the problem and the message.
But Democrats aren’t tribal enough and smart enough to recognize when to circle the wagons; which is why they always have more trouble with independents even through the Republicans are getting progressively insane. Those motherfuckers band together against “the liberals”; meanwhile the liberals are firing every which way it seems. So, who do you go with? The crazy motherfucker that seems to shoot straight, or the asshole firing every which way?
stinkdaddy
@WereBear: How can I say it? Because the reactions of Erick Erickson and etc. are not the yardstick I’m using. By any objective measure, the policies in this deal are a fucking disaster — and they were handed over to a group of people who admitted that the thing they were using as leverage could not be allowed to happen, over, and over, and over.
If you find “well it pisses everyone off!”-level analysis comforting, that’s your thing, but I’ve already seen several estimates that this is gonna lead to a 3-4%/yr GDP contraction. DeLong even thinks we’ll see an impact in the current fiscal year.
Murphoney
@WereBear:
It’s not only part-and-parcel with a rolling, it’s a preamble for next time.
To achieve complete success, the con always attempts to leave the mark with an impression that he has not been conned.
JPL
If the debt ceiling increase does not pass, the ones who are screwed are those with credit card debt who have to pay higher interest and the needy. Sure bankers and investors will get screwed but they will still have enough money to pay their credit card bill.
J.D. Rhoades
@TheMightyTrowel:
Since always. The most recent nauseating example of this impulse is Peggy Noonan’s little snit about how nobody really “loves” the condescending (i.e. uppity) Barack Obama. I don’t give a fuck if the President is lovable; I want him to lead. And in this, sadly, Obama has failed. Boehner’s failed only slightly less. At long last, I’m about ready to join the “they all suck” crowd.
OzoneR
@Murphoney:
all those victories in the last Congress every progressive found some gripe with.
Brian R.
From idiots, mostly.
General Stuck
Well, I guess if Obama has lost President Krugman and liberal punditry, then it’s goodnight Irene for him.
Anonguest84
“forget the politicians. the politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. you don’t. you have no choice. you have Owners. They own you.”
– george carlin
Jennifer
Well, usually I get called an “Obot” by the firebaggers but last night I got called a firebagger for pointing out, correctly I think, what a stinking pile of shit this “compromise” is.
For all of you who keep saying, “well, what else could be done?”, here is what could be done: the president could have held firm to at least one of his demands. Instead he caved on ALL of them, including the incrementalist approach which will raise the ceiling in stages.
There’s a reason you don’t negotiate with hostage takers, and here we’re seeing why. It’s because they’re nihilists and don’t give a shit about consequences, UNLESS AND UNTIL they have to actually face them. They count on everyone else giving in so that will never happen. And they can count on the president and the democrats to always, always deliver in that role, so they have no reason to change their behavoir.
So…to my mind it would have been preferable to just let it go to the absolute last minute. For one thing, the Republicans might have caved in the game of chicken. If they didn’t, the president could have invoked the 14th. Then, entitlements could have been SELECTIVELY disbursed; that is, if you were a retiree in a district which elected a teabagger, you probably wouldn’t see a check showing up in your mailbox or bank account. That would have most nearly apportioned the pain to those most deserving of it. And fucking guaranteed that a clean debt ceiling increase, no strings attached, would have been passed within a matter of days. Sure, the teahadists would have screamed impeachment – but in their weakened position, could they have moved forward with it? And if they did, where would it go in the Senate?
I’ll say again what I said last night which got me labelled a “firebagger” – our choices here are do we want to go down the shitter quickly or in a long, drawn out incremental series of steps? Because we’re going to end up in the same place in the end – all your everything will be owned by the same folks who now own your government – and that includes you and your children. Like the frog in boiling water, you won’t notice it as much when it happens gradually. Let it happen in one fell swoop, and people might get fired up. But it’s not a choice as to whether or not to go in this direction – people a lot more powerful than you decided that long ago, and that plan hasn’t changed and will not change without some pain on the part of all of us. So why the fuck put it off? It’s not going to get better by waiting longer to address it.
This country is going to fail because it is no longer willing to punish asshole behavoir of any type committed by the haves or their lackeys. The only question is whether it will go out with a bang or a whimper. Obama seems to definitely belong to the whimper camp, and at this point, that’s not a good thing.
JPL
How is this a win for the tea party? Did social security get cut? Did Medicaid get cut? IMO, this plan is better than the President’s 4 trillion dollar plan.
EDIT…no one wins with this plan
sal
Dems in Congress should switch parties and become Repubs. Then the president can give them everything they want.
EconWatcher
@JPL:
Jon Chait has a pretty persuasive take on this, which blames Obama for really bad prior decisions (such as not demanding a debt-limit increase as condition for extending the Bush tax cuts) but finds the ultimate deal, under the circumstances created, something less than a total disaster, and with some opportunities to move forward.
I’m curious: is there any defensible reason why Obama did NOT try to get a debt-ceiling increase as a condition for extending the Bush tax cuts? This seems like a key question in judging his performance in a difficult situation.
Danny
Well, the deal is obviously a stinker from a progressive perspective. I was pretty confident all along that we’d get better than this, but feel compelled to admit I was mistaken.
Silver linings are pretty much no cuts in fiscal 2012, so the deal will be Keynesian neutral (so to speak) with regards to the Economy up to the 2012 elections. Obviously what happens after 2012 is of great importance to every american, but if the economy is still weak then and Obama loses reelection we can always take solace in the fact that Republicans will have to own their own stinking policies.
The trigger part sounds slightly better than I was afraid at first. 50% defense and 50% domesting (including medicare providers) sounds like a fairly ok breakdown for us incentive-wise, e.g. republicans ought to be at least as anxious to get a deal as we are).
The downside is the baseline that makes any change to the Bush tax cuts unlikely. But a raise in the capital gains tax is possible as part of a deal.
Then, there’s of course the possibility to let the Bush tax cuts expire, or using a veto threat as leverage to make some of them expire.
In summary: this deal is clearly tilted towards republican preferred policy. In and of itself it is a letdown. We simply have to do better in the next battle.
OzoneR
@Jennifer:
He did, he refused to accept a short term debt ceiling hike, and he got it.
No, he didn’t. The only thing Congress gets to do is take meaningless votes of disapproval.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
My old man used to say “you can’t look up a dead horse’s ass”. Fuck it and drive on.
JPL
@EconWatcher: I agree with that. I stand by my statement that this is not a win for the tea party though. No one wins.
SW
I might agree with this except why is he now running around telling everyone how great this deal is? He should be out there telling everyone that this SUCKS and that Congress is BROKEN and you people need to fix it in 2012. Instead he is trying to take credit for it, and well I gotta tell you, you don’t get credit without sharing the blame and this turd is going to stink up the joint.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d say Obama got everything he wanted except cuts to Social Security and the closing of some tax loopholes.
What is all this noise about?
Danny
Last silver lining: it’s now firmly established in Village discourse that the Teaparty caucus and the House republicans are unwilling to compromise and somewhat extremist, and that the public support tax increases on the wealthy.
A stubborn optimist would argue that our hand should be strengthened going into future showdowns, e.g. the committee, the next budget and extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2012. I will put my faith in that notion.
JPL
@SW: I didn’t hear that comment. Last night he said he didn’t like the deal. Do you have a link?
dedc79
It’s such an odd situation. The Dems probably could have gotten a better deal if the situation was reversed and the Republicans controlled the White House and the Senate. That says something about the power of hostage-taking.
SensesFail
Did anyone else have an extreme desire to punch David Gregory in the face through your TV this morning?
So he’s on Morning Joe (I know what you’re thinking: “Why the fuck are you watching that awful show?” And I don’t have a good answer for that.), and he says something to the effect of:
“Now, I realize that the Tea Party caucus in the House took reducing the debt a little too far, but we all know that the debt is a huge problem that needs to be solved.”
So not only does he buy into the “Debt Boogieman” fiction, but he also barely criticizes the Tea Party crazies in the House.
Arianna Huffington is there too, and she chimes in and cites a poll that shows that Americans are more concerned now about jobs than the debt.
Then this fucking ass-hat Gregory starts rambling about how the government can’t do much to create jobs, and that the government already tried to create jobs with the stimulus package that passed a while ago and that it wasn’t effective.
Debt is our biggest concern. Government can’t create jobs. The stimulus wasn’t effective.
Brought to you by the “liberal” media.
LarsThorwald
I am as depressed as fuck about this, but everyone who is should go read Fallows today. He has a bit of perspective. We will get past this. We will muddle through.
That’s the best hope I can muster today. I go on vacation in a week. My beer will still be cold, the sand will still feel great between my toes, the tide will come in and go out as I watch my kids play in the surf.
Fuck this town of mine. Fuck Washington.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@SW:
This is what seriously disappoints me too. This was not a victory by any measure of the imagination. Stop fucking calling it that and acting like this is what you fucking wanted all along, you goddamn cretin. I mean, good fucking god, I’ll take Obama over any fucking GOP moron on the slate, but can you stop acting like the shit sandwich you god served was what you ordered in the first place? No matter if he really believes it or is just trying to co-opt it to look like he came out on top, it just makes the whole thing even more patently ridiculous.
Brian R.
Let’s see….
When all is said and done, and the super congress thing flatlines as it certainly will and the automatic triggers kick in, then we’re going to end up with … $1.2 trillion dollars in cuts, split evenly between defense contractors and insurance companies leeching off Medicare, plus the roll back of the Bush tax cuts for the very rich which will add $3.7 trillion in revenue.
That’s it? And Medicare benefits, Medicaid and Social Security don’t get touched at all?
OH NO. OBAMA HAS THROWN LIBERALS UNDER THE BUS AGAIN!1!one!1!1
4tehlulz
Is that legal?
Omnes Omnibus
@ sal
The Repubs did not get everything they want. The Tea Party Repubs certainly did not – they wanted default, to blow the whole thing up. That being said, I was hoping for a last minute clean bill, so I am disappointed.
OzoneR
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
OMFG, he SAID it wasn’t the deal he wanted, he flat out said that, no wonder you people keep griping on the bully pulpit, you don’t fucking listen to him.
gnomedad
I don’t see how Obama could have done better after the 2010 elections, but I’m ready for the rhetorical gloves to come off. I want Obama to say something like: “Just kidding about that compromise crap; we really needed this thing to pass to avoid default. But the GOP took the economy hostage and forced a bad deal. Things are gonna suck now, and remember that this is what they wanted. And in 2012, they’re gonna offer more of the same.”
JPL
@SensesFail: A friend mentioned that to me and rather than dispute the figures, I mentioned that proves tax cuts don’t work since a large portion was tax cuts… HMMMM
stinkdaddy
@JPL:
Democrats also attacked entitlements, cancelling that out. The BBA is a winner in the current political environment and nobody gives a shit about pell grants. Hell I’d put even money on the TP successfully demagoguing pell grants. Free education for illegals!
Deadlock the panel unless you get 95-98% of what you want. History has shown the Dems will cave. Also, see following.
Propose crazy-ass cuts on the panel. If the panel recommendation doesn’t get a majority or doesn’t pass in Congress, blame the Dems for the resulting cuts. “We had a plan, but the panel Democrats insisted on job-killing tax increases.”
Butch
I did read through the White House talking points at the link above and have to admit, given the performance on so many issues, the line “The President will insist” made me laugh out loud.
TJ
Whistling past the graveyard. Next year, the only thing anybody is going to care about is the double-dip recession this brings. And the GOP isn’t going to get the majority of the blame for that.
A Humble Lurker
@beltane:
So their clueless….but they’ll see that? I’m not getting you. The low information voters don’t see that the Republicans are crazy, so they want both sides to compromise. They attribute partisan pettiness to both sides because they don’t pay enough attention to see it’s only coming from one direction.
Honestly, I think you’re projecting.
stinkdaddy
@General Stuck: Ok, so at the moment the left is tiny and electorally insignificant. How much longer before it reverts back to being wholly responsible for the ’10 results? I need to go make a sandwich.
JPL
@stinkdaddy: All of that could be true but I don’t know that. All I know is this is not a win for the tea party. Might they win down the road, sure. Might they kick grandma out of the nursing home, sure. But that is not in the bill.
Danny
And people arguing that we didnt get anything are obv not credible. There were 350B$ of defense cuts and the 2T$+ debt limit increase. And pretty much no cuts in fiscal 2012 (the deal is no drag on the economy before fiscal 2013).
Considering the fact that progressives approve of cutting defense and the deal is 350/900B$ defense cuts I’d say we lost 35-65 in the short term, pending the outcome of the committee…
WhatAreWeDoing
I get so sick of the whining from our side.
While the right walks in lock step, (until their numbers are irretrievably low), they win in the short term, while doing great damage in the long term.
The left, on the other hand, turns on the party the moment we don’t like a compromise position, lose in the short term, and in a passive-aggressive sort of way allow long term damage, (2010) while making it that much harder for the next Democrat, who we will turn on the moment we don’t like a compromise position…
We thought we spoke loudly and clearly in 2008. Ha!
Until WE get as active as the tea people, even without all the corporate support they have, how will it get better?
shortstop
I really do wonder why you guys keep hitting yourselves in the head with that particular hammer. Mornings in America have become jarring enough without starting the day listening to grade-A assholes and simpletons.
JPL
The only winners in this mess of a deal are those that would have been affected most by the debt ceiling not being raised. Boehner can spin it anyway he wants but a shit sandwich is still a shit sandwich.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Thinking about this on the way to work: Would all of this had been better off if the Democrats had lost the senate as well? I wonder if more people would finally see what is actually going on. Does the Democrats controlling the Senate continue to mask just how crazy the House Republicans are?
Jennifer
@OzoneR: Or, as I said, they get to pin the profligate spending label on him multiple times. Yes, it IS an incrementalist approach. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have to go back to them for a “you’re uppity” vote another 2 times.
OzoneR
@Jennifer: ,
So?
He doesn’t have to go back to them. He gets to do it on his own, they get to say it sucks.
Danny
@Belafon:
I think it’s rather the case that things would have been (much) better if we had won the House.
Rhoda
@Jennifer: These people are not hostage takers; that analogy has a limited benefit. These people are willing to fuck up the global economy and the President isn’t. He’s moving this the best he can in the face of mind-numbing inanity. We can not mint trillion dollar coins or invoke the 14th amendment and pray the shit doesn’t hit the fan; we saw what hoping shit doesn’t explode in our faces did when Paulson allowed Lehmans to fall.
This is a political war and there can only be a political solution in ’12. We have to work towards that and play defense in policy fights. That is where we are and the reality we have to deal with; if you don’t want the country to sink into a cesspool of tea you need to put the focus on these motherfucking tea partiers and make it clear they run shit.
Obama wins by running against the tea party congress as Truman did; and he can only do that if Democrats band together and sing that song with him. Tea party republicans are destroying this country; vote them out.
Dennis SGMM
At the end of June Obama said “You can’t cut your way to prosperity.” So much for that.
The real loss here isn’t in the details of “the deal.” The real loss is that by adopting the language of austerity Obama and the Congressional Dems have given the Republicans cover for their comprehensive failure to create jobs.
It’s difficult at best to make the Republicans pay for their idiotic behaviors. It becomes impossible when the Democrats give them cover.
TaosJohn
I agree with John X. Only one man is ultimately responsible for this satan sandwich, and his name is Barack Obama.
Keith G
@EconWatcher: To me that is a key point: How much credit does Obama deserve for putting out a fire that he helped spark 8-12 months ago?
His ability to influence this outcome shrank with each week closer to 7/30.
edit – And has the fire actually been put out at all?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Danny: Yes, I would much rather have Pelosi running things than Boehner. But since the elections turned the House over to the Republicans (thanks, voters who only look up during the Olympics), would it have made things more obvious if the Senate were also Republican?
shortstop
He correctly notes (and I’m paraphrasing with some abandon) that when the plutocracy removes all hope of public justice, people turn to private pleasures to obtain a measure of happiness. I was talking to another BJer over the weekend about how I’ve always admired how citizens of repressive, completely dysfunctional, and otherwise hopeless or low-hope countries manage to live their lives with some semblance of dignity and joy. Never thought it would be us, but at what point do you look outside of seemingly unattainable political power/freedom and start concentrating all your efforts on the private sphere?
El Cid
Those who think that such suggestions as 14th Amendment moves by Obama, the coining of large value pieces (i.e., the $500 billion platinum coin), or even the likely precedence of the already passed continuing resolution versus the new legislation are the province of malcontents such as Krugman might want to check the writings of Brad DeLong — who seems to be more acceptable to many more mainstream supporters of Democrats than Krugman.
Just because there’s a particular writer or speaker you don’t like doesn’t mean some particular argument is therefore wrong. Maybe it is. But what matters is the statement.
I’m sure we all know that. I’m sure we all realize that the biography and political history of the person making an argument neither validates nor invalidates (or proves or disproves an argument).
[Adding for referent evidence:] DeLong, July 28th:
Again, this doesn’t by itself make the argument correct. But it’s certainly not the province of “Krugman”, no matter how badly people here hate hate hate hate him.
willard
The 2012 election gives Americans a stark choice about their personal philosophy of governance. If Obama is reelected the Bush tax cuts will expire and our long run budget deficit will be solved by a small tax increase on the wealthy. Republicans now own across the board spending cuts, it isn’t rhetoric anymore they actually forced the cuts through and were willing to tank the global economy to do it. The deficit committee fight in 6 months will help keep this choice at the forefront of the election.
Had Obama used the 14th Amendment or trillion dollar coins, the 2012 election would’ve been about how that Kenyan Muslim pissed all over the constitution.
The problem with good governance is that it mostly goes undetected and should be completely boring. Think electricity generation, it’s safe reliable cheap and wouldn’t exist without an effective regulatory mechanism. Therefore 90% of what people are aware, is when government doesn’t work.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Dennis SGMM:
Half of them aren’t even giving them cover. At least half actually believe the austerity bullshit. Which just makes me all more ready to throw up my hands and believe we’re fucked no matter what.
bcinaz
Well get ready, ’cause it’s gonna take about 5 minutes for the extreme of the extreme to realize they can get everything by holding something precious hostage.
Legislative Terrorism and Hostage Taking IS THE NEW NORMAL!
Suffern ACE
@OzoneR: Sure. He SAID it. But was he thinking something else. That’s what’s really important.
jeffreyw
Mmm…peanuts
Rhoda
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): If Democrats lost the senate; we’d be more fucked. Not less. Because the Republican party is animated solely by their base right now and that base is tea party insane.
gnomedad
@4tehlulz:
I will make it legal.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@bcinaz:
FTFY. After all, the most the extreme of the extreme on the left isn’t even at the table, and anyone barely center left these days mostly seems to get a laugh in the face and “FUCK YOU HIPPIE GO BACK TO RUSSIA!”
JPL
Steve Benen has a good take on the situation..
If you’re looking for good news in this agreement, you’ll
LINK
fasteddie9318
Couple of things: first, the rubes who keep swallowing that “in it but not of it” garbage are not going to have their attitudes changed by this deal or anything else that happens in the real world. Second, the suggestion that this debate got the “shutdown the government” jones out of the GOP’s system is crazy. The government will be shut down come budget time. That’s practically an inevitability.
stinkdaddy
@Suffern ACE: No, no. You’re right. It’s not what a politician does that matters, it’s what he says.
KCinDC
Of course, and it still will. Having this manufactured crisis doesn’t stop the next one. If anything it makes it more likely.
General Stuck
Christ, the bullshit is piling up around here faster than it can be shoveled. This deal is not going to have any direct effect of peoples lives, other than the angst level on liberal blogs and the pro left, in the next 18 months before the election.
Though it could be taken by the business world, that the US is willing to do something about long term deficits. And ditto for indie swing voters all warm and fuzzy cuz congress and prez compromised with each other.
@stinkdaddy:
Very few people here have played “the progressives were responsible for the 2010 election loss, card”. The vast majority of those not particularly fond of the defeatist whining for everything that wasn’t a perfect outcome, have not been blaming progs for 2010. That election was lost because dems voted in normal numbers for a first mid term for a new prez of their party, and more wingers voted cause they were pissed that Obama passed HCR, and other legislation that they hate. Plus the wingnuts bullshitted seniors to think the ACA would hurt medicare. I suspect some racial motives as well, for some of them, many of which were first time voters, making that first effort a no vote against a black president.
So your meme is only supported by anecdotal few instances around here of blaming progs for the 2010 loss by dems.
SensesFail
So I caught Matt Lauer on his morning show today talking to David Plouffe, and Lauer asks Plouffe, “Did the President accept this compromise just so that he will not be the first president to be in office during a default?”
Now, do you think that Lauer would ever ask the question, “Did the Tea Party members of the House take the world economy to the brink of collapse for political reasons?”
We all know the answer to that one.
stinkdaddy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Uh, I tend to think it’s more Obama. The motherfucker has never met a crazy, slobbering, cracked-out rightwinger he can’t portray as a rational well-reasoned individual with worthwhile ideas.
But yknow, my bag’s on fire and all that.
Danny
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
No I think the republicans damaged their brand through this debt ceiling fight as much as we’re likely to see without them actually passing legislation that we consider very, very bad – far worse than the present shit sandwich, that at least got some sugar on top.
Maybe if they’d passed the Medicare voucher shit; but we wouldn’t have gotten the lame duck deals (additional stimulus and unemployment support + DADT) and the repubs would surely have gone for the frontal attack on entitlements…
I think it would have been far worse.
Jennifer
@Rhoda: What’s with the stupid million dollar coin bit?
Look, if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, it doesn’t mean we have NO MONEY coming in. It means we don’t have enough for everything in our budget. Bondholders can continue to be paid and quite a few others as well. I offered the solution – cut off Social Security checks to the oldsters in districts that elected teabaggers. Ultimately, this train wreck was of their making. This accomplishes several things: first, it actually makes those most responsible for the pile of shit the ones who have to eat the shit. Second, it guarantees that the debt ceiling gets raised without any more wanking around. Third, it guarantees that the teabaggers won’t be coming back to Washington.
THAT is how you “negotiate” with assholes – by making it hurt THEM more than anyone else.
stinkdaddy
@General Stuck:
Yknow, it’s probably a matter of perspective that leads us to seeing instances of this claim as happening more/less often. To me it seems to happen almost every thread. Either way I’m glad we’re in agreement that it isn’t real.
Valdivia
Wow I guess people just wanted Obama to let the default happen cause I see the things people were screaming about all lastbweek have been protected here. No SS cuts, no Medicaid cuts, Medicare providers are affected only. So while having to make this deal is bad how is this worse than what everyone said wouldnhappen last week? I really do not get the constant need to declare yourself a loser ten times worse than the situation entails.
beltane
@shortstop: The dysfunctional countries where people still manage to be happy tend to have highly developed family and community structures and cultures that do not place much emphasis on material goods or on individualism. We are not that type of society. The transition of the Soviet Union from communism to oligarchy resulted in a greatly increased death rate, rampant alcoholism, and a generation of young women whose highest aspiration was to land an escort job in the West. The typical American suburbanite, born and raised in the religion of materialistic individualism, is not equipped to adapt to this brave new world, and will end up like polar bears clinging to a rapidly melting remnant of ice berg.
Ron
Is this deal a good one? no, it wasn’t. Did anyone really think we could get a good deal with the current makeup of Congress? I know everyone talks about Obama caving. WTF could he do? he can’t legislate by fiat. The problem is you have one side willing to burn down the house to get their way, and another side that is trying desperately to get shit done.
El Cid
__
There’s a pretty loud and repeated refrain that any suggestion that different arguments publicly made by the Executive is politically immature and harmful, usually demanded by “firebaggers” or other some such. Followed or accompanied by statements that it wouldn’t matter because major news sources wouldn’t cover it if he said so.
Therefore making any such suggestion or argument must be another revelation of the misunderstanding of the speaker that a Democratic President is involved. This means that it is a categorical impossibility that any different public argument desired on the part of the Executive is either possible or what have any effect.
So you might as well stop making this point, as there would be no time in which such an argument would be correct, except perhaps if some such public pronouncement or time sustained series of arguments by a Democratic Executive appeared to be too unsustainably liberal. That is a fatal error.
Alex S.
I like to think that the two major factors of the deficit are insufficient revenue and too much defense spending. So I wonder if the ‘Super Congress’ leads inevitably to defense cuts. After all, if the Democrats insist on them, the Republicans will have no choice but to accept. And there would be no opportunity costs because a failure of agreement probably leads to harsher defense cuts. On the other hand, the same is true for medicare. Republicans will probably try to enforce medicare cuts and Democrats have no choice but to accept. However, at least for the moment, defense cuts are probably less unpopular than medicare cuts. And Democrats should try to promote long-term cuts instead of short-term cuts (they are necessary anyway). Progressive activists and politicians should focus on making the wars even more unpopular to increase the probability of defense cuts.
suzanne
I just fed the baby.
And I realized (yet again) that caring about other people at times makes you incredibly fucking vulnerable.
I am disappointed in Obama. But I am FURIOUS at the Teabaggers.
The only reason they’re strong is because they don’t give a fuck about anyone besides themselves.
Well, I refuse to accept that.
Chris
Since the day America was created. People wanted George Washington to be king, and the only reason he wasn’t is because he had the integrity to say “no, that’s not what we fought for,” run for office and leave after two elected terms. If he’d wanted to, that guy could’ve been Napoleon and very few things would’ve stopped him.
El Cid
DeLong again yesterday, FWIW.
RP
Call me an Obot or whatever, but this deal doesn’t seem bad at all to me. If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, we got
– the debt ceiling raised through 2013
– no cuts until 2013, and
– significant cuts to defense
Frankly, I’m shocked by the last one. How is this such a terrible deal from a policy perspective?
Tone In DC
Does this deal suck rocks?
Hell yes.
Should the debt ceiling have been raised during the lame duck congressional session in December 2010?
Hell yes.
Could any of us criticizing this outcome have done any better as president against the 100% batshit House GOOPERS?
I don’t think so.
jomo
@Rhoda: One hopeful note. The Republican Governors in swing states have been so uniformly awful that they may have sealed the deal for the Democrats in 2012. If the Democrats can nationalize horror with the Republicans locally they can take back the house.
Omnes Omnibus
When does the House vote on this? Are we sure it is going to pass?
John X.
Poor Balloon Juice. They’ve now gotten to the point where they’re defending poor leadership using the excuse, I guess, that good leadership means that people want “a king.”
Yeah. If I could get a return to King Washington, King Lincoln and King Roosevelt, I’d take it. Hell, for all his faults, even King Truman knew how to fight a crazed Congress.
RP
#140 is exactly right. Yes this basically sucks (although, as I noted above, I think it could have been a lot worse), but focusing on Obama is stupid. He’s not the problem.
Danny
@General Stuck:
I will however proudly blame – if not “progressives” or “firebaggers” – then definitely a pathology on the left that seemingly makes us much worse at drumming up enthusiasm when we’re in office. Maybe it’s our contempt for “fear-mongering”, I dont know.
All I know is that all through 2010, what I kept reading over and over again on all progressive blogs of pedigree was laughing and snarking at the Teabaggers.
Look how silly they are! Their signs are mis-spelled! Look at this fuckers outrageous campaign vid where he tells the Founding fathers to “gather their armies” – what a dork. Look at all their silly ideas!
But what I would have liked to read is: These people are a threat to the economy, the country, working families, your lifestyle and your life. Over and over and over. The problem is that that kind of demagoguery has to be done before knowing if what you’re warning of is reasonable or if it will even come to pass.
And we liberals – and our dear liberal opinionators – see we’re a bit too good for getting our hands dirty in that particular way. We prefer snark and reassuring ourselves that things will work out.
In summary: we’re hipsters and thus cant mobilize if our ass depended on it, not unless we get a good kick in the balls.
stinkdaddy
@John X.:
Oh, dude. We’ve been here quite awhile. Most any suggestion that Obama could’ve done something other than lay in a fetal crouch for the last two and a half years is a suggestion that we “just want our own Bush.” These people are fuckin’ clinical, which makes me wonder what it says about my own compulsive need to observe them.
Clever moniker
@General Stuck:
But the deal will have a “direct effect on peoples’ lives”–it will likely lead to a contraction (according to the leftists at PIMCO). I’d say angst and panic is justified.
J.W. Hamner
I didn’t read all 130+ comments, but I will throw out my 2 cents anyway:
Whether or not it was dumb to not raise the debt ceiling in the lame duck session will only become apparent during the budget negotiations. If the GOP threatens to shutdown the government again, and is able to wring out some more concessions, then it was a colossally stupid blunder. If the budget goes relatively smoothly, then it was at least a credible “pick your poison” strategy since we always knew a hostage was going to be taken… it was just a matter of when.
I’m just happy that the Bush tax cuts are still set to expire. Worst case there we get only the middle class ones extended, and best case the Republicans absolutely refuse to betray the rich guys and the whole thing expires.
I also am pretty pleased with the 50-50 domestic/defense cut automatic trigger, since after 9/11 I thought I’d never see significant defense cuts in my lifetime… and this seems to indicate that there will be at least some in the future 1.7 trillion in cuts.
stinkdaddy
@Clever moniker: Right, but the contraction, angst and panic won’t start until after the 2012 election. Who cares?
General Stuck
@RP:
So am I, and the fact that if the committee doesn’t agree on where to make the necessary cuts, then there will be the trigger of 50 50 between defense and domestic cuts. It floors me a little that the wingers agreed to this, and also why it could defeat passage in the House.
But if it survives, then the members should be compelled to act in good faith on finding cuts they can both live with, and also closing some tax loopholes for the wealthy.
I will not call this a victory for dems, but it isn’t a big loss, imo. Except to the pol junkie liberal activist group. And we shall see how it plays out with voters against the coming election.
Big relief though, that the House nutters can’t pull this shit again in 6 months.
Mike in NC
Here’s the verdict from Kathleen Parker, who only a few months ago simply adored the teabaggers:
Rhoda
@Jennifer: Okay.
That’s not a solution. That’s just shooting the hostage. You can’t kill the person to save their life; so clearly we just fundamentally disagree on what’s acceptable.
stinkdaddy
@Valdivia: Ehh, nope. Super committee will be looking at SS, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. Everything’s on the table. Those programs are only protected if we go to the triggered cuts.
MazeDancer
@Rhoda
Completely. Krugman tried a little, earlier, to point out the TP are economic terrorists, but no media followed. No low info voter gets that. Some people who don’t normally follow politics did. And, interestingly, some responsible economic conservatives did. Managers, business people.
But no media was ever going to say the TParty were terrorists. Ever.
And that’s the perpetual, not going away shit sandwich.
I wanted the President to point out the treasonous atrocity the TP was committing. Because the President is the only unfiltered public expression there is. For one moment, when he takes the podium, he can say stuff and people will hear it sound-byted later. No one else can do that.
But how would that have helped the country? It would just have been weeks of “both sides” and Repubs coalescing behing the TParty and demonizing the President even more. And lots of highly covered TPers saying: “When is acting responsible ever terrorism?” With the TParty having the easy sell: “Debt is bad. This is a debt crisis. Debt is evil. Admiral Mullen said so.”
The President said debt ceiling votes were routine before. Every speech he pointed out that the Republicans were primarily responsible for not compromising. No media outside of MSNBC drove home that point.
I don’t see any way in reality – not armchair video games about “getting rolled” and “standing strong” – that the President could have avoided either impeachment or default. Both lead to President Bachmann appointing the Supreme Court.
Impeachment would be a media circus. It would be the only thing – ONLY thing – they would report on for months.
Default would be scorched earth. And months of “Why didn’t the President make a deal?”.
No media would have done anything other than make the TParty and the President equals.
They can’t point out the TParty’s treason. That’s not equal.
There is no “winning” if you’re a President who wants to represent the whole country, except trying to do your best. Do I like what happened? No.
ETA: sorry to be so long. Will restrain rest of day.
But what was the alternative? There was worse shit sandwich. That’s why the TParty is unhappy now.
Thanks to all the posters here who are discussing reality. The rest of the liberal blogosphere have lost their minds.
In reality, sometimes you get a choice between armageddon and shit sandwich. Which do you want your President to choose?
Danny
@El Cid:
How can DeLong credibly claim – 0.4% GDP when Benen says there’s “pretty much non-existant cuts” in fiscal 2012? Until he fleshes out his thinking it certainly doesnt sound like Keynesian economics imho…
Xenos
@General Stuck: I will be positively shocked if more than 30 House Republicans vote for this. I doubt Pelosi will be inclined to support it, and we may be right back where we started from by nightfall.
See, Nancy can play this brinksmanship game, too.
aimai
@Jennifer:
This. This. This.
In addition, I object to Obama getting on TV and saying that “America” is upset because of what “Washington” put them through. He is still protecting the right wing and the tea baggers.
If you want people (your voters) to know that you were dealing with hostage takers eventually you have to say “these guys threatened you.” Not “people” not “washington” but the Republican party. If you are forced to capitulate–and I think he was–make it clear that you did it to protect people, not because “Deficit reduction” was a good idea taken a scootch too far. That’s like saying “my colleagues and I are agreed that everyone should eat. I sort of preferred ordering dinner from a restaurant but they stood firm on soylent green and so we’ve settled on cannibalizing grandma. Some may argue that perhaps we should have eaten grandpa too but cooler heads prevailed. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
General Stuck
@Clever moniker:
Maybe. Or it could create a positive healthy response from the business community that long term deficit concerns are being addressed by the government. Time will tell. But no benefits will be cut for beneficiaries, and that is a major big deal to me. That would have been direct negative effect on the poor and MC, and unacceptable
Dennis SGMM
@El Cid:
You’re right. The DFH that I am just can’t resist.
stinkdaddy
@aimai:
Yes. I keep hearing that people are drawing false equivalencies. I agree — and one of the biggest offenders is the POTUS.
ie, from the debt deal announcement:
A compromise in which, to paraphrase Colbert, the Democrats offer everything the GOP wants, and the GOP offers to take it.
Violet
@SensesFail:
Only this morning? Every time he appears on my TV I have a desire to punch him in the face.
Jennifer
@Rhoda: In other words, we can’t punish the responsible parties, so we all have to pay for their misdeeds.
As I said upthread, this is why our country is over: we can no longer muster the will to punish anyone who isn’t poor and brown.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jennifer: @Rhoda: So, our side has decided to turn to vengence? And no, that is not how you negotiate with hostage takers, because they will not release hostages that way.
RP
@Danny: I had the same reaction. If his point is simply that this deal doesn’t include any stimulus, well…duh. That hasn’t been on the table since last November.
Chinn Romney
It depends. Do you live in Tennessee?
stinkdaddy
lol fun with strikethrough
Only every waking second since I read about the debt deal! :)
Clever moniker
@stinkdaddy
There are “immediate” cuts before then–afaik, it’s only the triggers (and maybe Super Congress) that come into play after 2013.
RP
@Jennifer: I can’t imagine that’s legal.
chopper
well, i don’t get furloughed. that’s nice.
on the other hand, spending cuts are going to help tip us back into recession.
everyone’s a winner and a loser here, except the american people, who only lose under this deal. then again, deal aint been voted on yet. who knows.
BTW, since the US burned through all its savings during the last 3 months, what’s the treasury going to do about cash-on-hand? or is the US going to live hand-to-mouth for the rest of its existence?
stinkdaddy
@Danny: No you’re right, Steve “Bunk Sock” Benen is clearly a more credible source of economic analysis than DeLong.
@Clever moniker: Nah as far as I know you’re right. I’m just mocking the general attitude around here, ie. that as long as Obama has skated on the debt ceiling vis-a-vis the 2012 election, fuck it? right?
Danny
@RP:
But that doesnt make sense. He takes to predicting actual GDP and pretending that’s on account of this deal? That would be outright fraudulent….
Dennis SGMM
@chopper:
Of course not. We’ll all be on the Big Rock Candy Mountain as soon as taxes are cut enough to create revenue and austerity results in prosperity.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@chopper:
Yep, because defaulting would have been much better. You know, the position the teabaggers want.
BruinKid
@stinkdaddy:
Sounds like the health care bill. By the end of that fight, Republicans had made it a mess, and a whole swath of Democrats who voted for and against it lost.
Now, the GOP controls the House, so if history holds, the American people will punish House Republicans, both those who vote for the deal, as well as those who vote against it. We’ll have to see how many Democrats fall as well.
So in one sense, mistermix is right. But one of his inherent assumptions is that the American people will have woken up and see who is trying to hurt them, and I remain unconvinced they’re smart enough as a whole to see it.
beergoggles
All this proves is that the only thing democrats respond to is abuse and ‘no’. I fear the firebaggers are correct.
Jennifer
@RP: Hard to say, since it’s uncharted territory that we would ever have a Congress that would refuse to honor our debts, which if we are to believe the 14th Amendment is ALSO not legal.
People only stop electing assholes when it costs them. This was an opportunity to make it cost them and prove that it generally matters that we have people who aren’t the dumbest motherfuckers in our society in charge of running the show.
Violet
Apparently Grover Norquist backs the debt deal. That makes me ill.
patrick
tell me again why I fucking vote democrat? seems like the more they’re in power, the more the right wing agenda advances. I’m so pissed off at the way this went down, and the shit sandwich served (which is basically EVERYTHING the teatards wanted, save a BBA and Obama saying he’s really a kenyan muzlim terrorist), why should I even vote in ’12? to make sure the crazies don’t regain control of the government? they already have control of the government with control of 1/2 of one branch of government. this is death by 1000 cuts. I’m thinking “default” (since Obama is being to big of a pussy to say Fuck You, I’m going 14th Amendment on your ass!) may have been less painful….at least for the moment my 401K account looks to be safe from a default induced stock market crash.
I’m firmly middle in the middle class, and I want my taxes raised instead of all these draconian cuts. repeal all the bush tax cuts, I’m fine with paying an additional $1000/yr in federal taxes, and add another tax bracket, with a 55-60% marginal rate for incomes over $1m.
Xenos
@Tone In DC:
Then why did Obama not do so? I don’t mean this as a rhetorical question – did Obama blow it off, or was there a group of Democrats who would not allow it? Or did Obama hope to make the GOP act in a responsible way at some point by not giving them a pass on deciding how to handle this issue for two years?
I was not paying attention at the time – was there any sort of rationale given for this decision?
no video at work
The last I saw polls in Wisconsin show the Dem leading in only one of the recall elections with two others close but lead by the R incumbent.
If, after all the shit they pulled in Wisconsin and all the crazy the Rs are spewing from DC, the Dems can’t win in a place like Wisconsin what chance do they have in Indiana, Ohio or any of the slave states?
BTW – it is not the firebaggers that cost the Dems the House in ’10. They still turned out & voted Dem. It was the great ‘middle’ who paid no attention and saw no real reason to vote Dem. As has been pointed out here several times this might have been the best deal Captain Cave-man could have gotten but the fact that he has taken credit for it ensures that the great unwashed will not see any reason to vote Dem in ’12 either.
Danny
@stinkdaddy:
Benen didn’t “predict” anything. He described how much cuts in spending was scheduled for fiscal 2012 (“pretty much non-existant”). No he may be lying or he may be mistaken.
But Keynesian economics is hardly voodoo, and we don’t have to appeal to DeLong the Oracle to get a reading on what’s credible. If there are no, or miniscule cuts in fiscal 2012 they wont be a drag on the economy. If there are cuts corresponding to 0.01% of GDP we wont see a 0.4% drag on GDP on account of the deal.
So what are the numbers, and how does DeLongs math work? That’s the question, and I assume we’ll find out soon enough.
BruinKid
@Jennifer:
I’m pretty sure that would have been virtually impossible. I don’t think the Treasury has that authority. With the sheer number of checks going out on a daily basis, there’s simply no way to stop the checks that go out to certain zip codes.
Hugh
Excellent news for Barack Obama!
stinkdaddy
@patrick: Honestly? The difference between the Dems/GOP at this point are:
A) Supreme Court
and
B) Social policies, ie. DOMA, DADT etc.
Both pretty important, but when the parties seem to be in agreement on economics and the rest it can be hard to keep in sight.
grandpajohn
@stinkdaddy:
Alexander Popes ” Essay on Criticism contains the answer to this particular perspective problem
All is infected that the infected spy as all is yellow to the jaundiced eye
By the way another little bit of wisdom from Pope that would behoove all of us here to peruse.
A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking deeply will sober us again.
Tim Connor
Some of you should actually read Fallows. This is a terrible deal, and neither solves the defecits or the jobs problem. It is just another step in the long American decline.
The GOP is a piece of excrement. But Obama has not shown himself to be either courageous, or far seeing. He is another Neville Chamberlain, buying “peace in our time”.
John X.
I was not paying attention at the time – was there any sort of rationale given for this decision?There’s a press conference transcript where the reporter asks Obama about the progressive’s fear that the debt ceiling would be used against him. He seemed confused by the question.
They didn’t see this coming, despite the fact that people out in the internets were issuing warnings. While it’s no shock that the White House is ignoring the political blogs, it does seem sort of sad that the so-called professional politicians and strategists were completely blindsided by something that thousands out in the world had already figured out.
The White House is in a bubble and, despite the intelligence of the individuals inside that sphere, the collective wisdom of the bubble itself is deeply stupid.
Brian R.
@shortstop:
I swear my blood pressure improved dramatically once I taught myself not to turn over to MSNBC until 9am.
stinkdaddy
@Danny: As far as DeLong’s math, fair enough. I’m curious to see that myself. My point on Benen is that he’s the definition of someone who, yknow, suckles from the party organ. The dude is in the tank to a degree that I think surpasses even Ezra “Baghdad Bob” Klein, and that’s saying something.
General Stuck
@Violet:
Norquist is a pure blood corporatist, and is just happy that default didn’t happen and create pain for the plutocrats, he services. His endorsement is meant to release a certain block of House and Senate wingers, it is okay to vote yea on the deal.
I look at this way. Debate is good on these issues, and I welcome it being placed in a static place of a special committee, that can at once be a dem platform for making the rich pay more and generate revenues, and highlighting the wingers designs on destroying or otherwise privatizing The New Deal.
It keeps the wingnuts at bay for the election, of pinning the tax and spend liberal charge on the donkey. Because they agreed to let that debate be centered in congressional process. And in the end, Obama will still have his veto pen.
Just Some Fuckhead
On the bright side, now that default is off the table, we can move on to jobs and stimulating the economy.
Heheh.
I couldn’t say it with a straight face.
Brian R.
“Everything the GOP wants”? Yeah, they got “everything” they wanted, except for little things like massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, another debt ceiling hostage crisis in six months, and default. Everything!
Dragon-King Wangchuck, firebagger (apparently)
LOL. You guys are hilarious, what with your “mmmm, mmmm this shit sandwich tastes awesome!” Almost a trillion in immediate cuts, no new revenue. Even bettar, some sort of Super Congress thing to find another trillion and a half. Yayyys!
But what could Obama have done? The GOP is crazee-nuts-abooga-booga!!!
Well for starters he could have not bought in whole-heartedly on teh “OMG Teh Deficit is Teh NUMBER ONE PROBLEM!” During a “jobless” recovery. He could have treated the crazy squawkings of the deranged Republicans for what they were. Maybe even just simply not creating that Simpson-Bowles bullshit all those months ago.
Anyways, one quick question: how’s it feel to be the ones working with Grover Norquist this time around?
danimal
If I were in Congress, I’d probably vote “No” on this bill. However, I do see the long-term end game, and it’s more hopeful than the gloom-and-doom caucus is promoting. The deal basically comes down to significant cuts in the discretionary budget and the defense budget. The triggers also come down harder on defense and discretionary items. (The discretionary cuts are why I’d vote no, those are almost always ‘screw the poor’ cuts.)
The Bush tax regime is still scheduled for expiration; this time with an engaged opposition ready for some payback. There is a hell of a lot more leverage for income tax progressivity if the Dems win in 2012. There were no major Social Security or Medicare cuts, at least at this stage. All in all, it’s not quite the rolling that has been portrayed.
BTW, at some point, liberals really need to examine the “no changes to SS” fetish. A 0.1% reduction in SS COLAs is far more preferable than crippling food safety, or combatting worker discrimination, or assisting college students, or preventing mass outbreaks of disease, or a hundred other programs that are sacrificed on the altar of SS purity. There really is a need to stabilize SS, and there is a glaring need to defend the entire liberal project. Perspective, people.
stinkdaddy
@Brian R.: Right, they’ll have to wait a couple months for the supercongress to convene before they get their (and Obama’s) SS, Medicaid, Medicare cuts. Hey, you all can keep misreading the press releases all you want — the only place those programs are protected is in the triggers.
Everyone keeps misunderstanding this. You all realize that the figures given for C-CPI are adjusted to current dollars right? So when it says that someone at age 85 would lose $1000/year they’re talking 2011 dollars, and that the loss in whatever year this actually happens will be much greater… right?
Because I don’t think people are getting this. Keep hearing how ‘by then, ss checks will be _____ large’ and blah blah. No. Not the case.
General Stuck
@Xenos:
Don’t know for sure, but I suspect Obama, like most other sane people, never imagined that the goopers would use the debt ceiling increase as a bargaining matter, to bring us a to the precipice. No one before had taken that insane path/
BruinKid
@no video at work:
No, most of them will still turn out, because they’re part of the millions of Americans who simply only vote in Presidential elections. I don’t think the decrease in turnout for last year’s midterm was any more dramatically decreased than prior midterm elections (Nate Silver’s probably written something about this, though).
As for Wisconsin, PPP has done polling in all 6 GOP-held state senate seats, and found the Democrats are leading in three of them. You’re thinking of their latest results from July, but not the three seats they polled near the end of June. DailyKos is having PPP poll all 6 of the races again this week, with results to be published at the end of this week. So far, here’s the polling picture.
Robert Cowles (R) 51%
Nancy Nusbaum (D) 47%
Alberta Darling (R) 52%
Sandy Pasch (D) 47%
Sheila Harsdorf (R) 50%
Shelly Moore (D) 45%
Luther Olsen (R) 47%
Fred Clark (D) 49%
Randy Hopper (R) 47%
Jessica King (D) 50%
Dan Kapanke (R) 42%
Jennifer Shilling (D) 56%
With about a 2.8% margin of error in those races, Shilling is very likely to win, and the others are basically all toss-ups that will probably come down to GOTV efforts.
brendancalling
“Well, our Republican House just served up a huge shitpie. Run on that, you fuckers.”
Oh they will, count on it. They will saddle Democrats with Medicare cuts, just like they did in 2010. Hunter at DKos has a good take, especially on the potential defense cuts as a failsafe against Republican shenanigans:
anyone who thinks the Republicans won’t be able to successfully portray the Democrats as the bakers of the shitpie doesn’t understand how Republicans work. Especially when they know they can use the president’s own words in their ads.
grandpajohn
@WhatAreWeDoing: Amen and preach on brother. We have been doing this to ourselves since at least the 60,s.
I don’t think we can draft Jesus to run for president, but even then , there would be some Dems to find fault with his policies.
Danny
@stinkdaddy:
Conservative guy Josh Barro gives the numbers and says there are 22B$ cuts in fiscal 2012, compared to the baseline. Thats 0.15 of GDP.
Arriving at – 0.4% assumes a 2,7 multiplier for every dollar spent and going by the multipliers used in scoring the stimulus, the only way to arrive at that number is by high-balling the two measures with the highest multipliers (2.5, those were “purchases of goods and services by the government” and “transfer to state and local government for infrastructure”).
But Discretionary Spending is, well, discretionary so Obama will be able to choose what to cut. So a more reasonable guestimate is a multiplier of 1 and that gets us -.15% GDP in fiscal 2012. That wont make or break either Obama, the democrats or the country.
chopper
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
we still only lose, even if default would have been worse.
let’s face it, the aftermath of this hostage situation is pretty horrible. no cash in the bank, big cuts in the name of austerity all while the economy is barely limping along, a good chance our credit rating will still get downgraded…i count my blessings that it could have been worse, but this is in no way a great situation.
Linda
Well, we can sit on our asses and cry, or we can see this as a long war. We can cry that Obama was not The One, or see him as a place saver who keeps Republicans-crazier-than-a-shithouse-rat from the presidency. And we can work hard to throw Republicans out of office in places like Wisconsin, and roll back hateful Republican policies (like SB 5) in Ohio. We can re-elect the good guys like Sherrod Brown. Remember, the Goldwaterites had their ass handed to them in ’64, but got Reagan elected by ’80. Let’s get off our asses, roll up our sleeves, and get to work…and to fight.
Now that Washington has handed me a lemon, I am off to make lemon/lavender scones.
Brian R.
You think Pelosi and Hoyer — who will be leading any discussions in the supercongress — will sign off on SS, Medicaid, and Medicare cuts? Why? Why in God’s name would they agree to that, when they know if they don’t, the ax falls on Medicare providers and Defense? Why would Pelosi support that?
Jesus Christ, some of you people just need to stick your head in the oven and get it over with. The world’s not ending, but you sure as shit want to act like it is. Grow the fuck up.
Danny
@stinkdaddy:
On Benen, well I think he’s solid. He’s the equivalent of a guy like Jonah Goldberg on the conservative side. I’d sure like to see a reliable Erick Eriksson as well but all we get is fucking Jane Hamsher and she’s sure as hell not doing the job. (Because the job’s not ratfucking.)
stinkdaddy
@Brian R.:
Imagine yourself six months ago. Imagine that person believing that Pelosi and Hoyer would sign off on the debt ceiling deal that they’re about to sign off on. If you’re telling me that person simultaneously believes they’d cut this deal and that they’d never hurt entitlements in the future, I’d submit to you that person is fucking nuts. You realize that the debt ceiling bill means we’re getting Medicare cuts no matter what right?
eta: Wait, no, my bad. I think if we get a BBA ratified, we don’t get Medicare cuts. Otherwise we either get a) the supercommittee or b) the triggered cuts.
Yeah, why would Nancy “it’s clear we must enter an age of austerity” Pelosi serve her caucus up for something that wasn’t pure and liberal, right? Give me a break.
grandpajohn
@MazeDancer: Wow a voice of sanity and reason among the cackling of the sky is falling little red hens.
A Mom Anon
I’m pretty sure the long term goal here is to alienate,discourage and disgust enough people that they simply give up participating in government at all.
Paul Weyrich,a founder of ALEC and the Heritage Foundation,said that right wing chances of winning go up with fewer people voting. He expressly said he didn’t want lots of people voting. It’s not just voter ID laws and voting machine manipulation that supresses the vote. Taking away any hope or belief in their role in civic business as being important lets them win. It’s what they fucking want.
I grew up in an Amway household,my parents were early “distributors”,we even meant DeVos and VanAndel when I was a kid. I heard what the grown ups talked about in the 60s and 70s. They infiltrated government at all levels,from county clerk and school boards to federal postitions. This is why they have the power they do. The right gets behind even the lowliest elected position and helps their side to win. Our side doesn’t do that,especially in places where conservatives have any foothold. It’s why you have guys in GA like Tom Price and Phil Gringrey who never run opposed. If there’s even a hint of opposition,the GOP floods the district with money and feet on the ground. And the Dems do NOTHING in return. Ever. No oppo research,no money for ads or even a freaking lawn sign.
I don’t know what the answers are,but the way things are and have been isn’t working.
Danny
On fiscal 2012: another way of looking at it is that as jolly as we would have been if Obama presented a 22B$ Stimulus and promised to spend it on the measures with the least stimulative effect he could think of, as concerned should we be now about the drag on the economy in 2012, on account of this deal…
OzoneR
@stinkdaddy:
I imagined they’d sign off on a deal worse than this
Davis X. Machina
“And you shall bind these words as a sign on your arm, and they shall be as frontlets on your head between your eyes”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dragon-King Wangchuck, firebagger (apparently):
lolz!
daveNYC
@Brian R.:
Just because the Republicans didn’t cover the spread doesn’t mean they didn’t win the game. Setting the Republicans to look crazy better pay off like the goddamn lottery come election time, otherwise there is zero upside to this.
And I don’t think Obama has any idea about the type of people he’s negotiating with. Their primary goal is for him to lose, there’s no section of “Getting to Yes” that can prepare you for dealing with that.
Scott P.
I keep seeing people say this, but I would like to know how you “destroy the Republican party” without gulags and firing squads.
TJ
@General Stuck:
LOL. I choose to believe an actual economist rather than you.
DeLong:
stinkdaddy
@OzoneR: Yeah but your goalposts are a little more flexible than most, son. “Bad deal” for you equals the one they didn’t cut.
Danny
@TJ:
It would appear Firebaggers – like the Bush administration – are not that interested in being part of the “reality based” community, opting to make up their own reality. You’re free to join our ongoing discussion on DeLongs numbers…
OzoneR
@stinkdaddy:
No, bad deal is the inevitable reality of a tea party Congress. How bad the deal is what I’m talking about.
General Stuck
@TJ:
Delong is a partisan economist. So his “guesses” are hardly objective, I guess.
TooManyJens
@Jennifer:
And where do they get the legal authority to do that? Treasury didn’t think they had it.
Danny
Fwiw, I posted the question on DeLongs assumptions to the comments section on his blog, asking him to weigh in. It’s currently stuck awaiting moderation…
OzoneR
@TJ:
This was never meant to boost employment, this whole deal was meant to prevent default. That’s it.
grandpajohn
No shit Yeah It means thing like me and millions of others on SS won’t have to dip into the meager savings in order to pay the bills this month. It means that my medicare will still be there so I can keep my Dr appointments this month. Of course benefits to us little people are purely incidental . No? whats that, Obama and the dems fought for SS and medicare to prevent cuts and agreed to a compromise so that we would get our promised Checks, but the repugnant Repubs would have defaulted and told us “little people ” to suck it up and go to hell” since we are immaterial to their long range plans for a return to a 13th century feudal system of government composed of ruling royalty and servile serfs.
Davis X. Machina
@OzoneR: You keep saying ‘default’ like it’s a bad thing.
stinkdaddy
@OzoneR: Oh really? Damn, I must have gotten mixed up when the President jumped in with this whole bold $4 trillion plan about revamping entitlements and changing the tax code and all of this. Nope, Obama’s bad: this was only about default, ever. Ozone said so.
OzoneR
@stinkdaddy:
Did you dream that, because pretty sure his statement was about preventing default
grandpajohn
No shit Yeah It means thing like me and millions of others on SS won’t have to dip into the meager savings in order to pay the bills this month. It means that my medicare will still be there so I can keep my Dr appointments this month. Of course benefits to us little people are purely incidental . No? whats that, Obama and the dems fought for SS and medicare to prevent cuts and agreed to a compromise so that we would get our promised Checks, but the repugnant Repubs would have defaulted and told us “little people ” to suck it up and go to hell” since we are immaterial to their long range plans for a return to a 13th century feudal system of government composed of ruling royalty and servile [email protected]TJ:
Rabble Arouser
As a slightly older (33) than not person going back to college this fall, I can at least be thankful that Pell grants are not being cut as “welfare” by the Yeehaw! brigade, along with the student loans that I will get as a result of the government not shutting down. This deal sucks, hard. The Republican party banked on Obama being the ‘responsible adult” in the room, and got what they wanted out of this. I am not looking forward to September’s budget fight, but I am looking forward to starting on my poly sci degree in September, so I can go to work in my state legislature to do my part to prevent this kind of epic clusterfuck from hitting here next time. So, there is that, I guess.
AlphaLiberal
A) “I’ll agree that in hindsight it might have been smart for Obama to bundle a debt ceiling increase with the tax cut capitulation last December.”
It was not hindsight. Krugman, I and many other people said as much at the time. Obama took questions on that and professed his great faith in John Boehner.
But the point you refuse to take is that Obama refuses to listen to people like Krugman, Robert Reich, etc, etc. Because they are liberals. And Obama prides himself on fucking the liberals. That’s his thing, “oh, look at me, I hosed my own base! Aren’t I grand? See how my halo shines”
B) ‘Krugman’s other Obama woulda, shoulda, coulda is the “constitutional option” or maybe minting platinum trillion dollar coins. I don’t see how that would have “increased leverage”.’
Here’s how: it settles the debt ceiling issue and removes the hostage, harmlessly.
C) When in any of this did Obama play tough with Republicans?
Emma
@grandpajohn: Thank you. I have been holding tightly on to what I have in savings and so has my sister; between us, we would have to help out six members of our family. But the purity brigade would rather people go hungry and without medication.
Perhaps if Mr. DeLong and Mr. Krugman lived like us instead of being tenured faculty with book deals and NYT columns, they would look at the real world differently.
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
This is inane conspiracy thinking.
A reasonable reading is that Obama and the dems prima facie got a bad outcome in these negotiations – we can argue over if that was on account of cluelessness, or the pursuing the best longterm strategy (11 dimensions) or whatever. Given a turd sandwitch he’ll try put the best wrapper on it and score whatever political points he can. More credibility with the middle creates room to accomodate the base and vice-versa.
Same thing with the midterms. He sure as hell would have liked to keep his democratic congress, but given the outcome he’s bound to take policy losses. And then he might as well try to sell them to the middle.
Pissing off the base for no reason on account of some irrational animosity, thats tinfoil hat land.
Jennifer
@TooManyJens: Who cares if they had the authority to do it?
Imagine the impact if Obama hadn’t squandered his prime-time address a few weeks ago and instead had said, “here’s how it will go down: either Congress sends me a clean debt ceiling increase, or I will instruct Treasury to pay our bills in the following order: first, debtholders, then federal employees, since slavery is still tacitly illegal. Lowest priority will be Social Security checks for those who live in districts represented by congressmen who are shirking their responsibility to pay our bills, and in this we are following the Republican House lead, who continue to insist that they won’t allow bills to be paid unless we cut off old peole’s spending money. This will give the old people who elected them, and their children and grandchildren, the opportunity to decide if they agree with the decisions being made for them by their employees in Congress. If they do not, they should let their employees know and tell them to stop dicking around and pass a clean debt ceiling increase. Next, they should question whether it’s really a good idea to send the dumbest and most irresponsible people in the country to Washington to represent their interests. Thanks you, good night, and may God bless the United States of America.”
Ok, there’s nothing illegal about making the threat, and you know damned good and well that rightwing media would be in a froth about it – it would get wall to wall ad infinitum repetition. And even if rwing media ran with a “it’s illegal and he can’t do it” message after the initial shock wore off, a good number of people wouldn’t get that message and they’d be flinging poop at their elected teabagger representatives nonstop until we had a debt ceiling increase. And they wouldn’t vote to send them back, either.
The only way to win against a-holes is to either be a bigger a-hole or to get people to believe the bluff that you’re a bigger a-hole. Obama has been incredibly successful at getting people to believe he’s a huge wuss, and as we can see, that’s not an effective tactic against a-holes.
Stillwater
There’s lots of ways to look at this: as caving, as hostage taking, as mutual backscratching. One way that hasn’t been mentioned is that this is a very favorable time both politically and practically for the Democrats to allow (in some sense of that word) the GOP to enact entitlement reform. A) the agreement is bipartisan, so further reform initiatives ought to be off the table going forward, and B) reforms to Medicare are limited by being pegged to other cuts (defense, I think), and C) getting it out of the way now precludes (again, in principle) that a future GOP admin/congress could impose even more draconian cuts/dismantling.
Some cuts were inevitable – given GOP insistence on them. What Obama and the Dems made sure of in this sloppy way is that they have a voice in determining that process and precluding future revisions. For ten years or so, anyway.
The Other Chuck
The “trillion dollar coin” seignoirage thing has a simpler name: “devalue the currency”. Yeah, we weren’t a banana republic before?
Midnight Marauder
It is disgusting watching you clowns blame everyone but Republicans for this entire debacle. It is stunning that all the firepower on the Left today isn’t solely concentrated on saying “This NEVER happens if Nancy Smash keeps the gavel in the 2010. And she WILL have the gavel again in 2012.”
The Left is such a fucking joke.
Loviatar
I have a question for all the Obots:
What makes you think this is not what Obama wanted all along?
Maybe not in these specifics, but he has indicated at every turn that he has wanted significant cuts in what used to be core Democratic policies, shit he even showed a willingness to throw Social Security and Medicare under the Republican bus.
So my question again, What makes you think this is not what Obama wanted all along?
Danny
@Midnight Marauder:
I’d put it like this: the more you can focus your wins and your disappointments towards voting for the most progressive democrat with a good shot at winning the more influence you’re likely to have.
Put another way, if a lost fight like this one is cause for you to stay home in 2012, well then there’s even more upside for Republicans to hold the economy hostage next time: they get what they want and its good politics to boot. What do they stand to loose?
Midnight Marauder
Here’s the real lesson about hostage takers most people seem to be overlooking today: YOU DON’T LET THEM GET IN THE FUCKING BUILDING IN THE FIRST PLACE!
For fucks sake, once these crazy motherfuckers won the 2010 midterms, it was already “game, set, match.”
Stillwater
@Loviatar: So my question again, What makes you think this is not what Obama wanted all along?
Obama signaled a long time ago that he was willing to cut spending, including ientitlement spending. What the motivation was – political, economic, he hates liberals – seems pretty irrelevant to the issue you’re bringing up. Personally, I think it’s because he hates liberals. :)
Danny
Oh jesus, why cant all the emoproggers just learn to start behaving like the actual conservatives they so envy and find an irrational way to direct the irrational hatred at the actual opposition at each and every time? It works wonders for them, you know.
Loviatar
@Stillwater:
Its not irrelevant, because then the whole kabuki theater of the “debt showdown” was just bullshit for the Obots. It was their salve for supporting someone who has turned out to be no better that a moderate Republican in centrist Democratic clothing (i.e. he didn’t want to, he had to make this shit sandwich).
Its turned out worst for the Liberals because now we have a moderate Republican negotiating with far right Republicans on government policy. Guess how far our policy preferences will be taken into consideration (hint, check out the recent debt ceiling deal). While all this is going on Obama will still garner Democratic support because he has a “D” after his name in the ballot box and occasionally mutters progressive sounding platitudes.
Stillwater
@Danny: I think you’re missing Loviator’s point. Obama wanted this deal. He signaled it almost right outa the gates and almost explicitly after the G20 meeting about 8 months ago. He was willing to cut entitlements.
That doesn’t mean he personally desired to cut spending on Medicare. It only means that for some reason or other, cutting spending, including Medicare, was something he would support, that he was in favor of. Where it gets crazy is when people either a) deny that he wanted to cut spending or b) attribute to him a hatred of all things liberal. There are plenty of good accounts of why he embraced the view that (I think) he clearly did. One is that Medicare is actually unsustainable in it’s current form. Another may be that he felt this is a good time to concede to the GOP some of their demands for purely political reasons, since it take the issue off the table in the future (and getting this deal is better than a deal made by potentially more conservative COngress).
One thing that makes no sense is to criticize him more than the GOP. Or criticize him more than the SenDems. Or criticize the SenDems more than the GOP.
A deal of some kind was inevitable. Dismantling social programs has been an implicit goal of the GOP for over a decade now, maybe longer. That part of the equation simply cannot be erased from the equation.
Danny
The man. The first one was LBJ, and they just keep coming. He’ll keep you down. Oink, oink.
GregB
It seems apparent to me that the President and his advisers wanted to use the predictable GOP freak out over the debt ceiling increase in order to go big and get some historic deal that would make Peggy Noonan and the dessicated cadaver of David Broder moist again.
It was a colossal gamble and it didn’t work.
Now in 2012 the GOP gets to flog the economy and also the two points Hunter has made.
Try getting re-elected on the promise of raising taxes and cutting defense.
Winning.
Thymezone
“Obama refuses to listen to people like Krugman, Robert Reich, etc, etc. Because they are liberals. ”
No. That is not why he doesn’t listen to them. It’s because they are liars. Not about the imperatives in favor of progressive policy. About the math.
Americans have irresponsibly demanded government that costs 25% of GDP but only returns 15% in revenue. That’s because they want to believe in one or the other of a set of magical ponies. The conservative pony means that if you just leave everything alone, the good market and good faith fairies will take care of everyone who is worthy of being taken care of. It’s a sort of Compassionate Ayn Rand concept.
The liberal pony means that if you just take good care of the poor, sick and vulnerable, work hard and rescue pets and support green technology and believe in global warming and protect Social Security, the government, even though it is being systematically starved of money, will somehow figure out a way to make everyone get along and the bills will get paid and everybody gets healthcare.
Both ponies are complete fairy tales. Neither set of baldfaced lies is true. Good government, whether it is austere or generous, whether it is limited or broad in scope, whether it’s conservative or liberal …. must rest on a fiscal scheme that produces solvency. As long as the thing is reasonably solvent, it will work and there won’t be a lot of pressure to tear it down, strangle it, blow it up or drown it in a bathtub.
Accumulation of debt is the most destructive enemy of progressive government. When the government is vulnerable to attack on fiscal grounds, on the simple arithmetic of solvency, then nothing is stable, and nothing can be counted on without constant fighting and divisiveness.
The Krugmans of the world don’t want to address the basic truths, don’t have a plan to keep the government within sound fiscal bounds, and therefore generate and inflame opposition that takes the high ground of fiscal solvency and leaves the progressives to fight over the low ground. This erodes the moral imperatives of progressive policy and leaves the liberals fighting for just enough money to prevent their programs from being eaten by costs and revenue shortfalls. In other words, exactly the situation you have now.
Stillwater
@Loviatar: Maybe you’re right. I guess I look at the political realities of today’s congress/media nexus and realize that enacting entitlement reform and spending cuts are a reality of the landscape. If Obama played fast and loose with the 14th amendment, or in some othe way skirted the issue, the TPGOP would only get more insistent about their political agenda.
As a person, I don’t think Obama wanted entitlement cuts. As a politician, I think he did, because he was reading the writing on the wall: cuts of some kind were politically necessary (and maybe even economically necessary wrt Medicare), either now or in the future. The more I reflect on the process, the more I’m convinced that Obama ought to be given credit for confronting this issue rather than skirting it. Eg., if he skirted it, and the TPGOP were to take the Senate next Congress, these issues would come back again in the form of a potentially higher price to pay for liberals.
Thymezone
The difference between a GW Bush and a Bill Clinton is that when you have solvency, and a surplus ….
Clinton wants to take that opportunity and strengthen progressive government.
Bush wants to take the extra money and give it to his dad’s friends.
It’s a subtle difference, but pretty easy to understand.
However, when there is no extra money, neither response is possible. You just get everyone fighting like rats over the scraps … or the credit cards.
That’s why fiscal balance is so important, and why Obama talks about it all the time.
That’s also why the enemies of progressive policy don’t want balance. They want government to be impecunious.
Tonal Crow
Time to bake the 2012 rhetoric, ‘cuz we’re going to need it more than ever.
How about: “When the Republicans tried to kill the economy, I stopped them. If Michelle Bachmann becomes President, she’ll cheer them on.”
Hmm.
Or: “If you want another Great Recession, please vote Republican. If you want to send your job to China, please vote Republican. And if you want to pull the plug on grandma, please vote Republican. Because those are the things they’ve either done, tried to do, or would do if they had the power. This is no joke. We escaped the disaster the Republicans wanted by the skin of our teeth. We can’t ever let them try that again.”
Hmm.
Danny
@Stillwater:
What I’m ranting about is
Whooshed? And further #240.
It’s this perpetual cuckold fantasy that festers within the progressive movement – ever since 1968 – that the guy at the top is a priori always a traitor and he’ll always fuck you in the ass.
If you cant bring yourself to assume good faith about your top dog for as long as the jury is out, you’ll never amount to more than a rad political hipster seeking out the latest cool act that no-ones heard about. It’s counterproductive. It’s a dysfunctional movement. A working movement directs it’s anger and frustration at – wait for it – the opposition.
To the question of what Obama wanted: Yes, I think Obama wants long term deficit reduction. Yes, I think Obama wanted to do something about long-term medicare cost growth. Because that is – can be – good bipartisan policy, IF implemented right. I also think that Obama wanted increased revenue. But in the end we ended up with a deal with no revenue – only a committee that may propose it – that cuts discretionary spending in a way that is 35-65 in republican favor.
That’s not a good outcome for progressives, and not for Obama. We lost that one, and he lost that one.
But not for a second do I think that Obama secretly is a “small government” guy with secret plans to dismantle medicare or social security or move them towards a voucher system. It’s idiotic to assume bad faith about ones own players and make up various conspiracy scenarios in which to fit policy losses unless there’s solid proof for something.
Because all the real world consequences of making up such conspiracy theories and assuming bad faith are bad. Bad for the progressive policy agenda and bad for the country.
You don’t win the superbowl by spreading rumors that the coach is secretly on the take. Maybe that’s a comfort and an excuse after loosing a game. But that small benefit comes with the price of more lost games.
Stillwater
@Danny: Agreed on all points. The infighting and refusal to support anyone in a leadership position (except Nancy) gets pretty fucking tiresome. And it’s not even blind support I’m talking about, but informed support. A really quick, casual look at the facts ought to be enough to conclude that the current bill was the result of Teabaggery. But rather than focus on that, huge amounts of effort and time are wasted creating Digby-esue critiques of conspiracy theories and subversion implcating Democrats as the primary cause of all our woes. The ‘paranoid style’ isn’t exclusive to conservatives any more.
Danny
And the more accurate breakdown on defense/domestic cuts is 350/900B$ = ~39% : ~61% in democratic/republican policy objectives, btw.
Rick Taylor
I think saying it was obvious in hindsight is being too kind to the administration. There were plenty of liberals who proposed the idea on their blogs. It was no secret that after the midterms, the raising of the debt ceiling would be a grand drama. When questioned about it, Obama said he was confident it would be a fight, but Republicans would be reasonable (I hope he was being disingenuous here).
Whether Democrats could have really gotten a raise in the debt ceiling then by holding the bush tax cuts hostage is unknowable. I think they should have tried. It probably would have lead to a crises then, but I think it would have been better to have the crises before the specter of imminent debt was hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles. Be that as it may, Democrats decided to play it the way they did, and there’s limited value in speculating as to what if’s. Plus had the administration tried to hold the line then, there would have been more defections by Democrats who wouldn’t want to take a stand on the debt ceiling before they absolutely had to.
As for the 14th amendment solution, while I was frustrated with other aspects of the administration’s strategy, I think they got this part right. Invoking such a solution should be used as a last resort, only if all other possibilities are exhausted and we’re looking default in the eye. Far from convincing Republicans to be reasonable, I think it would have only caused the tea party to go ballistic, while more moderate Republicans would feel less pressure to make a deal, secure in the knowledge the President would avert catastrophe and take the heat for doing so.
Loviatar
@Stillwater:
I’ll state upfront I’m not trying to be snarky with my questions, I just want an answer, not a FIREBAGGER chant.
Why? please explain why this is a reality when the majority of Americans disagree with the need for entitlement reform and can’t agree on what spending cuts need to be made.
So, why give in to people you know are not out for yours or the countries best interest. Also, do you believe that because he gave in this time the TPGOP are going to be any less insistent about their political agenda next time.
What makes you think this? Why can’t he believe this as a person as much as he believes it as a politician?
Disagree totally, he gets no credit from me. No one has said Obama should have skirted the issue, what has been said is that Obama’s problem is confronting the issue using the Republican framework of “entitlement reform and spending cuts” are necessary for a balanced budget, when it should have been the framework of revenue increase with some entitlement reforms. When the Republican framework becomes the basis for the whole discussion then a potentially higher price to pay for liberals is a given, so that is a moot point.
Danny
@Stillwater:
Well suspicion breeds more suspicion so that’s to be expected, right? But from the perspective of advancing progressive policy, imho, there’s nothing wrong with conspiracy theories and there’s nothing wrong with irrationality – as long as it’s targeted at republicans and conservatives. Staying inside the tent, pissing on the other tent. But we can’t quite seem to get the hang of it.
OzoneR
@Stillwater: The deal doesn’t cut any social programs. Why are you still insisting it does?
OzoneR
@Loviatar:
simply because if it was, Republicans wouldn’t give it to him.
Stillwater
@OzoneR: The deal isn’t done yet. Medicare is very much on the table.
Loviatar
@Danny:
To use your analogy; when the coach has lost critical games including several important ones to his biggest rival and also ends the season on a losing steak should you:
A) say nothing and just re-sign him to another 4 year contract
B) complain but re-sign him anyway
C) actively look around for a better coach, but re-sign him because there is nothing out there better
D) find another coach
Stillwater
@Loviatar: Why?
1) Because the TPGOP can shut everything down if a deal isn’t made.
2) What the Dems are trying to create is a situation where ‘next time’ is ten years away. More generally, there is no way to prevent them from doing this again. They’re fucking crazy.
3) I think citizen Obama supports full funding of Medicare because of what he’s written and said and the way he’s voted. And because he’s a Democrat, and social programs are important to Dems. Also, there is no evidence (zero) that he is personally committed to dismantling those programs. That idea is just a bunch paranoid delusions, in my view.
4) Your final point about how the debate ‘should’ have been constructed. I think that’s where evidence and reality have to come into play., Obama in fact did make the case for revenue increases. Repeatedly. No one, not even the folks on our side, seem to remember that. If you don’t even remember him arguing for letting the upper-end Bush tax cuts expire precisely because it reduces the deficit in a less contentious setting, how do you think he could have gotten the message out now?
Danny
@Loviatar:
Well obviously applicability to the real world breaks down when you do that, since:
1) You are free to go out and sign any coach available that your wallet can afford, while no president in modern times won by beating an incumbent of the same party in the primary.
2) Obama has, imho, only lost one game to his (only) rivals and that is this debt ceiling showdown:
a) The critique against the Stimulus is that it wasnt big enough.
b) The critique against the PPACA is that it wasnt progressive enough.
c) The critique against the Finance Reg bill was that it wasnt strict enough.
d) DADT, Lily Leadbetter, SCHIP, Sotomayor, Kagan, Byrd act, Pell Grants, and so on.
e) The lame duck deal could plausibly be argued a draw, I’d say it was a win.
So where is this streak of critical lost games that you speak of; where is the legislation that pushed the country in a more conservative direction?
I’ll readily concede that the debt ceiling was a loss. I just fail to see a pattern.
OzoneR
@Stillwater:
um, the deal is done, they’re voting on it tonight.
OzoneR
@Loviatar:
This is far from the case.
Loviatar
@Stillwater:
1) and they won’t in the future, because????? give me an answer because I’ve got nothing. These people do not have our best interest at heart, so giving in to them should not be a option.
2) what makes you think next time would be 10 years away. Why won’t they manufacture a crisis around the next post office naming to demand an end to Social Security. And since they’re crazy what makes you think they won’t do that. As I said above; these people do not have our best interest at heart, so giving in to them should not be a option.
3) I’m not a big believer in “whats written and said”, I’m a believer in whats been done. His votes during his 2 years in the Senate was to the left of one of the most right wing Senates in history, so that doesn’t say much. His actions as President has been of the center right (moderate Republican) variety, so I don’t have a lot of faith in his commitment to maintaining the social compact. As I said earlier, just because he has a “D” after his name in the ballot box doesn’t mean a damm thing to me, its his actions as President that resonates.
Also, please show where I’ve said he is “he is personally committed to dismantling those programs”. What I have said is that I believe he is a moderate Republican who is personally committed to entitlement reform and spending cuts because he believes its the right thing to do, not because it actually will accomplish much.
4) when, please show me where he repeatedly made his case for increased revenue, because if he did and “No one, not even the folks on our side, seem to remember that” then he must be a pretty poor communicator. What I do remember is him mentioning several times a need for increased revenue, but quickly dropping it once he got any resistance from the TPers (aka The Insane Clown Posse). It was a negotiating ploy for him, nothing more.
Loviatar
@Danny:
The critique against it was that it was poorly designed and would not do the job it should do thereby precluding future needed stimulus.
The critique against it was that it was an expanded Insurance scheme and a giveaway to big business.
The critique against it was that it wouldn’t accomplish much; CFPB still doesn’t have a Director, most of the regulations have not been implemented and are actively being weakened.
victories
.
So overall, I see some victories, some moral victories (which are still losses) and some major losses. A losing season.
Stillwater
@Loviatar: You’re loviating. I answered all those questions, but you don’t like the answers. Fine. But if you’re not gonna bring evidence into the discussion, we’re just shouting at each other.
Loviatar
@Stillwater:
you’re right.
since my responses don’t qualify as evidence in your eyes, then anything said is just talking past each other.
Danny
@Loviatar:
Stimulus: Is your proposition that the Stimulus, on balance, was more conservative than progressive relative to Status Quo?
PPACA: Is your proposition that the PPACA, on balance, was more conservative than progressive relative to Status Quo?
Finance Reg: Is your proposition that Finance Reg, on balance, was more conservative than progressive relative to Status Quo?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you all President Obama and balloonbaggers, ’til death do you part.
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.
Tone In DC
@Xenos:
Xenos: There was a LOT of hemming and hawing during the lame duck session, if memory serves.
Such hesitation was the modus operandi of the same Blue Dogs and other spineless organisms who seem to run like rabbits if some mean old GOP brain donor just looks at ’em cross-eyed.
JohnR
@Stillwater:
Actually, dismantling social programs has been an explicit goal of the GOP for some 75 years now. Thirty years ago, the Bright Boys worked out that because of political realities, the only way to do it would be to cut taxes and increase military spending. About a decade ago, Norquist and the lads decided that it would take driving the country into actual bankruptcy. Now they’ve got a Democratic President to sign onto the whole “tough times mean tough choices, so Social Security and Medicare are on the block” plan. Sure, Obama could pull a Statue-of-Liberty play out of his backside and win the game with seconds to spare. What, in his entire history, makes you think he will? He’s conservative. He’s not a nutjob “Conservative”, he’s conservative. He’s David Brooks, but with smarts. He’s Herbert Hoover, only with less experience. He means well; he just is the wrong man for the job at this time. We were unlucky. And now we’re even more up against it. Sure, the social programs in some form may well continue to exist for a few more years. I’m betting they’re dead but don’t know it yet. The Little Lottery (Powerball) or the Big Lottery (Wall Street) are your retirement plans now; both equally rigged. Good luck.
Loviatar
@Danny:
Stimulus – approximately 1/3 tax cuts (conservative), 1/3 block grants to states (conservative), 1/3 infrastructure spending (progressive) – you do the math.
PPACA – 50% progressive vs 50 conservative, huge giveaway to the insurance industry, sidetracks a path to Universal Healthcare for at least one more generation vs. insuring 30 million more people.
Finance Reg – 60% progressive vs 40 conservative, however since in the most part it has not been implemented and is actively being weakened at this point I don’t see the % as being relevant.
CaliCat
Mr. Obama did a brilliant thing by getting the dept ceiling raised until 2013. In a month NO ONE will even be talking about this. Progressives will have moved on to some other poutrage and the Republicans will be scampering for a new hostage. Meanwhile the president will be focusing on jobs and his re-election campaign.
murphoney
@Danny:
really — you count these bureaucratic moments as WIN?
You neglected to mention the lack of default, absence of an instantaneous global meltdown and the preservation of the Union. YAY!
Danny
@murphoney:
I never said they were a WIN. Thats a strawman and you conflating something I said a upthread with my and Loviatars present discussion. So IOW fuck off.
Danny
@Loviatar:
Stimulus:
Giving block grants to states to keep them from laying off teachers etc – thats “conservative” policy? Why – because you hold some fundamentalist anti-federalist stance? Progressivism is not the opposite of federalism. Keynesian theory doesn’t care if federal or state government spends money. What’s important is that money gets spent.
I looked through the tax cuts in the ARRA and they all go to “progressive” stuff: poor and low income americans, students & clean energy. The only two things that are arguable are these: Bonus depreciation (5B$) and Money losing companies (15B$) provisions; and they make up 20 Billion or 2,5% of ARRA.
PPACA:
So lets see here: taking money from the rich. Using the money to buy insurance for the poor and working middle class or to give them Single Payer care through medicaid. Sum total ~30 million people. That’s 50% progressive and 50 % conservative to you, because you believe that it will mean a windfall for Big Insurance (disregarding the cap on administrative costs and the mandate for insurance companies to take all comers).
Then we’ve arrived at a definition of what “progressivism” is that values the opportunity to stick it to Big Business above helping people. That’s a perverted view of what it means to be a progressive. You’re no real progressive to me.