I watched the President’s press conference. He seems a little tired, but his performance was nonetheless masterful from a purely political perspective. He’s definitely positioned himself perfectly to rebuff all contradiction. Sure, progressives might be asking why he’s even talking about deficit reduction when unemployment is over nine percent. They don’t understand why Social Security has to take any hit whatsover, and they’re not eager to make any cuts to Medicare or Medicaid. But Republicans have been left with no argument. The president is saying, “Okay, you think that we’ll improve the economy and create jobs by getting our fiscal situation under control? I’m willing to try your solution. Let’s go.” And the Republicans don’t want to attempt the one solution they’ve been offering because it will require very rich people to make some sacrifices.
To get an idea of how dysfunctional the Republican Party has become, the president is offering a deal that almost every single progressive in the country hopes the Republicans will reject. And, yet, the Republicans are rejecting the deal. This is a sweet deal for Republicans. It contains a lot more cuts than new revenues. That alone should make it attractive to conservatives. But it also comes with a promise to do tax reform, which should result in significant savings for most Republican voters. It comes with cuts to entitlements, which is something Democrats really hate doing, especially now because it mutes their criticism of the Ryan Plan. It’s an approach that, on the whole, represents the conservative alternative to Keynesian economics, thus validating their ideology.
Despite all of this, the Republicans seem incapable of saying ‘yes.’
I’m not happy with the Republicans, but I’m also not thrilled with the president. His politics are pitch-perfect. I’ll give him that. And I guess that’s probably the most I can hope for right now. But Social Security should not be part of this deal just because he wants to throw all hard votes together and get them done all at once.
I understand what he’s saying. He’s arguing that he wants to take all the Republican talking points and deal with them. Cut the deficit. Control spending. Tackle entitlements. And then once all that is addressed we can move on to talking sensibly about politics and make sane investments.
It would be interesting to see what the Republicans would complain about if this grand deal went through, but it’s delusional to think they’d stop bitching about taxes, entitlements, and deficits. Other than God, guns, gays, and embryos, those are the only things they know how to talk about.
In any case, if Boehner can’t deliver the votes, we’re still screwed. I hope he values the health of the country more than his leadership position, but I doubt it.
“He’s arguing that he wants to take all the Republican talking points and deal with them. Cut the deficit. Control spending. Tackle entitlements. And then once all that is addressed we can move on to talking sensibly about politics and make sane investments. “
But we can’t move on. Even if the republicans get all this, they won’t let it rest. next it will be [insert crazy thing here], and something else will be held hostage. We’ll see a replay of the debt ceiling game next year.
Also, too, the republicans will run as the protectors of medicare, medicaid, and social security, and will explicitly blame the democrats for any cuts. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s already underway.
As a member of the newly unemployed, I’m not too happy about any of this. at all.
Right. I mean, I agree with you.
I’m going to start checking for the transcript soon so I can parse out what he said.
I think the one thing I can say in his favor is that salience does matter. It’s a lot easier to bitch about something that exists than something that doesn’t. So, while the GOP will recycle that same all-weather arguments for the rest of eternity, the effectiveness of those arguments depends in part on their relationship to reality.
I’m beginning to question whether the politics are working for anybody at this point. I was inclined to think the President was playing a masterful political game, but the more he keeps talking about “eating peas” and “doing homework on time” and all this shit week after week with no progress, I don’t know.
If I wasn’t politically aware, I think it’d be all too easy to fall into the “both sides are completely full of it” trap. And I think that’s where the majority of the country is at, sadly.
Gee, thank you, Mr. President, for being so politically pitch-perfect. It isn’t your intention to throw us poor, elderly, and chronically unemployed under the bus. I know this because I trust you implicitly. Though you’ve broken nearly every promise you made on the campaign trail–ya know, Hope and Change and All That Jazz–on that shining altar of “the possible,” I trust you because…I do what I’m told.
So, during the next election, when you go gladhanding all those millionaires and billionaires to whom you gave tax breaks from which they will share their winfall with your campaign (funny that!), I’ll keep in mind that I should relax and take heart that you will never take a real stand on anything other than Obama, Inc. and only make certain your politcal positioning remains pitch-perfect. And, really, isn’t that all that matters?
This post is just fucking crazy. Like, unhinged.
What matters is where this ends up. He has now undercut their disingenuous arguments about the deficit to such an extent that even Frank Luntz will have trouble putting the tired words and phrases into their mouths in such a way that anyone will listen.
So Delonjo, you think this frees up Obama to pad the accounts of Wall Street and take Social Security and Medicare benefits away from those who need it most; I think the opposite, that this maneuvering has been what he saw as the best way to position himself to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and ultimately save and preserve Social Security and Medicare. It does require that one actually has faith that he’s smarter than most of us and that he has some strong progressive instincts at heart.
Rashomon….
FB, I generally agree with your take, but I really wish President Obama would stop giving air to relentlessly stupid Republican economic positions. It leaves me wondering and confused about his actual positions on the economy. Paul Krugman is less confused: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
He also had a “both sides do it” moment by saying that they’re both blocking a deal. The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans is all regular people are going to hear.
He’s taking “I’m president of the entire country” entirely too seriously.
Though you’ve broken nearly every promise you made on the campaign trail…
Zzzzzzzzz…
I love how the list of broken promises keeps changing as he ticks them off one by one, without ever making a dent in the same trite argument from the same trite people.
I’m not sure “reasonable” is the word you should be looking for in this title.
Finally, the political conversation is converging on the fact that the repubs have no plan/policy or vision for America beyond letting us default. The proof is their failure to have one positive statement concerning Obama’s plan to reduce the deficit by 4 trillion in 10 years. The constant repeat of their talking points…We have a debt problem not revenue problem, No tax increases, No more tax and spend….fail to address why a plan that reduces our debt by 4 trillion cannot be considered. I still have no idea what they will do and I believe they have no idea either.
down after 10 days of a government shut down over taxing 7,700 Minnesotans 1% more, I really don’t think that there is any governing done with them holding the majority on the state level or the national level.
The media is continuing to try to blame Democratic Governor Dayton and polls are showing that the public blames both sides equally. I don’t think we stand a chance at winning a negotiation with crazy people.
At this point, Obama should just call for a clean debt ceiling increase bill and just work matters that don’t require Congress through 2012. There’s is simply no point in pretending that the GOP are sane any longer.
There never was a point. Obama is looking like the Redcoats of apocryphal legend, marching in ranks in their bright uniforms while the revolutionaries mow them down from the underbrush. I wonder if they, too, kept yammering about “one nation”?
Anyway, I think the clean debt ceiling is now the option of choice. In retrospect, it probably was from the beginning.
We are in the midst of an all-out class war. The enemy has taken the economy hostage. So far it looks like all Obama and the Dems have to offer is a Vichy regime.
I still hope he turns out to be on our side, but that’s no longer a given.
and Obama is moving his queen through Dimension pi^2 right now to take Boehner’s queen.
IOW, Obama is trying the exact same gambit that Clinton did… the one that ended with Bush in the White House and a Republican Congress doing his bidding.
This won’t end well, either.
No, calling for cuts in Medicare and Social Security is not “pitch perfect” politics anywhere outside the beltway. It’s awful politics that undermines the Democrats’ messaging.
Making the case for your own ideas in a debate, forcing your opponents to pay a political price for their ideas. That’s both pitch perfect politics and also an effective negotiating strategy, because it forces them to move towards your position on the issues.