“Can You Hear Me Now?”: A Moment Of Real GOP Clarity In The Fiscal Debate
As you regulars know, I’ve been hoping and hoping that reporters will press top Republicans on a simple question: Is there any ratio of entitlement cuts of your choosing to new revenues you’d accept? Three to one? Four to one? Five to one?
Well, John Boehner was asked something very close to that question on ABC News today:
MARTHA RADDATZ: Is there any ratio of entitlement cuts to new revenues that you would –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: The president got his –
MARTHA RADDATZ: — say that the is three to one, four to one –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — tax hikes. The president –
MARTHA RADDATZ: — nothing?
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — got his tax hikes on January the 1st.
MARTHA RADDATZ: So, the answer to –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: He–
MARTHA RADDATZ: — that is no?
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — he ran his election on taxing the wealthy. He got his tax hikes. But he won’t talk about the spending problem and that’s the problem here in Washington.
We’ll take that as a No. House GOP majority whip Kevin McCarthy was also asked that question on NBC today:
DAVID GREGORY: Is there any ratio that you could accept?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: There are no new tax increases because you don’t need it. If you look at this report –
DAVID GREGORY: But you’re never going to get entitlement reform –
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: You’re going to get nothing.
DAVID GREGORY: — without tax increases. Is that political reality?
Again, until we hear otherwise, we’ll take that as a No.
And so it’s now sinking in that: 1) Republicans are not getting the entitlement cuts they want without agreeing to new revenues; and 2) Republicans are explicitly confirming that there is no compromise that is acceptable to them to get the cuts they themselves say they want. The GOP position, with no exaggeration, is that the only way Republican leaders will ever agree to paying down the deficit they say is a threat to American civilization is 100 percent their way; they are not willing to concede anything at all to reach any deal involving new revenues to reduce the deficit, or to get the entitlement reform they want, or to avert sequestration they themselves said will gut the military and tank the economy.
But … but … but … Obama needs to lead and prove he’s Serious by offering still more entitlement cuts than he already has!
Come on. Is the situation clear enough now?
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, The Plum Line, March 17, 2013
“Pernicious GOP Nonsense”: Spending Isn’t The Problem, Austerity Is
Don’t buy the budget hype. Sure it’s fun to ding Paul Ryan for his unrepentant (Election? What election?) budget plan and his Obamacare contortions. (He wants to repeal it, except for its Medicare savings and tax increases, which he was against, then for, then against, and now for again). But here’s the thing about budget resolutions: They’re not laws. They’re not binding. They are, for all intents and purposes glorified, congressionally sanctioned, party platforms.
The great budget debate, in other words, is a philosophical one. And while such arguments are important we shouldn’t let them distract from the real-world policy fights ongoing about how money is actually spent or not spent.
If you’ve paid any attention, for example, you know the GOP’s mantra, that the nation’s problem is spending, which is “out of control.” This is the basis for their entire policy agenda. It’s also pernicious, economically destructive nonsense.
Consider some data points:
Federal spending grew by 0.6 percent from 2009 to 2012, according to Bloomberg. That’s the slowest rate since the Eisenhower years. That’s a novel definition of “out of control.”
Austerity has been the single biggest drag on job growth, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper notes that federal, state, and local governments have cut nearly 750,000 jobs since June 2009. “No other sector comes close to those job losses over the same period,” the Journal reported last week. “Construction is in second worst place, but its 225,000 cuts are less than a third of the government reductions.” The same article figured that without the public-sector job losses, the unemployment rate would be 7.1 percent instead of 7.7 percent. Remember that the next time Republicans react to improving job numbers with statements of yes, but it should be better.
And what good is all this austerity? “Here’s a pretty important fact that virtually everyone in Washington seems oblivious to: The federal deficit has never fallen as fast as it’s falling now without a coincident recession,” Investor’s Business Daily reported last month. Assuming sequestration stays in place, the deficit is expected to shrink by 3.4 percent of the economy between fiscal year 2011 and 2013, and the only other times the budget deficit shrank that quickly—the start of Franklin Roosevelt’s second term, the post-World War II demobilization, 1960-61, and 1969-70—recessions quickly followed.
This isn’t an error; it’s a deliberate policy of austerity monomania, consequences be damned. Remember what John Boehner said weeks after he became speaker: “In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” Boehner said. “If some of those jobs are lost, so be it.” If anything is out of control, it’s the push for spending cuts, which, let’s not forget, is ongoing. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that sequestration—the arbitrary, across-the-board spending cuts which started going into effect two weeks ago—will cost the economy another 750,000 jobs this year if left untouched.
The first couple of weeks of sequestration have produced a strange kind of euphoria on the right as lawmakers and activists alike preen over the cuts (“This was a necessary win for Republicans,” one anonymous GOP aide told National Review Online) while most of the inside-the-beltway attention has focused on whether President Obama oversold the effects of the cuts and criticism over White House tours having been canceled. Republicans run the risk, however, of becoming the proverbial frog in boiling water. At some point the real-world effects of the cuts, slowly building though they may be, will punch through their ideological bubble.
A week into sequestration, the Huffington Post surveyed how local television news reports have covered the cuts. Local stations “did tend to dig more deeply into the ramifications of the cuts, looking at how people around the country … will be affected in their daily lives,” the website reported. Those ramifications included Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, trying to induce retirements in order to avoid having to fire people, while nearly two dozen county employees around Salt Lake City have been fired. It’s not hard to find other grim sequestration stories: Air Force civilian employee furloughs will cost Ohio $111.1 million in lost wages, according to the Dayton Daily News; Customs and Border Protection will start furloughing 60,000 employees in April; the Army, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have suspended tuition assistance programs; control towers in more than 200 general aviation airports nationally are expected to be closed; dairy exports could fall by $500 million, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The list goes on—I know because Democrats have sent out regular roundups of such local news stories to demonstrate that the sequester has teeth. That’s also why Obama’s Organizing for Action grassroots group is collecting citizens’ sequestration stories.
And voters are taking notice, despite what much of Washington seems to think. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday found 53 percent of Americans disapprove of sequestration while an amazing 72 percent disapprove of Republicans in Congress. And by a margin of 47-33, Americans hold that same congressional GOP responsible for the much-maligned spending cuts.
The question now is how long will it take for these feelings to gain discernible political traction. Specifically, will Republicans feel (dangerously) emboldened in August when the next debt ceiling showdown is expected, or will reality have chastened them?
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, March 15, 2013
“Reality Check”: Hey Republicans, There Was An Election And You Lost
On Thursday, the top Democrat in the House made what amounted to a major concession, pronouncing herself open to the idea of reducing Social Security benefits. This moved Nancy Pelosi closer to the position that President Barack Obama, who has already put out a plan that includes chained-CPI, has staked out in pursuit of a deficit reduction “grand bargain” with Republicans. This could make it easier for Obama to convince Senate Republicans, whom he’s begun courting in recent weeks, that he can deliver on a deal that includes real sacrifices on Democratic priorities.
And how does the top Republican in the House fit into this mix? Well, he doesn’t.
In a Thursday interview with the New York Times, Speaker John Boehner said he’s not currently engaged in budget conversations with the White House and suggested the onus is on Obama to move closer to the blueprint that Paul Ryan staked out this week — a 10-year balanced budget plan that the GOP-controlled House will probably adopt in the next week. That Ryan budget offers absolutely nothing in the way of concessions. But for a few cynical accounting tricks, it’s the same plan Ryan presented in 2012 and 2011, one that would turn Medicare into a voucher program, slash taxes on corporations and the wealthy, gut the Affordable Care Act and turn federal programs targeted for the poor into block grants for states to manage. It was this radical rethinking of the size and scope of the federal safety net that played a major role in last year’s election, with Democrats warning voters that the Ryan plan would be implemented if Republicans gained control of the executive and legislative branches.
In other words, House Republicans — and their leader — haven’t budged at all on fiscal issues since the election, even though the results were humbling for their party. Sure, they provided a scattering of votes for the New Year’s Eve fiscal cliff deal that raised income tax rates on high-end earners, but a) that was because they were up against a Jan. 1 deadline that would have triggered across-the-board tax hikes for all earners if no deal was reached; and b) the majority of House Republicans still voted against that package. And since that deal was enacted, the determination of House Republicans to stop any further revenue increases — even those involving loopholes and deductions, not income tax rates — has only intensified. The president already got his tax hikes, the GOP talking point goes, and now he wants more?
The reason Obama wants more, of course, is that he and most of his party (and, truth be told, a number of Republicans) would like to turn off the sequester, which went into effect on March 1 when the two parties failed to reach agreement on a replacement plan. The stumbling block was simple: Republicans were adamant in opposing a “balanced” deal with a revenue component. Many of them also claimed that Obama wasn’t serious about cutting entitlement spending, even though the president produced the above-referenced plan, which included Social Security benefits cuts. It’s clear that, for the time being anyway, House Republicans are completely uninterested in striking a fiscal deal with Obama, unless the deal is that he goes along with everything they want.
What’s so striking — and, some might say, galling — about this is that Republicans lost pretty badly in the most recent election. No, it wasn’t en epic LBJ ’64-style wipeout, but the party spent 2011 and 2012 convinced that the rotten economy would compel voters to fire Obama, restore Republican control of the Senate and boost the GOP’s House majority. But none of that happened. As I wrote last week, it can sometimes feel like Republicans actually won the election. The problem is mainly centered in the House, although the Senate has more than its share of problems, and can be explained by two main factors:
1. Geography
The average House Republican represents a district that is older, whiter and more Republican-friendly than the country as a whole. Gerrymandering is typically cited as the reason for this, but it’s a red herring. The real problem is that the core Democratic vote — a rising majority of nonwhites, millennials, single women and college-educated professionals — is tightly bunched in metropolitan areas. They account for massive majorities in a relatively small number of congressional districts. Suburban, exurban and rural areas, by contrast, tend to be populated by more Republican-friendly voters, who are more widely dispersed. Thus, it’s not uncommon in big states for Democrats to enjoy clear majorities in statewide elections even as Republicans gobble up the majority of House seats. Barring the kind of anti-Republican wave elections we saw in 2006 and 2008, this dynamic should persist through the next decade, ensuring Republican control of the House. The Republicans in these districts are mostly immune to the cultural and demographic changes that hurt their party at the national level in 2012; thus, the same reflexively anti-tax/anti-government/anti-Obama hysteria that sold in these areas before November 2012 still sells today — making it likely that these districts will send to Washington either a) true believer Tea Party-type congressmen and -women, who win their seats simply by running far to the right in the GOP primary; or b) secretly pragmatic Republicans who adopt the rhetoric and voting habits of the Tea Party crowd for the sake of their own political survival.
2. The powerless speaker
A case can be made that Boehner’s skills as a House leader are underappreciated. There’s something to this, but it’s an argument that amounts to a backhanded compliment — that Boehner, by routinely looking the other way as his party worsens its public image and subjecting himself to the occasional high-profile indignity, is able to build just enough clout to steer the House GOP away from complete catastrophe when he absolutely has to. There’s an art to this, all right, and I guess you could say Boehner is good at it. But that’s really the limit of his power as speaker. The problem is that the conservative movement has never trusted him and has been looking for the moment he sells them out from the second he claimed the speaker’s gavel in 2011. This has imposed some humiliating limits on him — forcing Boehner, for instance, to walk away at the 11th hour from grand bargain negotiations with Obama in the summer of ’11 and compelling him to promise Republicans a few months ago that he wouldn’t attempt any more one-on-one negotiations with the president.
So when it comes to Obama’s current quest for a grand bargain, there’s really nothing for Boehner to do but repeat the right’s familiar attacks on Obama for always wanting to raise taxes and never wanting to cut spending. Never mind, of course, that Obama has already signed off on $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction and is seeking $1.2 trillion more with his grand bargain crusade, and that most of that money is from spending cuts. Acknowledging that would destroy whatever credibility Boehner now has with the conservative base, and make it impossible for him to push any kind of deal through the House without being dethroned. So he bashes away, pretends the problem is Obama’s inflexible liberalism and waits. What the endgame is is unclear. It may just be that Boehner is hoping to keep the GOP conference from pursuing a debt ceiling showdown in May. Or maybe he’s hoping that after a few more months of bashing Obama, he just might have clearance to put a Senate-passed grand bargain on the House floor and to allow it to pass mainly with Democratic votes. Or he may think none of this is possible — and may mainly be interested in patching up the damage the fiscal cliff deal did to his standing with the right.
The key here is that Boehner oversees a Republican conference whose members do not, generally speaking, feel any personal pressure to respond to the Democrats’ big national victory last November. In the America where they leave, Obama and the national Democratic Party are as reviled now as they were before Election Day.
By: Steve Kornacki, Salon, March 15, 2013
“Riding The Bench” John Boehner Still Waiting For Others To “Lead”
When it comes to power in Washington, John Boehner isn’t exactly a hapless schlub, at least not on paper. He’s the Speaker of the House, second in the presidential line of succession, and ostensibly the most powerful member of the legislative branch of government. He has a powerful megaphone, a sizable House majority, and the capacity to have an enormous impact on policymaking.
And yet, John Boehner believes leadership is something others should show. In his new Washington Post op-ed on the larger budget fight, the House Speaker is giving new meaning to the phrase “leading from behind.”
The problem, in large part, is that Democrats refuse to make the tough choices necessary to solve our long-term debt crisis…. [P]residential leadership is really what’s needed.
Needed for what? Well, according to Boehner, he’d like to see President Obama cut spending the way Republicans want, cut entitlements the way Republicans want, balance the budget the way Republicans want, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline the way Republicans want.
And if Obama disagrees, he’s not making “tough choices” and failing to show “leadership.”
Left unsaid: John Boehner, despite his power and authority, isn’t leading, doesn’t want to lead, has no intention of leading, and doesn’t even know how to lead — which is precisely why he keeps waiting for the White House and Senate to do the real work while Boehner waits patiently (or as evidenced by this op-ed, perhaps not so patiently) on the sidelines.
Let’s make this easy for the Speaker: (1) Name one budget issue on which you and your party are prepared to compromise; (2) Name one concession you and your party are willing to accept in exchange for a related Democratic concession.
If the answer to either of these is questions is a blank stare, then the Speaker of the House has no business calling himself a leader of anyone or anything.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 14, 2013
“Reaching Out, Finding Nothing”: Remind Me Again Of How All The President Has To Do Is “Lead” & Offer Good-Faith Compromises
It’s hard to blame President Obama for at least making an effort. For four years, he took a variety of steps — some social, some formal, some professional — to establish relationships with congressional Republicans. The outreach didn’t amount to much.
But it appears the president, either out of necessity or stubbornness, will continue his newly revamped charm offensive, including a trip to Capitol Hill for another round of budget talks. It’s clearly intended as a major gesture on Obama’s part — presidents usually summon lawmakers to the White House, not head to Capitol Hill for meetings on lawmakers’ turf.
Time will tell, obviously, whether the efforts pay dividends, but the New York Times has an interesting report today on the ineffectiveness of recent outreach, including a great anecdote I hadn’t heard before.
For all the attention to President Obama’s new campaign of outreach to Republicans, it was four months ago — on the eve of bipartisan budget talks — that he secretly invited five of them to the White House for a movie screening with the stars of “Lincoln,” the film about that president’s courtship of Congress to pass a significant measure.
None accepted.
For all the pundits who complain bitterly that Obama hasn’t done enough to schmooze with lawmakers, doesn’t an anecdote like this suggest the problem is not entirely the president’s fault? Are we to believe that all five — invited in secret so they wouldn’t have to take heat from Fox or the GOP base — were all washing their hair that night?
On a more substantive note, the piece also included this key piece of information:
What spurred Mr. Obama to reach out to rank-and-file Republicans with a flurry of phone calls, meals and now Capitol visits were the recent announcements by their leaders — Speaker John A. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — that they will no longer negotiate with Mr. Obama on budget policy as long as he keeps demanding more tax revenues as the condition for Democrats’ support of reduced spending on Medicare and other entitlement programs.
This is important. Congressional Republican leaders are now saying they won’t even talk to the president unless Obama agrees — before any meetings even take place — to give them what they want. In other words, when the White House announces that all efforts at deficit reduction in the coming years will include literally nothing but 100% spending cuts, then GOP leaders will be prepared to negotiate with the president.
Please, Beltway pundits, remind me again how all the president has to do to resolve political paralysis is “lead” and offer good-faith compromises.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 12, 2013
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