“See You In Hell Orange Man”: President Obama Should Have A “Come To Jesus” Talk With John Boehner
So at the risk of getting ahead of myself here just a bit, the appropriations crisis is merging with the debt limit crisis. And as everybody’s favorite source for GOP thinking, National Review‘s Robert Costa, tells us today, John Boehner is determined not to relent on what just about everyone is calling an insanely untenable position on the CR because he’s got to keep GOPers together for the real ball game, the debt limit. Why? Kathleen Parker says that’s the rainbow that yielded a pot of gold for Boehner last time it appeared:
What Republicans hope to accomplish by tying demands to the debt ceiling is a grand bargain to include a package of entitlement and tax reform. Sound familiar? The president can refuse to negotiate, but at 3 a.m. when the phone rings and it’s Angela Merkel inquiring just what the hell is going on, it won’t be John Boehner’s phone ringing. It will be President Obama’s. That’s leverage. During the last debt-ceiling battle, Boehner managed to secure more than $2 trillion in cuts and no taxes.
So the conviction that Obama will eventually cave on the debt limit is what is making it possible for Boehner to walk the path Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint and their House minions have laid out for him.
Now I don’t know anything about the president’s relationship with Boehner. But it’s becoming a matter of national security for him to find some way to take him aside, maybe give the Speaker a cigarette from his secret stash, and say: “I will see you in Hell before I negotiate over the debt limit. And if you let a default happen, I will devote the rest of my presidency to making sure you, personally, bear the blame, and go down in history with our most despised traitors and criminals. For generations, little school children in Ohio will cross themselves and make hex signs when your name is mentioned. So do not, do not, go back and tell your crazy people they can win if they just stick together.”
This sort of attitude adjustment needs to happen sooner rather than later, before Boehner takes another step down the path he is currently contemplating.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 2, 2013
“This Madness Will Never End”: So Long As There’s A Democrat In The White House, The Fever Will Never Break
I wish I could write something optimistic as we begin the government shutdown. I wish I could, but I can’t. In fact, this morning I can’t help but feel something close to despair. It isn’t that this shutdown won’t be resolved, because it will. It will be resolved in the only way it can: when John Boehner allows a vote on a “clean CR,” a continuing resolution that funds the government without attacking the Affordable Care Act. It could happen in a week or two, whenever the political cost of the shutdown becomes high enough for Boehner to finally find the courage to say no to the Tea Partiers in his caucus. That CR will pass with mostly Democratic votes, and maybe the result will be a revolt against Boehner that leads to him losing the speakership (or maybe not; as some have argued, Boehner’s job could be safe simply because no one else could possibly want it).
But the reason for my despair isn’t about this week or this month. It’s the fact that this period in our political history—the period of lurching from absurd crisis to absurd crisis, with no possibility of passing a budget let alone legislation to address any serious problems we face, with a cowardly Republican leadership held hostage by a group of insane political terrorists who think it’s a tragedy if a poor person gets health insurance and it’s a great day when you kick a kid off food stamps, a period where this collection of extremists and fools, these people who think the likes of Michele Bachmann and Steve King are noble and wise leaders—this awful, horrific period in our history, when these are the people who control the country’s fate, looks like it will never end.
OK, so “never” is an exaggeration. But does anyone see how it could end as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House, whether it’s Barack Obama or anyone else? Once the shutdown is over, we’re going to do it all over again with the debt ceiling in less than three weeks. And the CRs the House and Senate are passing back and forth now only fund the government for six weeks, meaning we could have a shutdown, followed by a debt ceiling crisis, followed by another shutdown. Whenever the next CR expires, we’ll do it again, and we’ll do it again the next time the debt ceiling has to be raised.
According to conservative reporter Byron York, this whole thing is being driven by 30 of the most radical GOP House members. And nothing will convince them that what they’re doing is crazy and wrong. Nothing. They’re zealots. They don’t care if the country suffers and they don’t care if their party suffers. They have an ideology that tells them that the only important things are fighting government and fighting Barack Obama, by any means necessary. If you can’t win at the ballot box, and you can’t win in the ordinary legislative process, and you can’t win at the Supreme Court, then it’ll have to be blackmail. And if that doesn’t work, then they’ll find some other method.
In June of last year, Obama expressed the belief that if he was re-elected, “the fever may break, because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that.” Once booting him from office was no longer a possibility, they’d settle down and oppose him in the ordinary way opposition parties oppose presidents, not in this insane berserker rage they’ve been gripped by since January of 2009. I don’t know if he actually believed that, or if he was just trying to be optimistic. But it was never going to happen. That’s not only because of their white-hot hatred of him, but also because, generally speaking, the crazier a Republican member of Congress is, the less they have to worry about political consequences from their craziness. The most radical members come from the most conservative districts, where the only question determining who gets elected is which candidate in a Republican primary is the most extreme, hates Barack Obama the most, and can talk with the most contempt about liberals and government and all the “thems” his constituents despise so much.
And even if the shutdown turns out to be a disaster for the GOP as a whole, those Tea Party members are going to be 100 percent sure that the only problem was that Republicans didn’t fight hard enough. They’ll come out of it more convinced than ever that government is evil and Democrats are the enemies of all that is right and good, and the good Lord himself put them in Congress to fight liberals and obstruct Obama and undermine government and scratch and bite and kick and scream. And that’s what they’re going to continue to do as long as they are privileged to serve.
Their fever will never break. Never. The only thing that will give it a temporary respite is if a Republican becomes president, at which time they’ll decide that crises aren’t such a great tool after all. Their nihilistic rage will be put away, behind a glass door with the words “Break in case of Democratic president” written on it. And then it will start all over again.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 2, 2013
“Obamacare Sabotage Becomes Murder”: U.S. Federal Government Shuts Down
The United States federal government shut down for the first time in 17 years on Tuesday, as Congress failed to end a bitter budget row after hours of dizzying brinkmanship.
Ten minutes before midnight, the White House budget office issued an order for many government departments to start closing down, triggering 800,000 furloughs of federal workers, and shutting tourists out of monuments like the Statue of Liberty, national parks and museums.
Prospects for a swift resolution were unclear and economists warned that the struggling U.S. economic recovery could suffer if the shutdown drags on for more than just a few days.
Only workers deemed essential will be at their desks from Tuesday onwards, leaving government departments like the White House with skeleton staff.
Vital functions like mail delivery and air traffic control will continue as normal, however.
On a day of dysfunction and ugly rhetoric in the divided U.S. political system, Republicans had repeatedly tied new government funding to attempts to defund, delay or dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
But each time their effort was killed by Obama’s allies in the Democratic-led Senate, leaving the government in limbo when its money ran out at the end of the fiscal year at midnight Monday.
“This is an unnecessary blow to America,” a somber Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor two minutes after the witching hour.
A few hours into the shutdown, Republicans in the House appointed delegates, or conferees, to try to negotiate with the Senate later Tuesday on a spending plan to get the government up and running again.
But if they still want to tinker with Obamacare, the Senate will not negotiate, an aide to Reid said.
“If the House follows through with their current plan, the Senate will vote to table the House’s conference gambit shortly after convening. And we will be back at square one,” the aide said.
Obama, heralding the first government shutdown since 1996, told U.S. troops in a video that they deserved better from Congress, and promised to work to get the government reopened soon.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Obama’s budget director, said agencies should execute plans for an “orderly shutdown”, and urged Congress to swiftly pass bridge financing that would allow the government to open again.
Obama earlier accused Republicans of holding America to ransom with their “extreme” political demands, while his opponents struck back at his party’s supposed arrogance.
House Speaker John Boehner rebuked Obama in a fiery floor speech after an unproductive call with the president.
“I didn’t come here to shut down the government,” Boehner said. “The American people don’t want a shutdown, and neither do I.”
Republicans accuse Obama of refusing to negotiate in good faith, but the White House says Obamacare is settled law and says there is no way to stop it from going into force, with a goal of providing affordable health care to all Americans.
The crisis is rooted in the long running campaign by “Tea Party” Republicans in the House to overturn or disable Obamacare — the president’s principal domestic political achievement — key portions of which also come into force on Tuesday.
More broadly, the shutdown is the most serious crisis yet in a series of rolling ideological skirmishes between Democrat Obama and House Republicans over the size of the U.S. government and its role in national life.
“One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to re-fight the results of an election,” Obama said, referring to his own re-election. He spoke in a televised statement from the White House.
Obama warned that a government shutdown could badly damage an economy which has endured a sluggish recovery from the worst recession in decades.
“A shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away. Past shutdowns have disrupted the economy significantly,” Obama said.
Consultants Macroeconomic Advisors said it would slow growth, recorded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the second quarter.
A two-week shutdown would cut 0.3 percentage point off of gross domestic production.
It would also have a painful personal impact on workers affected — leaving them to dip into savings or delay mortgage payments, monthly car loan bills and other spending.
Stocks on Monday retreated as traders braced for the shutdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 128.57 points (0.84 percent) to 15,129.67.
Markets are likely to be even more traumatized if there is no quick solution to the next fast approaching crisis.
Republicans are also demanding Obama make concessions in the health care law to secure a lifting of the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling, without which the United States would begin to default on its debts for the first time in history by the middle of October.
By: AFP, The National Memo, October 1, 2013
“A Series Of Near-Death Experiences”: Republicans Threatening National Harm Every Few Months
Against the backdrop of a government-shutdown deadline, Karen Tumulty noted yesterday the “cumulative effect of almost three years of governing by near-death experience.” It’s phrasing that rings true for a reason — since Republicans retook the House majority in January 2011, no major legislation has become law, but we have endured quite a few crises.
In April 2011, congressional Republicans threatened a government shutdown. In July 2011, congressional Republicans created the first debt-ceiling crisis in American history. In September 2011, congressional Republicans threatened a government shutdown. In April 2012, congressional Republicans threatened a government shutdown. In December 2012, congressional Republicans pushed the nation towards the so-called “fiscal cliff.” In January 2013, congressional Republicans briefly flirted with the possibility of another debt-ceiling crisis. In March 2013, congressional Republicans threatened a government shutdown. And right now, in September 2013, the odds of a government shutdown are quite good once again.
That’s eight self-imposed, entirely unnecessary, easily avoidable crises since John Boehner got his hands on the Speaker’s gavel — a 33-month period in which Congress racked up zero major legislative accomplishments.
Josh Marshall had a good item on the trend over the weekend.
Years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase ‘defining deviancy down.’ James Q. Wilson popularized the conceptually related “broken windows” theory of crime and crime prevention. Whether or not these theories and catch phrases work as sociology is separate question; subsequent research has not been kind. But they capture the toxic consequences of the normalization and expanded acceptance of destructive behavior — something that not only applies to individuals and communities but to states and their internal workings. Stepping back from the latest Washington debacle, you quickly see how far down this road we’ve gone without really even realizing it.
It has started to feel normal that two or three times a year we have a major state/fiscal crisis and maybe once every 18 months or two years, there is a true breakdown with fairly grave consequences….. [T]his is really unprecedented stuff — deep attacks on the state itself inasmuch as the state requires for it to function a penumbra of norms surrounding the formal mechanisms of government.
Quite right. In fact, I think it creates unsettling conditions and raises uncomfortable questions about the future of the American experiment.
Put simply, great nations can’t function this way. The United States can either be a 21st-century superpower or it can tolerate Republicans abandoning the governing process and subjecting Americans to a series of self-imposed extortion crises. It cannot do both.
We can be the indispensable nation — we can even be a shining city on a hill — but not with a radicalized major party that throws seasonal tantrums that threaten the nation’s wellbeing. The cost is simply too great.
In the abstract, I imagine Americans who don’t pay attention to day-to-day developments have come to expect routine gridlock and partisan bickering. Democrats and Republicans arguing is arguably the ultimate in dog-bites-man stories.
But those same Americans should search their memories: have they ever seen a governing party threaten five government shutdowns in less than three years, while sprinkling two debt-ceiling crises on top?
The American tradition has no experience with our own elected officials imposing deliberate crises on the nation — as if one of our major political parties is mad at us and feels the need to punish us for offending them.
I realize Republicans consider the Affordable Care Act an example of such profound outrage that they have no choice but to threaten Americans on purpose. I can’t begin to fathom why they hate a moderate law based on Republican principles with such wild-eyed contempt, but it’s currently the world we live in.
My suggestion to them, however, is that they introduce legislation that would deliver their preferred goals. If it passes, they’ll get what they want. If it fails, they can try winning more elections. Either way, watching Republican officials — ostensibly elected to advance our interests — threaten national harm every few months has quite tiresome.
By: Steve benen, The Maddow Blog, September 30, 2013
“Rebels Without A Clue”: Republicans Are Delusional About Both Economics And Politics
This may be the way the world ends — not with a bang but with a temper tantrum.
O.K., a temporary government shutdown — which became almost inevitable after Sunday’s House vote to provide government funding only on unacceptable conditions — wouldn’t be the end of the world. But a U.S. government default, which will happen unless Congress raises the debt ceiling soon, might cause financial catastrophe. Unfortunately, many Republicans either don’t understand this or don’t care.
Let’s talk first about the economics.
After the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 many observers concluded that such events, while clearly bad, aren’t catastrophes: essential services continue, and the result is a major nuisance but no lasting harm. That’s still partly true, but it’s important to note that the Clinton-era shutdowns took place against the background of a booming economy. Today we have a weak economy, with falling government spending one main cause of that weakness. A shutdown would amount to a further economic hit, which could become a big deal if the shutdown went on for a long time.
Still, a government shutdown looks benign compared with the possibility that Congress might refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
First of all, hitting the ceiling would force a huge, immediate spending cut, almost surely pushing America back into recession. Beyond that, failure to raise the ceiling would mean missed payments on existing U.S. government debt. And that might have terrifying consequences.
Why? Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe asset; the assumption that America will always honor its debts is the bedrock on which the world financial system rests. In particular, Treasury bills — short-term U.S. bonds — are what investors demand when they want absolutely solid collateral against loans. Treasury bills are so essential for this role that in times of severe stress they sometimes pay slightly negative interest rates — that is, they’re treated as being better than cash.
Now suppose it became clear that U.S. bonds weren’t safe, that America couldn’t be counted on to honor its debts after all. Suddenly, the whole system would be disrupted. Maybe, if we were lucky, financial institutions would quickly cobble together alternative arrangements. But it looks quite possible that default would create a huge financial crisis, dwarfing the crisis set off by the failure of Lehman Brothers five years ago.
No sane political system would run this kind of risk. But we don’t have a sane political system; we have a system in which a substantial number of Republicans believe that they can force President Obama to cancel health reform by threatening a government shutdown, a debt default, or both, and in which Republican leaders who know better are afraid to level with the party’s delusional wing. For they are delusional, about both the economics and the politics.
On the economics: Republican radicals generally reject the scientific consensus on climate change; many of them reject the theory of evolution, too. So why expect them to believe expert warnings about the dangers of default? Sure enough, they don’t: the G.O.P. caucus contains a significant number of “default deniers,” who simply dismiss warnings about the dangers of failing to honor our debts.
Meanwhile, on the politics, reasonable people know that Mr. Obama can’t and won’t let himself be blackmailed in this way, and not just because health reform is his key policy legacy. After all, once he starts making concessions to people who threaten to blow up the world economy unless they get what they want, he might as well tear up the Constitution. But Republican radicals — and even some leaders — still insist that Mr. Obama will cave in to their demands.
So how does this end? The votes to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling are there, and always have been: every Democrat in the House would vote for the necessary measures, and so would enough Republicans. The problem is that G.O.P. leaders, fearing the wrath of the radicals, haven’t been willing to allow such votes. What would change their minds?
Ironically, considering who got us into our economic mess, the most plausible answer is that Wall Street will come to the rescue — that the big money will tell Republican leaders that they have to put an end to the nonsense.
But what if even the plutocrats lack the power to rein in the radicals? In that case, Mr. Obama will either let default happen or find some way of defying the blackmailers, trading a financial crisis for a constitutional crisis.
This all sounds crazy, because it is. But the craziness, ultimately, resides not in the situation but in the minds of our politicians and the people who vote for them. Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Contributor, The New York Times, September 29, 2013
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