The Punt Heard Round The Political World
by The Magical Sky Father
If you needed more proof that President Obama sent a devastating blow to the GOP debt ceiling narrative last week I give you Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s new strategic shift. Our friend Mitch has decided that the best way to resolve the issue is to punt.
How he is deciding to do so is rather interesting and problematic at least in my view. He wants to give President Obama the ability to raise the debt ceiling himself. In basic form Obama would raise the ceiling, Congress could then begin a resolution of disapproval without a filibuster option, if it passes like all other legislation Obama would have the option of vetoing it or signing it. If he vetoes it would require a two-thirds majority in both houses to override his veto and if not the President would need to create a hypothetical budget that offsets the amount of debt that the debt ceiling was raised by but of course just hypothetically.
It is actually rather rare that I have seen something so cowardly offered by a sitting politician no less a leader.
Whether the debt limit itself is constitutional I think is a rather debatable matter. We are speaking of debts created by the House in their budget that are passed and signed into law. Getting a “do over” to in essence say we ordered services but now that the work is well under way lets see if we can pay you from where I sit is childish and runs counter to the 14th amendment. If they desired to cut a program they have the power to do so but the debt limit is a “do over” for a budget that the party in power does not like. If you do not like it then do not pass it.
As we saw in the current debate it is a chance for all the people involved to get what they could not get otherwise. The President wants those taxes raised on those making above a certain level, though he will accept closing loop holes. The Democratic party wants to keep all of their binkys but have accepted that some of the old ratty ones can be put out to pasture but they want something for their time, revenue increases if they can’t get tax increases and military budget cuts. The Republican party wants budget cuts that equal the amount borrowed and absolutely zero added revenues.
First. saying no added revenue at this point to the US government seems like telling an anorexic that they can stay thin if only they eat the exact same amount: it is both unhelpful and unhealthy. Other than that everyone makes at least some valid points and the result in both the grand plan and the smaller 2.4t plan is a 3/1 cuts to new revenue split and in the grand plan entitlements are on the table. The problem is that this is the kind of planning that should take place during the creation of a budget otherwise we spend all our legislative time screaming at one another as we re-fight the same war over and over and get nothing else done…hold it I think I do see where the plan at one point was headed.
The problem is that Obama last week nuked their protest movement prior to it even making it to its intended destination.
He was supposed to let them rally supporters and cry “rabble, rabble” and cry about the fears of our childrens futures, futures that of course were never in question prior to January of 2009 but oh well. A lessor politician would have let it build. A classic liberal Democrat would have wrung their hands and beat the bully pulpit as they cried about needing more not less at this time. Maybe they would have had a point. While the nation is still digging out of the last economic nightmare may not be the best time to cut a budget that WILL result in fewer jobs. Of course a liberal Democrat may have done this but he would have watched his chances of re-election go up in a giant Fox News filtered puff of smoke.
Many may agree with that generic liberal Democrat — but those are not cross over voters and independents. Those groups are still in the test drive stage with the Democratic party much as the decade of the 1970’s was for the Republican party. This is the time in which you do not spook the herd and the best way to spook the herd is to act to much like the stereotype that the opposing party has been painting since it was valid which was a few decades back.
To keep the herd you have to appeal to their attachment to what they know while constantly re-defining what it is that you truly are. You shock them out of the cartoon narrative by being more like the opposition than the opposition is itself. This in turn calms the herd into thinking you and eventually your party are the sane calm ones and those other people are crazy.
The sane party does not need a Sister Soulijah moment: that is the job of the fringe party. I know that will offend and I am sorry but it is true. The reason Clinton needed that moment was because the Democratic party was still viewed by the middle as beholden to special interest groups. Clinton played it correctly and broke the mold of fear that existed around a Democratic President but that did not translate to the Democratic party as a whole.
President Obama is playing a completely different game.
The stakes are higher but the pay off is immense though few in his party have any faith in him or the strategy at hand. The President is currently in the process, and has been since he hit the national stage, of re-defining what it means to be a Democrat. He is doing this while also re-defining the GOP as its fringe — something the GOP effectively did to the Democrats for a few decades. In fact, the GOP’s strategy worked so well that many still believe it which is why Obama keeps scoring 3 point shots while they are hunkered down waiting for him to go for a layup.
In the debt debate a layup was expected. The President was either supposed to toe the Democratic party line or with any luck cave and give the GOP all it wanted with no strings just to get the debt limit raised. President Obama responded by waiting until all of the opinions were in and running down the clock and just as his opponents were convinced he did not know how to steal a ball swept past them so fast they thought for a bit they were still dribbling the ball when all that remained was air.
The GOP had a plan though. They had players waiting for Obama to make that layup and they were way to tall to get around…and then he sunk the three point shot even though he was only one point down.
It made no sense, he did not need to do that why would he do that? Probably because the GOP telegraphed its plans so loudly that people in Iceland were saying “yup they are trying to trap him.”
BY putting entitlements on the table along with closing loop holes as an answer to revenue increases as well as agreeing to tax reform to bring down the overall tax rates Obama did something utterly stunning. Well, at least to those that did not listen to what he had to say in the 2008 campaign. The idea of closing loop holes and bringing down overall tax rates has been on his wish list for a long time. Want to know why? Because then he is the President that brought down taxes, saved the nation from fiscal calamity and gave us healthcare reform all while making entitlements solvent for decades to come if possible. All of this done by a Democratic President causes some major problems with GOP narratives as it did after Clinton.
In short, the GOP seems to have yet again believed the straw man they built and called Obama and failed to remember the caricature was one they created and was in no way shape or form based on reality. It is easy to flummox your opponent when they are both convinced of who you are and are utterly deluding themselves on the topic. Obama has yet again shown himself as a person that if the GOP had never heard of him would instantly be a superstar Presidential nominee, something I heard a great deal after his 2004 speech at the Democratic convention from jealous GOP friends.
So seeing that he is trapped by his Tea Party faction and that he has been horribly out maneuvered by the President Mitch McConnell wants to hand over the job of the House, one that has questionable constitutionality but is still the House’s job, to President Obama.
Of course, then the GOP could cry about the debt all they wanted and no one could blame them because — see? — they are a victim. They gave the big bad man the ability to raise it and then he did oh boo hoo hoo.
This would mean the debt ceiling could be passed which MUST happen regardless of the political jockeying and Mitch knows it. He also knows the GOP narrative has made this near impossible short of looking like cowards or fools. So he wants to punt it to the President.
As a voter that likes and trusts our President I would like to first note that if Mitch has such trouble making decisions and wishes to cede any problematic power that he may find in his hands maybe he should find a job somewhere other than the US Senate. Sorry for being insulting but, honestly, I would expect more from a high school student.
I do not think this will happen and I do not think it should for a myriad of reasons none of which involve general politics but instead legality and separation of powers. I also believe once Cantor is done being spanked for going for Boehner’s throat a debt ceiling deal will materialize and possibly a rather impressive one at that but Mitch McConnell’s epic punt will now complicate the negotiations — which the GOP does not really need right now. Now that Obama is ahead giving him opportunities to make foul shots is rather counter-productive.
“The Magical Sky Father resides in Portland, OR his own little city on the hill where he longs to work at Powell’s and soaks up the liquid sunshine like a native. Personal politics are Libertarian Socialist or as he likes to put it a balanced extremist. He sits atop his rain cloud typing angry rants into the blogosphere trying to keep the balance in his extreme’s.”