“The Double Play Game”: Do Republicans Believe In Their Own Crisis?
You would think Republicans would be the ones trying to scare the country about the imminent expiration of the Treasury’s borrowing authority. After all, they’re the ones trying to use the debt ceiling (and the government shutdown) as leverage to get their way on policies that would be laughed out of Washington at any other moment.
The leverage only works if the country is really worried about the potential economic catastrophe that would result from a failure to lift the ceiling. In the Republican fantasy, that would pressure Democrats to end health care reform, cut spending on entitlements and say farewell to all their liberal dreams.
But instead, the reverse is happening. It’s Democrats who are warning the country about the unimaginable consequences of default, and many Republicans who are minimizing it.
This phenomenon could be seen last week at the beginning of the shutdown, when right-wing lawmakers started pooh-poohing the effects of a closed government. Fox News called it a “slimdown,” and several House members said less government might be good for the country. Now, 10 days before (a potential) Default Day, several House members are deriding the notion that it would be a very big deal.
Senator Tom Coburn, flatly contradicting the clear explanation from the Treasury, said the country would continue to pay its interest and redeem bonds, so why worry? Mick Mulvaney, a congressman from South Carolina, repeated the well-known canard that the Treasury could prioritize its payments and that there would be no default.
And Ted Yoho of Florida, who is quickly replacing Steve King and Louie Gohmert as the congressman to whom reporters flock for the jaw-dropping quotes so beloved by Twitter, said that not raising the debt ceiling would actually be beneficial.
“I think we need to have that moment where we realize [we’re] going broke,” Mr. Yoho told the Washington Post. “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets.”
If you think that remark is not only detached from reality but also utterly aberrant, take a look at the Pew Research poll that came out today. It shows that 54 percent of all Republicans (and 64 percent of Tea Partiers) believe the country can go past the debt-limit deadline without causing major problems. In that sense, Mr. Yoho better represents his party than Speaker John Boehner, who claims to believe that default would be terrible, but is nonetheless demanding concessions in exchange for preventing it.
That the very people who are causing the crisis are dismissing it shows the double game that’s being played here. Republicans don’t want the country to understand how big a threat they are posing to its well-being. A growing number of Americans already blame them for the whole mess, as the same poll shows. If people truly understood how bad a default would be — if they understood credit markets and interest rates, and how they would be affected by the global loss of faith in Treasury bonds — the anger would be much greater, and Republican control of the House would be threatened.
In the cynical game of spin and messaging that this crisis has become, the goal is to scare Washington Democrats while keeping ordinary people calm. It’s not working, though — Democrats have correctly refused to be intimidated, while businesses and average Americans are growing increasingly nervous. As they should be.
By: David Firestone, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, October 7, 2013
“The Gumption Gap”: GOP Moderates Should Ditch Their Party
Over the next couple of weeks, the fate of, well, some pretty big things — the Republican Party, the American system of government, the global economy — rests with about 20 people: Republican members of the House who have said they favor a straight-up continuing resolution that funds the government. No re-litigating Obamacare, no scaling back Social Security — just a “clean” resolution that would leave those other conservative causes to be fought about on their merits some other day.
When those votes are added to those of the 200 House Democrats who have said they would support a clean resolution, that yields a narrow majority for ending the government shutdown. It is hard to believe that those GOP dissidents wouldn’t support raising the debt ceiling as well. If they’re not willing to hold the functioning of government hostage to the tea party’s demands, they’re not likely to hold the economy hostage, either.
But that’s a big “if.” While The Post counts 21 GOP House members who have declared themselves in favor of ending the shutdown by passing a clean resolution, most of them have done nothing to compel the House Republican leadership to allow such a vote.
They could, for example, publicly declare their intention to join House Democrats in signing a discharge petition that would eventually force such a vote. They could privately declare that intent to House Speaker John Boehner, leaving him either to accede to such a vote or have it forced upon him. These center-right Republicans, however, have not indicated that they are willing to cross that Rubicon.
There is a simple explanation for their reluctance: Such action would surely result in serious primary challenges in 2014, when all the internal dynamics of today’s Republican Party would be working against them. The gerrymandering of congressional districts has made them safe for radical conservatives. The rise of the right that has marginalized the party nationally and driven moderates from its ranks has made the remaining handful of center-right incumbents exquisitely vulnerable to tea party challengers.
That, in turn, has created a strategic asymmetry within the House Republican caucus. The tea party faction, which by most estimates includes about 40 members, wields vast power over the leadership and the caucus, while the center-right contingent wields zilch. Both factions have enough votes to block legislation backed by the House leadership if the Democrats also vote against it, but it has been tea partyers, not centrist-moderates, who have used that veto power. Unlike their tea party counterparts, the center-right members lack gumption and imagination.
The gumption gap is understandable;unlike the Republican radicals, the moderates fear primary challenges next year. But there is a way to avoid Republican primary challenges, though it would take a leap of political imagination. To vote his beliefs and duck that challenge, all a center-right Republican has to do is declare himself an independent.
This is hardly a course to be taken lightly. It entails the loss of congressional seniority and would cause rifts with friends and allies. It requires considerable explanation to one’s constituents. There is no guarantee of reelection.
But others have taken this course and survived — most recently, former senator Joseph Lieberman, who, when he lost Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary in 2006, reconfigured himself an independent and won reelection. Many of the House members tagged as supporters of a clean resolution, such as New York’s Peter King and Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent, come from districts in the Northeast that aren’t as rabidly right as some in the Sunbelt. Others, such as Virginia’s Scott Rigell and Frank Wolf, come from districts with large numbers of federal employees, who almost surely are not entranced by the tea party’s anti-government jihad.
Leaving Republican ranks would not mean joining the Democrats. The ideological gap between GOP dissidents and the Democratic Party is huge. But the center-right dissidents are being willfully blind if they can’t see that the ideological gap between them and the tea-party-dominated GOP is also vast.
If they truly believe that government by hostage-taking is no way to run a democracy, they shouldn’t have too much trouble defending their defection. They could argue that their party has been transformed into a closed sect that can never win a national majority, or that it has descended into a hysteria that has run roughshod over such conservative values as prudence and balance, not to mention a modicum of strategic sense.
They could dub themselves Independent Republicans or True Republicans. They could tell their constituents that they put the interests of the nation above those of their party. If that’s not a winning argument in a swing district, Lord only knows what is.
Of course, these dissident Republicans could always stay and fight. But by staying and not fighting — their current course of inaction — they abet the very tea party takeover they dread.
By: Harold Meyerson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, October 9, 2013
“They Haven’t The Foggiest Idea”: The Hostage Takers Disagree Over The Ransom Note
Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said on Monday that he’s prepared to block a debt-ceiling increase, consequences be damned, unless Democrats give him “a full delay or defund of Obamacare.” Even if Democrats offered him changes to Social Security in exchange for nothing, the New Jersey Republican said, it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him.
Just 24 hours later, Garrett appeared on CNN and said he’s prepared to block a debt-ceiling increase unless we “begin to address our entitlement problems.”
One lawmaker, one issue, two completely different positions.
Similarly, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — remember him? — has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, making his priorities clear.
The president is giving Congress the silent treatment. He’s refusing to talk, even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. That’s a shame—because this doesn’t have to be another crisis. It could be a breakthrough. We have an opportunity here to pay down the national debt and jump-start the economy, if we start talking, and talking specifics, now. To break the deadlock, both sides should agree to common-sense reforms of the country’s entitlement programs and tax code.
What does Ryan have to say about the Affordable Care Act? Nothing. In fact, the 1,000-word op-ed doesn’t mention the health care law at all.
Much to the chagrin of right-wing activists, Ryan apparently wants to change the ransom note. He’s comfortable with threatening deliberate harm to the nation unless Democrats meet Republican demands, but the Budget Committee chair wants to replace Tea Partiers’ priority (taking health care benefits away from working families) with his priority (tax reform and entitlement cuts).
Now, I have a hunch I know why Ryan ignores “Obamacare” in his preferred ransom note, and it’s not because he forgot about it. Republicans are reluctant to admit it, but the Affordable Care Act vastly improves the nation’s finances in the coming years, and repealing it would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt. Ryan can’t afford to destroy the health care law — he uses it in his own plan to balance the budget over the next decade.
More important, though, in the bigger picture, Republicans aren’t just flailing, they’re lost.
They shut the government down last week, and they’re prepared to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States next week. They freely admit they’re prepared to impose self-inflicted wounds on Americans, on purpose, unless their demands are met.
And what are those demands? Even now, after months of planning and fiascos of their own making, the party’s own leaders and members haven’t the foggiest idea.
Here’s a radical suggestion: maybe Republicans can reopen the government, agree to skip the sovereign debt crisis, get their act together, and get back to us?
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, October 9, 2013
“There Are No Asterisks”: Those Who Wrap Themselves In The Constitution, Must Also Abide By The Constitution
Shortly after the 2010 midterms, as the newly elected House Republican majority was poised to start governing (I use the word loosely), the GOP officials had an idea for a symbolic gesture: they’d read the entire Constitution out loud. In January of this year, as the new Congress got underway, they did it again.
There wasn’t any harm in this, of course, but there wasn’t any point, either. It seemed to be the Republicans’ way of reminding the political world that they are the ones who truly love the Constitution. Sure, there are parts conservatives don’t like (the establishment clause, promoting the general welfare), and the right is eager to amend the document in a wide variety of ways, but for Tea Partiers and their allies, the Constitution has no greater champions than far-right congressional Republicans.
And if that’s still the case, Kristin Roberts has some bad news for them.
Have Republicans forgotten that they too must abide by the Constitution?
The document is explicit in its instruction to America’s federally elected officials — make good on the country’s debts. “The validity of the public debt of the United States,” the 14th Amendment states, “shall not be questioned.”
This is not some arcane biblical reference that needs to be translated from scraps of parchment. In fact, its purpose and intent are fairly well documented.
There’s been quite a bit of talk about exotic tactics President Obama may have to consider if congressional Republicans choose to push the United States into default on purpose. Maybe the White House can pursue a “14th Amendment option.” Maybe he can mint a “platinum $1 trillion coin.” Maybe the Treasury can create “Super Premium Bonds.” Maybe the president can do something to protect Americans from those who would do us deliberate harm, even if those people happen to be elected members of Congress. After all, if the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned, doesn’t Obama have a constitutional obligation to protect us from Republicans’ sociopathic tendencies?
Maybe it’s time to turn the question around on those who like to wrap themselves in the Constitution they claim to revere.
As this relates to Obama, there’s some disagreement among credible experts about whether the president can act unilaterally to circumvent the debt-ceiling law. Obama himself addressed the point yesterday, arguing that it really is up to Congress to complete this simple task and it wouldn’t do any good for him to experiment with creative alternatives.
But that only helps reinforce the importance of the question for congressional Republicans who swear to support the Constitution before they’re permitted to hold office. The document says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.” It doesn’t say anything about justifying extortion schemes, or holding the public debt hostage, or protecting the integrity of U.S. finances in exchange for right-wing goodies to satisfy U.S. House candidates who won fewer votes than their rivals.
Likewise, Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution — known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause — doesn’t include any asterisks about what happens when one party really hates health care reform.
When the 14th Amendment was ratified, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Wade, an Ohio Republican, argued, “Every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”
Today’s congressional Republicans are prepared — some are eager — to betray this commitment, ignore their constitutional responsibilities, and put Americans’ wellbeing at risk for no particular reason.
Those who claim to cherish the Constitution have some explaining to do.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 9, 2013
“GOP Circular Firing Squad”: Right Wing Lashes Out At Paul Ryan Over Obamacare
In one of the most surprising examples of how committed Republicans truly are to attacking the Affordable Care Act, the right wing is lashing out at Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) for being insufficiently committed to killing Obamacare.
The anger stems from an op-ed by Ryan published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. Ryan used the platform to pitch his plan to end the debt ceiling crisis: Republicans would raise it in exchange for a deal in which they agree to roll back some of the sequester cuts, and Democrats agree to cuts to earned-benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Ryan left the specifics of his plan rather vague, but given the House Budget Committee chairman’s history with “common-sense reforms of the country’s entitlement programs and tax code,” it’s a safe bet that he has another ideological “vision document” in mind. Combine that with Ryan’s long track record of killing bipartisan budget negotiations, and it’s not hard to imagine Democrats recoiling at the prospect of having yet another debate over a Ryan budget.
What is surprising, however, is the negative reaction that Ryan’s op-ed garnered on the right. As Tom Kludt points out at Talking Points Memo, right-wing groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, Heritage Action, and RedState.com immediately lashed out at Ryan for failing to include the death of Obamacare in his demands in exchange for not intentionally crashing the global economy. Ryan made no mention of the law in his op-ed (perhaps because he knows that its repeal is not realistic, perhaps because he needs the law’s savings to balance his own budget).
And they weren’t alone. Amanda Carpenter, a spokeswoman for Senator Ted Cruz, tweeted ”There is one big word missing from this op-ed. It’s start [sic] with an O and ends with BAMACARE.” Ben Shapiro, an editor-at-large at the right-wing Breitbart.com, lamented that “Paul Ryan dropping Obamacare demands re: shutdown and debt ceiling is suicidal strategy. And sadly typical.” And the list of angry right-wingers goes on.
The backlash was enough to make Ryan reassure Republicans that he is, in fact, committed to taking health insurance away from the tens of millions of Americans who will obtain coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
“Obamacare’s an entitlement just like any other entitlement. So that, as far as we’re concerned, is in this conversation. Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, those are the big drivers of our debt,” Ryan told radio host Bill Bennett on Wednesday. “If you look in the op-ed, I say we have to — ultimately we have to rethink all of our nation’s healthcare laws.”
But he didn’t go as far as to demand that the law’s repeal be linked to the debt ceiling. “I don’t know that within the next two weeks we have a viable strategy for actually repealing Obamacare, every piece of it,” he told Bennett.
The fact that far-right conservatives would turn on Paul Ryan — who was a hero of the movement as recently as this spring — illustrates just how committed they are to the impossible dream of convincing Democrats to kill the law as a condition for reopening the government and paying its bills. It also underscores just how futile negotiations with the House would be for President Obama and the Democrats; if another Ryan plan wouldn’t be sufficiently conservative for the right, then there’s really nothing that the president could offer that would satisfy his opponents.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, October 9, 2013
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