Reckless And Scandalous: ‘A Gamble Where You Bet Your Country’s Good Name’
I can’t help but think the vast majority of the public just doesn’t fully appreciate what’s transpiring here.
We’re dealing, after all, with fairly obscure legal mechanisms. Most Americans don’t know what the federal debt ceiling is, and in fairness, they’ve never had to. It’s a law that was approved more than eight decades ago, and hasn’t been particularly controversial or even relevant since. Policymakers have always realized they have an obligation — legal, economic, moral, and otherwise — to do the right thing.
The United States is like the Lannisters: we always pay our debts. And in the case of the debt ceiling, we’re talking about money we’ve already spent — this is the equivalent of getting a credit card bill for charges we’ve already made. The entirety of the Republican Party — in the House, in the Senate, among its presidential candidates — has said it might pay the bill, but only if Democrats agree to take trillions of dollars out of a fragile economy.
And if Democrats don’t do enough to make Republicans happy, GOP officials will simply refuse to do their duty. They know the consequences would be severe for the nation and the world. They apparently don’t care.
Americans almost certainly can’t appreciate the extent to which they’ve made a tragic mistake. Voters perceived the Republican Party has a conservative governing party, capable of responsible center-right governance, and rewarded the GOP handsomely in 2010. What voters probably didn’t understand are the similarities between today’s Republican Party and a not-terribly-bright organized-crime family, run entirely by petulant children.
The Economist, a conservative publication, had a fascinating editorial this week, explaining that Republicans are creating a crisis, on purpose, for no reason. The United States has a manageable debt, low interest rates, low inflation, and the ability to borrow on the cheap. But because right-wing extremists are chiseling away at our political system, we’re quickly approaching a point of no return.
The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical.
This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so.
And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look…. Both parties have in recent months been guilty of fiscal recklessness. Right now, though, the blame falls clearly on the Republicans.
The Economist added that this is “a gamble where you bet your country’s good name.”
I suspect there are many saying, “We get it; they’re reckless.” But that’s not enough — no one given this much power is supposed to be this reckless. Republicans gained power because voters were frustrated with high unemployment, and yet GOP leaders are threatening to deliberately create a crisis that would make unemployment much worse. And the breaking point is very soon.
All of this could go away in a heartbeat. Republicans could do, today, exactly what they did repeatedly during the Bush years: simply vote to raise the debt ceiling in a clean bill and move on. The entire process could take literally a few minutes.
But GOP officials don’t want to. They want to play a game in which the entire world could lose.
How is this not the biggest political scandal in modern American history? How is it that those who claim the high ground on patriotism could put our financial well being on the line, on purpose, when they don’t have to?
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, Washington Monthly, July 10, 2011
Speaker Boehner Abandons His Own Debt-Reduction Goal
President Obama and congressional Democrats were prepared to move forward on an ambitious Grand Bargain, which would have achieved more than $4 trillion in debt reduction over the next decade. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) embraced the White House’s goal and believed he was a strong enough leader to deliver on the agreement.
Yesterday, Boehner realized he’s not nearly as strong a Speaker as he’d hoped.
House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more modest package offers the only politically realistic path to avoiding a default on the mounting national debt.
On the eve of a critical White House summit on the debt issue, Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama that their plan to “go big,” in the speaker’s words, and forge a compromise that would save more than $4 trillion over the next decade, was crumbling under Obama’s insistence on significant new tax revenue. […]
Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked….
The conventional wisdom suggests Republicans, who falsely believe we’re in the midst of some sort of debt crisis, are desperate to slash the deficit and bring the budget closer to balance. The conventional wisdom is, and has been, entirely wrong — Republicans care about keeping taxes on the wealthy low. Every other priority is a distant second.
Obama was willing to go big, even at the risk of infuriating his own base. In the process, the GOP was presented with a test: when faced with a historic opportunity on an issue they claim to care about, are Republicans willing to accept some sensible, popular concessions in order to cut the debt by more than $4 trillion? Is the GOP ready to rise to the occasion?
Yesterday, Republican leaders replied, “No, we’re not.”
Of course, this appears to take one possible solution to the debt-ceiling standoff off the table, but it doesn’t change the fact that a solution is still a necessity.
As talks at the White House reconvene today, focus will shift towards a $2.4 trillion package, more in line with the plan produced by the Biden-led talks. This should, in theory, be easier to achieve, though you’ll recall that GOP leaders abandoned those negotiation two weeks ago, when Democrats said the agreement couldn’t be 100% to 0% in Republicans’ favor.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Political Animal-Washington Monthly, July 10, 2011
“That’s Why They’re Called Leaders”: Congressional Republicans Need To Do Their Job
One of the more common Republican criticisms of President Obama, at least in the context of the debt-reduction talks, is that he hasn’t shown enough “leadership.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the floor late last week to cry, “Where in the world has the president been for the last month? … He’s the one in charge.”
One of the parts of Obama’s press conference this morning that I especially liked was the president’s pushback against the notion that he’s been a passive observer in this process.
“I’ve got to say, I’m very amused when I start hearing comments about, ‘Well, the president needs to show more leadership on this.’ Let me tell you something. Right after we finished dealing with the government shutdown, averting a government shutdown, I called the leaders here together. I said we’ve got to get this done. I put Vice President Biden in charge of a process — that, by the way, has made real progress — but these guys have met, worked through all of these issues. I met with every single caucus for an hour to an hour and a half each — Republican senators, Democratic senators; Republican House, Democratic House. I’ve met with the leaders multiple times. At a certain point, they need to do their job.
“And so, this thing, which is just not on the level, where we have meetings and discussions, and we’re working through process, and when they decide they’re not happy with the fact that at some point you’ve got to make a choice, they just all step back and say, ‘Well, you know, the president needs to get this done.’ They need to do their job.
“Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices. That’s why they’re called leaders…. They’re in one week, they’re out one week. And then they’re saying, ‘Obama has got to step in.’ You need to be here. I’ve been here. I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let’s get it done.”
I’m glad the president pressed this, not just because he sounded a bit like Truman slamming the do-nothing Congress, but because many in the media have bought into the notion that lawmakers have dug in on this, and the president hasn’t. That’s nonsense.
Congressional Republicans haven’t been slaving away, trying to strike a credible deal. They’ve been making threats, drawing lines in the sand, and barking orders about what is and is not allowed to be on the negotiating table.
“They need to do their job.” Part of those responsibilities includes working in good faith to find an equitable compromise with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House, and then doing what they must do, but what the president cannot do: passing the damn debt-ceiling increase.
Tick tock.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, June 29, 2011
‘Illusions Of Grandeur’: The Richly Earned Humiliation Of Newt Gingrich
If his goal when he officially launched his presidential candidacy last month was to inflict a massive amount of humiliation on himself in as short a time as possible, then Newt Gingrich has succeeded spectacularly.
After an epically botched campaign roll-out — which included accusations of ideological treason from influential conservatives and a nationally televised exchange with an Iowa voter who called him “an embarrassment to our party” and urged him to quit the race “before you make a bigger fool of yourself” — Gingrich was left struggling to explain how he and his wife racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at Tiffany’s jewelers. Then he randomly took off on a vacation (a lavish Greek cruise, it turned out), and now he’s returned to find that virtually his entire staff has quit.
Does this latest development change the presidential race in any significant way? Not really. Since even before his month from hell, Gingrich had no realistic chance of winning the GOP nomination, and not since the 1990s has he been a significant force on the right. Most conservative activists and opinion-shapers long ago tuned him out.
But much of the political media world never quite figured this out, instead treating Gingrich for the last decade as an enduring relevant national leader. The instinct was understandable: The celebrity (and notoriety) he attained during his mid-’90s stint as House Speaker never fully faded, and he could always be counted on for a lively, provocative quote or two.
This is the promise of Gingrich’s amazing crash-and-burn as a White House candidate (I know, he says he’s staying in despite the staff defections): that it might compel the political media to realize that the emperor has no clothes.
The reality is that Gingrich’s serious career in elected politics lasted for 20 years and ended in 1998.
He spent the first 16 of those years clawing his way through his party’s House ranks, finally reaching the top spot just as the ideal circumstances — complete Democratic control of Washington for the first time since the Carter administration, a profoundly unpopular president, and a ton of low-hanging fruit in the South — presented themselves for a Republican takeover of the House. The midterm election of 1994 made Gingrich Speaker of the House.
The tactics he employed during that rise could be devious. Early on, he formed the Conservative Opportunity Society with about a dozen fellow far-right GOP members. They pushed their party’s leadership toward a more confrontational posture and engaged in harsh and highly personal attacks on their Democratic colleagues.
In one episode in 1984, Gingrich used an after-hours “special orders” speech on the House floor to read off the names of ten Democrats who had written a letter to Daniel Ortega, whose Sandinistas had seized control of the country in 1979, urging him to hold democratic elections and to allow expatriates to return to vote. The ten, Gingrich said, had “undercut and crippled” U.S. foreign policy; he suggested they be prosecuted under the Logan Act of 1798, which gives the president the right to conduct foreign policy. Upon learning of this, Speaker Tip O’Neill confronted Gingrich on the floor, calling his attack “the lowest thing I’ve seen in my 32 years in Congress.”
In 1989, Gingrich edged out Edward Madigan, the candidate preferred by Robert Michel, the pragmatic House GOP leader, to become minority whip, then the No. 2 position on the Republican side. Four years later, in the run-up to the 1994 election, Michel announced that he’d retire. Officially, it was his decision, but Gingrich was breathing down his neck. The GOP conference was increasingly filled with confrontational conservatives who preferred Gingrich’s style.
His four-year run as Speaker proved disastrous, for Gingrich personally and for his party. His own obnoxious style — when a South Carolina woman drowned her children in a horrifying late 1994 incident, Gingrich called it a sign of society’s breakdown and proof that people needed to vote Republican — alienated all but the most hardcore Republicans. And his eagerness to force a government shutdown over a GOP plan to slash Medicare spending gave President Clinton and Democrats a winning issue in 1996, when nearly 20 Republican incumbents lost their seats and the GOP barely held the House. Shortly after that, Gingrich held off an attempted coup from a band of frustrated but incompetent House Republicans. Then he made things worse for his party by leading an impeachment drive against Clinton in 1998 (even, as we later learned, while engaging in an extramarital affair himself), which backfired and led to shocking Democratic gains in that year’s midterms.
It was then that Gingrich took his massive unpopularity and walked off the political stage, knowing that his party was ready to throw him off if he didn’t make the first move. From that moment on, the party’s elites — elected officials, activists, interest group leaders, and opinion-shaping commentators — have had little use for him. But the media has been a different story. A few years after his demise as Speaker, Gingrich reemerged and was quickly welcomed back into every green room in America. Convinced he’d been rehabilitated, he began making noise about seeking the presidency, first in the run-up to the 2008 race and then again this time. His taste for ugly, personalized attacks hadn’t faded, either, something he’s shown over and over during the Obama presidency.
But the idea that he was a real player in politics was an illusion, something that’s become clear during the month-long Gingrich candidacy. Most of the important figures in the Republican Party never had any interest in seeing him run for president. There have been few endorsements, donors have shunned him, and conservative activists and commentators have amplified every one of his embarrassments.
Even with his staff quitting on him, Gingrich insists he’ll stay in the race. We’ll see how long that lasts. One way or the other, he’ll soon be taking the same walk of shame off the political stage that he took 13 years ago. This time, let’s hope it’s for good.
By: Steve Kornacki, News Editor, Salon, June 10, 2011
No Swagger: Osama bin Laden’s Killing Vindicates Obama’s Approach
It was a very different Barack Obama who stood in the White House late Sunday to deliver the astounding and satisfying news that Osama bin Laden was dead. Or was it?
Obama was derided during the 2008 presidential campaign for saying he would be willing to go into Pakistan unilaterally to nab the hateful and hated leader of al Qaeda. The idea was naïve at best, diplomatically disastrous at worst, his opponents said. Obama’s calm tones, lack of swagger, and professed desire to repair relationships with the rest of the world—the Muslim world, in particular—were used as a weapon to portray him as weak, someone who would not possess the cool-headedness to destroy the most cold hearted of mass murderers. And yet, Obama, with the able help of U.S. intelligence and military minds and bodies, pulled it off brilliantly, and in a manner entirely keeping with the personage he offered during the campaign.
For most of us, the mere fact of bin Laden’s death would be enough. But the way the operation unfolded was virtually perfect: bin Laden was hunted down by U.S. forces and shot in the head—not killed in an air strike or explosion, but in a manner in which we can presume that bin Laden, in his final moments, knew that it was American troops who would personally take his life. No U.S. troops were killed, and civilian casualties (except, possibly, for the unidentified woman bin Laden used as a human shield) avoided. His body was identified by DNA, preemptively silencing any “deathers” who would circulate rumors that it was all just a public relations stunt and a lie. Bin Laden’s body was disposed of at sea—to avert the need to find a country willing to bury him, and to avoid having his grave site used as a rallying spot for al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers. He was buried quickly, in Muslim tradition, averting criticism that the United States was being insensitive to the religion. Pakistan, which Obama said cooperated in the mission, but which apparently did not know the details of it until it was done, has not accused the United States of any invasion of sovereignty.
In his White House address, the serious-faced president avoided showing any glee over bin Laden’s death, although he surely was as happy about it as the rest of America. Nor did he take a cheap political victory lap, declaring “mission accomplished” against terrorism; in fact, the president rightly warned, the nation needs to be on alert for any retaliatory attacks. He reiterated that the United States is not at war with Islam, but with terrorism. There was no comment, implicit or otherwise, that he had managed to achieve what former President Bush had failed to do—to get bin Laden. Obama had the good manners to call Bush personally to tell him of the feat, and Bush responded in his statement with grace.
Obama lacks Bush’s aggressive style and provocative rhetoric. That does not mean he is weak or was less determined to get bin Laden. And while the president had not mentioned bin Laden much in public recently, that does not mean the administration wasn’t working on it. Similarly, while the Bush administration did not manage to kill or capture bin Laden, we have no way of knowing how many major attacks the previous administration defused.
Obama on Sunday night might have shown some of his critics a side they didn’t think existed, that of a determined commander in chief. But that was exactly the approach Obama presented during the campaign. It was just that his opponents didn’t think he could pull it off. He did—and the fact that Obama is not hanging a “Mission Accomplished” banner across the East Room makes the feat even more impressive.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, May 2, 2011
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