(UPDATED) The ‘Grand Bargain’ That Is Not To Be: Another Chapter In GOP Obstructionism
As loaded as the word traitor and all that it connotes is, I can now say without qualification but with considerable sadness that the never ending Republican obstructionism in Congress has reached traitorous levels.
Recall that it was a healthy (pardon the term) majority of congressional Republicans who reached across the aisle in August to join Democrats in the formation of a highly unusual two-party, 12-member super committee to come up with a plan to reduce the federal budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. The only similar super committee was a rolling effort from 1989 to 2005 through two Republican and one Democratic administration to determine what military bases should be closed, and that worked pretty well precisely because of its bipartisan nature.
With only three weeks to go before the budget super committee must finish its work, an all too familiar pattern has emerged.
Democrats have fashioned a plan to meet the budget reduction goal and then some by cutting, among other things, from cherished social programs, and are bending over backwards to accommodate their Republican colleagues. Their plan is in essence a $3.2 billion compromise which includes $1.3 trillion in new tax revenues.
The Republicans are having none of it, believing (although undoubtedly not in many of their hearts) that the deficit reduction goal can be met without any new tax revenues.
This on its face would seem to be a philosophical difference between a moderate to liberal party and a moderate to conservative party, but if your philosophy is that there should be no tax increases whatsoever — and in fact there should be tax cuts — in the aftermath of the Great Recession and continued high joblessness, you have not only reneged on your duties as a senator or congressman but are engaging in traitorous behavior.
If that seems over the top, consider the most stripped down definition for traitor: Someone who betrays one’s country. If that is not exactly what the Republicans are doing, what is it that they are doing? Because in times of crises, as our greatest political leaders have told us down through the centuries, country comes before party.
If the Republicans continue their intransigence past the November 23 deadline, the consequences will be dire for both country and, I predict, the GOP.
There will be a massive sequestration of federal funds, including an across-the-board, $1.2 trillion cut in spending, which includes $454 billion from defense programs that the Republicans claim to heart.
In fairness, the Republicans are not being obstructionist across the board. Why just last the House passed a GOP-sponsored resolution reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the national motto. Whew!
Yes, President Obama is vulnerable in 2012, but for every traitorous Republican in Washington there are a million Americans out on the hustings that can see through the smoke and mirrors thrown up by a gang for whom coddling Wall Street and the rich has become an art form while they figuratively urinate on the middle class, the elderly, the infirm and the poor.
Just as the 2010 election was a referendum on the president and his policies, the 2012 election may well be a referendum on Republican obstructionism.
41 Responses to “(UPDATED) The ‘Grand Bargain’ That Is Not To Be: Another Chapter In GOP Obstructionism”
In other words, not doing what you would prefer is treason. I would agree the Repubicans are not being very nice or accomodating, but that’s not new in politics anywhere. And the fact is, their districts are hard right, the House Democrats’ districts are mostly centrist, so there’s a certain logic to their behavior. And in some respects, it’s even sensible. A dollar of additional govt debt is in some ways preferablt to another dollar in taxes, from their perspective. It’s self-interest, not treason.
Bit now, are you so thin-skinned that you won’t permit this comment to be posted? Come on, the site would benefit from independent, informed comments.
If Republicans are not treasonous they are certainly not on the side of working people. What amazes me most about Americans is their ignorance and how they take pride in it. Nothing anyone can do about that. It is so hard to understand why American workers are against affordable health care, and adequate retirement funds. Americans are just too much in love with their rich bosses.
Maybe Republicans are not treasonous because America has become a criminal nation for a criminal people.
Gee, Wes, compared to you, Shaun sounds almost moderate (except for his trolling with the treasonous bit, probably out of desperation to get a few more readers).
mn:
Gosh, Mark, your comment was somehow posted without being censored or deleted.
My reply is straightforward:
This is no time for politics as usual. If you haven’t noticed, the U.S. is in crisis and that is nowhere more evident than on Main Street. I thought long and hard before assigning the T-Word to the Republicans. I concluded that it is appropriate.
Well, elsewhere my comments have been blocked, but not here. Where’s the big crisis? 10% official unemployment, 15% perhaps by other measures? Stock market down, house prices down? I measure national crisis differently, I guess. Russia 1991, average income falls to $1 a month (IMF figure), Poland 1944: 25% of population dead, Cambodia 1978 35% of population dead. Oh it’s not good in America, but it’s not the kind of crisis that requires people to put aside their self-interest or risk being called traitors. Warsaw, 1944, yes. America 2011, no.
Labeling people as treasonous because of policy differences sounds a lot like many Republicans during the Bush years. The more things change the more they stay the same.
mn:
I will say this as nicely as possible: Perhaps your enchantment with the long sweep of history and self-absorption with your considerable world travels has blinded you to the reality that this Great Land of Opportunity is no longer that. Tens of millions of people cannot afford to get sick and millions cannot find work.
I can’t really give a rat’s rectum of Warsaw or Cambodia.
$454 billion over 10 years is, what, 7% of the defense budget? Imagine being able to kill only 93% of the people we kill today. Treasonous, I say.
And even if the rest comes all out of Medicare, that still amounts to less than a 10% cut. It’s a stretch to call that a “cut” at all, since it’s really a proposal to let costs grow by a bit less than they would have otherwise. Given the long-term problem we have with health care costs, attempting to slow them by only 10% over the next decade sounds positively negligent.
DaGoat says:
“Labeling people as treasonous because of policy differences sounds a lot like many Republicans during the Bush years. The more things change the more they stay the same.”
Don’t need to go back that far, DG.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, August 17, 2011:
“If [Bernanke]prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion…”
“If [Bernanke]prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion…”
Difference is, I have more respect for Shaun’s intelligence than Perry’s. Therefore i am more disappointed in Shaun alias McCarthy (no, not Charlie).
dduck:
I know that I am unlikely to win converts who agree that the T-Word is appropriate in this context.
But allow me to frame the issue as a question:
Mr. Nuckols’ blow-off notwithstanding, America is in crisis and it is no time for party over country, let alone parsing percentages in the Democratic compromise package. If the Republicans are not being traitorous what they they being? Playing politics is not an answer. Or if it is the answer, then they are indeed putting party over country and that is . . . well, you know what I think it is.
Why anyone would want to bother defending republicans given their utterly abysmal ability and/or desire to govern is a puzzle. Apparently tribal reactions can trump just about anything, even massive and repetitive fail. Pray tell, what is it they’ve gotten right this century so far???
JSpencer, you’ve criticized “defense” of the GOP on a few threads now. It seems like you regard anything less than complete condemnation of the GOP as defending them, or am I reading you wrong?
With the Republicans “Party before Country” AND “Screw the Middle-Class” attitude (in both word and action) over the last several years anything less than complete condemnation of them IS defending them.
Different positions and ideas for solutions is one thing… But their 100% OBSTRUCTIONISM is something altogether different.
To paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton:
D. Duck: Mr. Mullen indeed is desperate — there is no other basis for his engaging in such ugly sensationalist dishonesty — but he has plenty of company, don’t forget. And as you note, his depth of descent sometimes gets surpassed by other lefties diving deeper.
Imagine what would be thought of the Republicans by these people had the Democrats not been satisfied with going too far left in 2009 and 2010, but actually met the demands of those who wanted them to go much farther left. The Republicans would be even more resistant, and so would (again) be the American people; the 2010 elections would have been even worse for the Democrats. It also would be the worse for what would be said about the GOP and about the American people (and the USA).
Mark Nuckols is correct to state here that the word “crisis” is misused. We encounter such sensationalism routinely in the media and also promulgated by fellow liberals in the political community. No doubt fellow liberals who respond to these appeals to emotion (the primary basis for their political decision making) continue to make the practice pay off, or at least be hopeful. (It’s no surprise Obama’s campaign is how it is.)
Things are more bad in some places and with some people than in and with others. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a new, better term about what’s happening to so many than “the hollowing[-out] of the middle class.” It’s more like small to large holes here and there, or more generally, something more resembling a landslide (downward, that is, by most of the population).
Note that things are bad now, but what about when the Baby Boomers have retired, or earlier when austerity measures such as have begun in Greece and elsewhere happen here in the USA because they no longer can be avoided? Even then, it won’t be a “crisis” but it will be likely uglier than now (including what people believe the near- to medium-term future will be like), and while liberals will still misuse “crisis,” what more alarmist word might they substitute?
It obvious that Shaun, and seemingly several commentors, that they cannot conceive of anyone holding an honest opinion of the economic situation that differers from theirs. In that case any activity that doesn’t comply with their beliefs must be willful and negative. The reality is that many hold honest beliefs that don’t coincide with their ideas. By the way poor and middle class people do vote and belong to the GOP and it’s not because they are to stupid to know better. That attitude won’t win friends or influence people at all. Some believe that the direction the GOP is heading is more likely to result in a positive result. Others may not be sure, short term, that it will be the best result but long term it will end in a preferred outcome. You are whining because the bus driver isn’t taking the route you want while the passengers are still deciding where we are going.
In my humble opinion, calling a group of people “traitors” because they don’t agree with you is an unfortunate and regrettable development that I hoped to never see come from the authors at TMV.
It wasn’t right when Bush apologists used the word to describe opponents of the Iraq War, and it isn’t right for critics of the Republican Party to do it now.
This is the second time in just the last couple of months that a TMV author has used the word “traitor” or “treason” to refer to Republicans and/or conservatives.
I don’t expect that my comments will have much effect on people who disagree with me on the use of such ad hominem attacks. I can only hope that visitors to TMV understand that not everyone here at TMV agrees with these kind of ad hominem attacks.
As usual the TMV “conservatives” [sic] chose to attack a TMV Columnist and a word instead of addressing a single one of the congressional republicans actions that prompted this thread AND should cause everyone, right and left, to question of the motives of their elected officials.
Here’s the question Shawn asked:
Anyone care to actually respond to the question or is this just another episode of “pick a word / avoid the question”?
I can only hope that visitors to TMV understand that conservatives and faux “tea-party independents” act like this on ALL political blogs… Not just at TMV.
Mark, you are wrong. Many, many Republicans are not from ‘hard right-wing districts’. That is demonstrably so. Look at how many of the Republicans are freshman legislators who took the jobs from Democrats.
In the situation in which the U.S. finds itself, I would offer that many politicians have been rather ‘traitorous’ for the past 65 years. Logically, the outcome of a policy should dictate whether or not it was sound. Borrowing constantly simply can not be sustained. Meanwhile, as Franklin said, when a democratic populace learns that it can vote itself money, that will be the end of the republic.
I was saddened when R. Reagan took over because he promised three things: increase defense spending, lower taxes, balance the budget. At the end of his term, the song “Two out of three ain’t bad” should have been the theme song for the first Bush administration. Ross Perot tried to show the American people that the spending–both current and promised–was unsustainable without tax increases. That was true in 1992 and is true today (but much worse at the moment, and thus much harder to deal with).
At this point, I seriously wonder if the country can survive past 2025 without some drastic change. The ‘best’ plan I have seen so far has to do with eliminating income taxes, putting a sales tax onto everything and giving each household a stipend (to try to eliminate the tax burden on the poorest). At least if this were done, we could lose about 20,000 jobs–the least productive ones–by eliminating most of the incentives for lobbyists.
SteveK:
You nailed it with “pick a word / avoid the question.”
Not one of the people on this comment thread who has come after me has tried to answer the question. Refusing to acknowledge the crisis in America today — or saying that the word “crisis” is overwrought because some regions are worse off than others is pathetic.
Pathetic.
Yes, things are much better La Jolla than East L.A., so what’s your point? We should lavish love in the form of lower taxes on the residents of La Jolla while refusing to acknowledge, let alone try to help, the people of East L.A.?
So I’ll try one last time:
America is in crisis (depending where you are and it is no time for party over country, let alone parsing percentages in the Democratic compromise package. If the Republicans are not being traitorous what they they being?
I think I did address just that. He sees the GOP as being obstructionist because they are stopping the congress from moving in the direction he believes is correct. The problem here is that there are many americams who don’t think that is the right direction.
If we are jousting verbally, then targeting what we think is an inappropriate use of a word, phrase or concept, is appropriate and logical. Surely, crafty Shaun, didn’t think we would avoid his red meat word and go delving into his argument’s basics first, that don’t sell papers. (And, indeed, it worked.)
“JSpencer, you’ve criticized “defense” of the GOP on a few threads now. It seems like you regard anything less than complete condemnation of the GOP as defending them, or am I reading you wrong?” – DaGoat
I believe you’re taking away the wrong message DG. As I said, it is a “puzzle” to me how people will dive in with kneejerk defense of the GOP, and yet these same people prefer to avoid addressing the actual actions and issues that prompt the criticisms in the first place. This strikes me as disingenuous and backwards. The word “traitor”, isn’t one I would choose, but the result of republican attempts to govern (this includes willful non-governing) has caused this country considerable harm; I suspect Shaun’s choice of the word (since we know Shaun is never provocative) is the result of finding the continuing tribal responses by the current incarnation of the GOP (in the absense of any apparent interest in responsible or moral governing) to be highly disturbing – and certainly suspect.
JSpencer:
Up, that’s me.
I responded to the substance of Shaun’s post as well. As I said above, the “dire consequences” he accuses the Republicans of courting don’t look so dire at all.
I don’t think you answered DaGoat’s question, JSpencer, which is what constitutes a “defense.” If Shaun says the Republicans are traitors and terrorists who are out to destroy the nation, that’s a far-left position. If I reply that the Republicans are saints and the country’s only hope if they’d just throw out the RINOs, that’s a far-right position. If I reply that the cuts they are proposing look pretty modest in the grand scheme of things, that’s a moderate position. You (and others) seem to read every statement that isn’t venomously anti-republican as a defense of them. What, in your opinion, constitutes a “defense”?
Good response, Dr.J.
Like the “modest proposals” made by the Republicans when they obstructed the raising of the Debt Ceiling that caused the downgrading of our credit rating?
Are you having any luck convincing your kids that the Republican “showboating”, that cost the U.S. people billions of extra dollars in interest, was a good, moderate thing to do, too?
Steve, if you’re going to complain about commenters not addressing the point, you might try setting a better example.
Thanks “J” for that
pointedpoignant remark.Your exemplary behavior here at TMV is a fine example of how one should conduct themselves when blogging and should be emulated by all.
Like the “modest proposals” made by the Republicans when they obstructed the raising of the Debt Ceiling that caused the downgrading of our credit rating?”
Like Clinton advised and Obama ignored, the debt limit could have been raised without a big deal. The pres has the authority. Ask him why he didn’t.
d(onald?)duck is starting to sound like Donald Rumsfeld with his rhetorical questions.
I especially like his pretending to forget all the flack President Obama received on the issue even though he (Obama) wasn’t the one to bring it up.
For any others that want to pretend to forget the facts: Google – obama raising debt ceiling
Here are a variety of ways to answer that question posed by Shaun:
If the Republicans are not being traitorous what they they being?
1. Stubborn. I’d probably agree with that one, and I consider it somewhat negative but not entirely. If one believes that the actions that others want you to take are wrong then it makes sense to stubbornly resist them.
2. Intransigent. That’s a bit harsher and I can see how someone who thinks the Dem’s offerings would be helpful would characterize stubbornness that way. Ditto for ‘obstructionist’.
3. Partisan, opportunist. These characterizations assume that the GOP think that the Dem ideas would help the economy but refuse to allow the legislation to proceed because they wouldn’t want the economic improvement to help the electoral prospects of Obama and the Congressional Dems. I think that presumption is a whopper, frankly, when you consider how weak most of the proposals have been, how unlikely they are to move the needle on unemployment, and how much they involve doubling down on past economic blunders.
That’s not to say that I give any credit to the GOP to not be opportunistic and partisan; it certainly may be a combination of not thinking the proposals would move things in the right direction and not wanting the Dems to get any credit for ‘at least trying’, which might be the public sentiment if legislation threw a few bones to those who are suffering from the current economic conditions.
4. Principled. Moving in the other direction of the positive-negative scale of characterizing motives, some partisan or hard right GOP voters may see the party as principled when it stands up against policies that are considered wrongheaded. This would be a bit too generous of a characterization IMO, but an honest examination of the policies that have been rejected could produce this viewpoint.
5. Clueless and attempting to play the best strategic hand they think they’ve got. I’d buy into this one, to a great extent, just as I think the Dems are doing the same. For the GOP, their best strategy is to play the strongest hand that a minority party has which is obstruction, while for the Dems, the strongest hand is to complain loudly and constantly about such obstruction to distract people from noticing how empty the legislative playbook really is.
CStanley:
Brava! Brava!
SteveK, Sorry if got suckered into believing that guy, Mr. Clinton; it depends on what raise is.
http://www.newser.com/story/123777/clinton-obama-can-just-raise-debt-ceiling-himself.html
If he was wrong, then I guess I am wrong too.
Good stuff, CS……………
Well hopefully Shaun it wasn’t lost on you that it was quite possible for me to write criticisms of the GOP without pinning treason on them, just as I could easily criticize the Dems without similarly impugning them as anti-American or even calling them Commies.
Dr. J, at this stage of the game I’m more concerned about what republicans are actually doing and have done than I am parsing what passes for PC or non-PC characterizations of their behavior. Kind of hard to warm up to a political party that seems devoted to running this country into the ground. People choose who they want to line up with, and those choices should be reviewed more often imo.
JSpencer my take on this is that using words like traitor or unpatriotic causes those terms to become the story and detracts from the underlying topic. When Perry suggested Bernanke was a traitor that became the story and did not lead to a considered discussion of Fed policy. When the GOP called Democrats unpatriotic that was inflammatory and Democrats were understandably upset. At a moderate site I don’t see the value of calling people traitors.
Anyway to the actual topic, it’s hard to say. Both sides have made proposals the other side didn’t like. I would like to see the specifics of what each side has proposed but I don’t think have been released. Much of what goes on is in secrecy and we have to rely on leaks.
I agree the GOP seems to be more resistant to compromise than Democrats. I think a lot of that is due to the way the GOP regained so many seats in 2010, namely running on a fiscal responsibility/”no tax hikes” platform and many in the GOP promising outright not to raise taxes. For them to raise taxes would be political suicide similar to the way it would be suicide for Obama to suddenly to break his pledge not to raise taxes on those making <250K. I don’t see that as traitorous but rather the result of short term thinking.
Personally I would like to see taxes raised a little bit on everybody so we can get the whole class thing out of the picture. Raising taxes only on the super wealthy is also short term thinking and ultimately inadequate.