The clock is now ticking on a debt ceiling limit compromise but can there be one in a political climate where “compromise” is now a dirty word and talk show Rush Limbaugh let the Repulbican faithful know that compromise is akin to being a loser since winners never compromise? (Tell that to the politicos throughout American history who have compromised to create legislation with widespread support or who compromised to avert political crises).
Last night without a single Democratic vote the Tea Party influenced House passed Speaker of the House John Boehner’s debt ceiling limit plan. It was quickly shot down in the Senate. There had been widespread speculation that after that move Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would begin to negotiate with his GOP counterpart, GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But then reports surfaced that — in an unprecedented move — the Minority Leader reportedly indicated he would not negotiate with the Majority Leader but with President Barack Obama. What happens next? ABC News:
At 1 p.m. Saturday, the House of Representatives will have a vote on that Reid debt
ceiling bill. The Republican-controlled House, of course, will vote this down.
Of course, none of this means much. The real question is when the two sides will negotiate a compromise that can actually pass.
Those negotiations have quietly begun. It’s hard to see how they can have a deal passed and signed by Aug. 2 if they have not agreed to a compromise deal by midnight Saturday.
If they do have a deal by then … they could have a final Senate vote by Monday morning, setting up House vote late Monday, averting the economic catastrophe they have all been predicting would result from inaction.
Is there any way the two parties could agree on anything. And, is there anyway all factions of the GOP could agree on anything? The Christian Science Monitor:
So how close are the two parties? What is the common ground?
Obama on Friday cited three examples of basic agreement:
• The parties roughly agree on sizable cuts in discretionary spending, as a parallel step to raising the current limit on federal borrowing. Initially the cuts would total about $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
• Plans from both parties would set a process to consider tax and entitlement reforms in coming months. This would reap additional deficit reduction over the next 10 years.
• The president, in a new overture to Republicans, said, “If we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I’ll support that, too, if it’s done in a smart and balanced way.” So far, the House Republican plan includes one enforcement mechanism not in Mr. Reid’s Senate plan.
Independent policy analysts cite other elements of common ground that have emerged.
Both the Reid plan and one orchestrated by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio would put a cap on discretionary spending, which would rise roughly with inflation. Also, both plans envision additional fiscal progress being crafted by a new group of 12 House and Senate lawmakers, six from each party. Proposals emanating from that group would get expedited votes by the full Congress.
Another area of agreement is that neither side is pushing higher tax revenues as part of the current debt deal. Even though many Democrats had been insisting that some new revenue be part of any “balanced” plan for deficit reduction, Republicans said no plan with such provisions would pass the House.
All these areas of existing or potential intersection have emerged during weeks of tense negotiations.
Now is a make-or-break moment when the two sides must either push toward a deal or watch the United States move the brink of possible fiscal chaos. Obama alluded to this in his brief public remarks Friday, saying, “We are now running out of time.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said “absolutist” lawmakers aligned with the Tea Party have put the U.S. “on the brink.”
“I am really worried about where we are standing, and I think part of that has come about because you have individuals that say, ‘It is my way or the highway,’” Murkowski said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Washington office. “That is not how you govern.”
Obama may invite congressional leaders back to the White House for more talks, according to a Democratic official. No decision has been made about further discussions between Obama and Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the administration’s strategy.
While Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have been in contact with lawmakers, as of late yesterday the president hadn’t spoken with Boehner for days, the official said.
Former Bush aide David Frum on Limbaugh’s riff about how only losers compromise:
I listened to about 45 minutes of the first hour of Rush Limbaugh in the car today.
The dominant theme of the hour, repeated over and over: “You” – meaning, Limbaugh listeners – are not “losers.” It’s Obama’s who’s a “loser.”
The word “loser” must have been repeated dozens of times, half as reassurance (that’s what you are not!), half as epithet (that’s what President Obama is!)
The psychological interpretation of what’s going on here is almost too obvious to remark.
But what I can’t decide is whether it’s more sinister or more sad.
What is clear is that when Limbaugh says it it’s effective to many Republicans and often can be used to predict now what the party will do. His famous “I hope he fails” comment shortly after Obama was elected and there were hopes both parties would work together and his calls for no compromise then were harbingers of what would come. Talk radio in effect gets “the troops” in line, acting as a kind of town hall that helps solidify narratives and a group political line. Listeners do call their elected reps in response and it is clear GOPers listen to Limbaugh.
Boehner even went on Limbaugh to disclose his plan. It is clear that it is now a belief among many Republicans: he who compromises is a loser. And American politics is now seemingly all about one political sports team defeating the other sports team and giving high fives over its victory.
Previous American centuries were often about winning majorities that had to compromise and at least addressed the need for consensus. The 21st century promises to be a century of political hostage taking where politics is now more than ever before a zero sum game and pleasing followers and existing supporters is far more important than aggregating interests and fostering any kind of consensus based on common ground.
Democratic and Republican sources familiar with the situation told CNN that McConnell insists the White House be present in further negotiations toward a debt ceiling deal.
In a continuation of the political theater that has characterized the negotiations so far, the House scheduled a vote on the Reid plan for Saturday — before the Senate will even begin considering it — as what appeared to be payback for the rejection by Senate Democrats of the Boehner proposal.
Reid, meanwhile, said the Senate will likely vote to take up his plan at 1 a.m. Sunday ET as part of the procedural path required to get something passed in coming days.
As the political maneuvering continues, the clock continues to tick down. If Congress fails to raise the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by August 2, Americans could face rising interest rates and a declining dollar, among other problems.
Some financial experts have warned of a downgrade of America’s triple-A credit rating and a potential stock market plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped for a sixth straight day on Friday.
Without an increase in the debt limit, the federal government will not be able to pay all its bills next month. Obama recently indicated he can’t guarantee Social Security checks will be mailed out on time.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a statement Friday to remind military personnel that they should plan to come to work next week as scheduled, regardless of whether a deal gets worked out. Panetta pledged to do “everything possible to ensure that our national defense is protected.”
Talking Points Memo on Harry Reid’s latest proposal:
It does not include any penalties or triggers to force Congress to enact entitlement and tax reforms in the coming months.
The new cuts aren’t very extensive. They bring the package’s total deficit reduction up to $2.4 trillion — but only when judged against a slightly outdated January baseline. Judged against the current baseline, the revised plan would still reduce the deficit by $2.2 trillion.
It’s unclear if Reid is willing to go any further. Asked if this is Reid’s final offer, a spokesman says “This is the last train leaving the station and we hope Republicans will get on board.”
Late update: At a late Friday press conference, Reid suggested that the door is still open to further tweak his proposal, including by adding failsafes to assure future entitlement and tax reforms — but it’s up to Republicans to offer up their votes.
“We have a closet full of triggers, people have suggested dozens of them but even though earlier this week, I was sitting talking to Jack Lew about triggers for an hour and a half and we can’t get Republicans to move on any trigger. We’re not going to have cuts on more programs without some revenue – that is a line we’ve drawn in the sand,” Reid said. “It’s up to the Republicans, right now we have a proposal…we are waiting for them to do something, anything, move toward us.”
The problem: there is clearly a segment of the GOP that is willing to or in some cases would welcome default if the Democrats and Obama to not simply submit and agree to every single proposal they put on the table. And polls showing Obama now facing his worst approval rating ever (40 percent according to Gallup) mean a)he has reduced clout b)further derailing or even tanking the economy will be seen by some (how many remains to be seen) as not unuseful politically, even if it’s “only” for a short default.
Read Dick Polman’s MUST READ on the crisis.
UPDATED: Democratic strategist Paul Begala, writing on The Daily Beast:
Bob Greenstein, the widely respected president of the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has done just that. His conclusion:
The Boehner-GOP plan is “tantamount to a form of ‘class warfare.’ If enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.”Think about that. As the economy teeters on the precipice of a double-dip recession, as millions of Americans search in vain for a job, as tens of millions of homeowners are underwater, as poverty soars and the middle class is hammered, the Speaker of the House is pushing a proposal that—let me repeat Greenstein’s analysis—“could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship in modern U.S. history.” Deep cuts in every domestic priority—from education for disabled children to food safety to homeland security to clean air and water. Followed by painful cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But not a dollar in new revenue. Not one corporate loophole closed, not one billionaire asked to pay one penny in higher taxes.
Oh, and if they don’t get their way they will cripple the Treasury’s ability to pay the debt—the debt, I hasten to add, that their policies created.
It has become a trope of the right to accuse Obama and the Democrats of trying to remake America in the image of Europe. That, of course, is silly as well as insulting to the people who gave us the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment, not to mention spaghetti. But in whose image would the radical Republicans remake us? Certainly not in the image of the Founding Fathers. The Republicans are already seeking to make Swiss cheese out of Mr. Madison’s masterpiece, littering the Constitution with amendments on budgeting, the line-item veto, gay marriage, abortion, school prayer, restricting birth-right citizenship, and more.
Seems to me the GOP seeks a banana republic: a toxic blend of right-wing populism, anti-intellectualism, debt defaults, and an end to the ladder of economic opportunity. They would divide us into a few Haves and a lot of Have-Nots. And they would slowly crush the heart of progressive America—the rising middle class created by Democratic economic policies of education and empowerment. All while preserving, protecting, and defending a tiny oligarchy of millionaires and billionaires.
The right wing should ditch the tricorn hats and replace them with mirrored sunglasses. They truly are Banana Republicans.
Arizona Senator John Kyle blames the Democrats:
Republicans have tried to work with Democrats to solve the debt crisis, but “behind the scenes” Democrats insisted on huge tax increases, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) said Saturday.
“Unfortunately, after weeks of negotiations, it became clear that Democrats in Washington did not view this crisis as an opportunity to rein in spending,” Kyl said in the GOP’s weekly address. “Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to impose huge tax increases on American families and small businesses.”
The parties are locked in a standoff over raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit before Treasury’s Aug. 2 deadline, after which the U.S. could default on it’s debt.
Kyl said Republicans are committed to avoiding a default and blamed Democrats for blocking progress on a deal.“Republicans have tried to work with Democrats to avoid this result and put our country on a better path, but we need them to work with us,” Kyl said.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.