The Republicans are offering a deal to the White House that will either be a face-saving way to declare a partial victory — or a no starter. But it is a form of positive movement. They’re proposing to raise the debt limit for six weeks but keep the government shut down. As the Huffington Post said in a recent headline, Republicans are offering to “release one hostage.” Will the White House take it? NBC News:
Republicans said they would seek a short-term extension of the nation’s debt limit in hopes of jump-starting fiscal talks with President Barack Obama.
Hours before the GOP leadership heads to the White House to sit down with Obama to figure out how to reopen the government and avert defaulting on the national debt, Republicans said they would address one part of that threat. The matter of how or when Congress might end the government shutdown is still very much unresolved.
The GOP leadership said it would offer legislation to temporarily increase the debt ceiling — for about six weeks or so — to allow time for negotiations with Obama over a broader budget deal.
But to those who have access to any computer or who have been listening, wouldn’t that violate the insistence of Democrats, President Barack Obama and a slew of polls indicating that Democrats, the White House and the vast majority of Americans want the government open? Will the White House agree to that and to possibly going through the same political drama six weeks from now? And how will markets react to news that there’s a truce in the Tea Party-dominated House’s government shut down and threat to let American tumble into default? Their initial response:
But the White House made clear on Thursday that the Republican offer was insufficient. An administration official said Obama would only negotiate “once Republicans in Congress act to remove the threat of default and end this harmful government shutdown.”
“I would hope that the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway to what he’s demanding in order to have these conversations begin,” Boehner said following a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans.
An extension of the debt ceiling, without conditions, would represent somewhat of a concession to Obama, who has demanded that Republicans both reopen the government and raise the government’s debt limit – even for a short period of time – as a precondition to sitting down at the bargaining table.
“Re-open the government, extend the debt ceiling,” Obama said Tuesday afternoon at the White House. “If they can’t do it for a long time, do it for a period of time in which in which these negotiations are taking place.”
But the Republican plan leaves the topic of the ongoing government shutdown unaddressed. A protracted shutdown has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay, and millions more affected by the effects of the fiscal impasse. The shutdown could conceivably drag on longer throughout fiscal negotiations, even as Obama and Republicans work to hammer out an overarching fiscal deal.
Greg Sargent thinks this won’t fly:
This is a neat illustration of the basic disconnect here. GOP leaders won’t allow default — and are explicitly proving it right now by coalescing around a clean debt limit increase. Many conservatives prefer to use the shutdown as leverage against Obamacare. And yet, Republicans still won’t let go of using the debt limit as leverage to force other concessions later because … well, just because.
Meanwhile, some GOP leaders are backing off the idea of winning any substantial concessions on Obamacare, and want to “refocus” on entitlements and broader fiscal issues, while some conservatives want the war on Obamacare (via the shutdown as leverage) to continue. Republicans can’t decide where their real leverage lies, and they can’t agree on what concessions they should be using that leverage — wherever it does lie, if anywhere – to extract.
The new idea appears to be that if Republicans keep the government shutdown status quo alive long enough — deferring default for the time being — then vulnerable Dems will ultimately cave and give up…something. But what? No one knows. And at any rate, all of this chaos will only make it more likely that Dems remain united behind their insistence that there will be no negotiations until threat conditions are lifted.
Although the GOP proposal would be foward movement it would in effect, mean that wealthier Americans and businesses could breathe a sign of relief that (for now) holding a threat over America’s economy would not force the United States into another economic meltdown and create turmoil in international markets — but poorer Americans and those relying on services and money provided by the government would continue to suffer. And it’s conceivable GOPers would threaten a debt default again in six more weeks. Serious or not, the U.S. would likely pay price in international markets due to it appearing political unstable and unreliable (for more than six weeks).
It would be seen by some as preferential treatment to one part of the economy, and, enabling the use of threatening to use by governments shut down or de facto sabatoge of the United States economy to get what could not be achieved in elections, doing the hard work to create winning coalitions in Congress — or even legal rulings. It would indeed mark a turning point which could lead to more alterations away from the majority rule philosophy under which American democracy has functioned for more than 200 years.
This crisis has underscored what’s wrong with the GOP today.
Marc Ambinder, always one of the most on-the-dime political analysts, believes what is unfolding is a Republican revolution — and the revolutionaries have won. Part of his piece in The Week:
With some exceptions, the media has decided that it is well and good to frame the government shutdown as a hostage situation perpetuated by a small band of Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
But is that what’s really going on here?
There are surface similarities. In a hostage scenario, a small band of thugs threaten to harm people unless they get their way….But what’s happening in Washington is not a hostage situation.
For one thing, and this is very important to keep in mind, Republicans are not in any way abusing the rules or breaking the law. Generally, hostage situations are easy to infuse with moral judgments. The bad guys break the law. They have violated norms that everyone has agreed to.
What Republicans are doing is different. They are using the rules in a way that violates traditions and customs. They are breaking an agreed-upon covenant that, at the very least, the government should be open and operating as a precondition for all other political debates, even those about the nature of said government. Moreover, one person — the Speaker of the House — can change the rules on a whim.
This is an important distinction. And it is a distinction, I think, that Republicans who want to hold out are fair to point out. The Tea Party movement was empowered to force the Republican Party to get serious about its own pledges and promises about reducing government.
MORE:
What’s really happening here, I think, is a revolution. It’s not a coup, as tempting as that word might be to those who prefer the old order. A revolution occurs when internal and external circumstances combine to produce a significant change in the way people are governed. A small band of stalwarts usually leads the way. I don’t support this revolution, by the way. I think the potential and actual damage to the American economy is significant. I also think it is simply cruel to take benefits away from people who need them, or to prevent people from getting the help to which they are entitled by law, as well as a basic sense of dignity, to obtain.
The “hostage-takers” have already succeeded in:
1. Closing the government at will;
2. Smashing the hierarchy of one of America’s two major political parties;
3. Redefining the meaning of small government conservatism and significantly changing the expectations of small government conservatives;
4. Cutting the government with a hacksaw;
5. Ensuring their re-election.
Democrats will not be able to participate in the practice of governing until they understand that, to a large extent, their opponents have won.
Read it in full.
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.