You can read Russell Berman and Sam Youngman’s version over at The Hill or Sam Stein’s more comprehensive and substantive piece at the Huffington Post. Basically, the talks at the White House this afternoon over raising the debt limit did not go well. I am not going to recount everything here. I hope you read at least Stein’s piece so you’ll know what I’m talking about.
One thing that’s becoming clear is that McConnell and Boehner have basically given up. They have no fight left in them. But the Tea Partiers in the House insist that the fight go on, so Eric Cantor has been deputized to run the negotiations. And the problem is that Eric Cantor isn’t offering anything.
You have to picture this. You have McConnell and Kyl and Reid and Durbin and Pelosi and Hoyer and Boehner, and you have the president, the vice-president, and a bunch of wonky aides. They’re all sitting around trying to hash out a deal. And every half-hour or so Cantor interrupts the president to ask him to stop working on all this stuff and just cave in and give him everything he wants. The president gets more and more annoyed until he finally decides he’s had enough of Cantor’s crap. I don’t know what the hell Boehner is doing while all this is happening. He’s like a lamp post, but less useful.
In any case, there’s some dispute about exactly what happened, but it’s clear that the president told Cantor off, ended the meeting, and left. The most important thing is that he told Cantor that he would not yield on revenues. He basically told Cantor that he either gets the House to raise taxes or he figure something else out, because there is no deal without revenues.
Now, this whole thing is a bit of theater. The president may be willing to swing a grand bargain, but not on any terms that Cantor is offering. That makes it a lot easier for the president to put his own sacred cows on the table. He knows they won’t be accepted. More to the point, Cantor needs something he can take back to the House that proves he can’t get a better deal. He can say he fought longer and harder than Boehner and McConnell, but their choice remains to either violate their pledge to Grover Norquist and raise taxes or default on the debt. And, if those are their choices, then doing some face-saving cop-out like McConnell has proposed becomes a whole lot more attractive. Maybe the House Republicans don’t believe or trust their hard-drinking Speaker. Maybe they need to hear the truth from someone they do trust.
What better way to set that up than to have this story come out about how Cantor was really confrontational and annoyed the president to the point that he received a dressing down? I’m not suggesting it didn’t happen or that it was somehow staged. It’s more like everyone instinctively knows how to play their part. The president is going through the motions on the negotiations. Cantor knows he has to press the president for some unreasonable capitulation. After a while, it’s time to end the Kabuki and have a little blow-up so everyone can go home with what they need.
Good to hear an explanation – especially because I have no understanding of Cantor especially since I heard he’s bet on default (? $20,000?). what kind of member of the US House of Representative does that?
A douchebag. A huge douchebag. When I get back to Virginia (July 19th) I’m going to scan a picture of myself with that asshole when he gave me my nomination. I want to photoshop it somehow.
I wish I had given him an evil stare instead.
What did Cantor nominate you for?
The Air Force Academy. His speech was about how awesome the Iraq War is going and how we should all support it and give more tax dollars to fund it and increase troop levels. It was nothing more than a campaign speech — it was January of 2006 after all — which pissed me off so much at the time. It’s funny, because at the time I thought I was a Republican (despite holding very liberal views). You know why? Because everyone around you is a Republican, and you think they’re the party for the everyday man because everyone around you is a fucking Republican.
well if you need any help in that area, let me know. or how about an animated video of him falling into the Potomac? I know on tpm some call it treason and I’m not sure of any counterarguments, the whole thing is hard to believe
Agree. This is just some last minute faux-poutrage so Cantor can cover his ass in front of the caucus. I’m surprised Boehner isn’t making more of a stink too. Maybe he’s just resigned himself to the fact that he’s a one-Congress Speaker, and is daydreaming about his 2014 retirement plans on the St. Andrews golf course. As for McConnell, well, he’s a political survivor if there ever was one. I suspect he’ll stay on as Minority Leader and is looking forward to slinking back to his Senate cave to plot future tricks and misdeeds.
unfortunately Boehner is probably daydreaming about Jack Daniels. that’s the problem with substance abuse. should never be in such a position of responsibility
Ha, true. You know he carries a flask on him though for the “bathroom breaks.”
Even practiced negotiators sometimes get squirrely under pressure. I would not assume that all of the emotion is kabuki. Cantor lusts after Boehner’s gavel and would like to pull a Newtie.
Obama can get testy under stress, politely testy but testy nonetheless. And Obama’s tendency would be to school Cantor.
I would take a lot of the story at face value and assume that Cantor is pissed that he is not getting anything and is baiting Obama childishly. And that Obama responded to Cantor as a naughty child and then did what is recommended when someone is bargaining in bad faith. He walked away from the table. Swapping negotiators is an old tactic. It’s the old “my boss has to approve it” or “I need to get the sales manager’s approval”. So you might be seeing Republicans playing it good cop, bad cop, terrorist.
Winning the future!
I’m dubious that the President really put his “sacred cows” on the table. He sure didn’t in April, it was pretty masterful. I simply don’t believe that the Republicans could ever get the better of any major deal with the President. And I think they know it too.
So compromise is utterly impossible until congress changes hands again. This goes so far beyond tax intransigence.
The Stein piece says that all sides agree on 1.5 Trillion in cuts, even if there is no revenue.
I still don’t understand why the Republicans don’t just take this, call it a victory, and go home.
I mean…Jesus, 1.5 Trillion over 10 years is 150 billion a year. Let’s say half of that is cut from defense (yeah, fat chance). Social security and medicare are off the table. The discretionary budget is only 660 Billion a year…so this is more than a 10% cut in everything.
Sounds like a huge win for the republicans for me.
There is obviously something here that I don’t understand.
What you are missing is that the president is not unaware that the leadership of the House cannot agree to any deal when over 60 over their members are pledged against any raising of the debt ceiling.
Obama is free to offer them any Galtian paradise they desire without worrying that he’ll have to deliver.
The republicans are going to walk away from over a trillion dollars in cuts because, hey, that’s just not good enough??!?!?
Has anyone on this blog mentioned that the republicans are fucking idiots?
No???
Those aren’t cuts Republicans would even want in the first place. The President would make sure “core investments for the future” are well preserved.
Which is the opposite of what Republicans want. They want to destroy this country’s ability to function, so Democrats are always fighting from behind. They want to disinvest in this country so they can plunder with reckless abandon while the people stand by docile in their misery. Tear the roof off the house and knock a few walls down, and nobody’s able to spare a thought for the interior or the plumbing anymore. That sort of thing. You can see them do it at the state level all the time. The last thing they want to do is make government leaner and more effective in an honest fashion.
But Republicans are suicide bombers without the suicide vest this time. They fucked up. They can’t actually blow anything up. We’re not quite sure how to get them squared away yet, but they have no real destructive potential. With their entire reason for existing nullified then, they have no endgame. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do or say. And here we are.
First of all, you are BADLY misreading the article.
Obama told Cantor at the end that he was not going to yield on revenues (tax hikes) and he better not call him on his bluff because he was taking it to the American people.
Secondly, yes, they’re idiots. But transparent idiots. It’s like playing poker with someone who tells you upfront that they will fold any hand that isn’t at least as good as a pair of jacks. Well, if they’re playing the hand, you know what they have. You’re not going to lose too often.
Because a full quarter, at a minimum, of their caucus is pledged to vote against raising the debt ceiling UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, Boehner needs at least 38 Democrats to agree to any bill to raise the debt ceiling. That means Boehner has absolutely no leverage. It also means that he CANNOT agree to any grand bargain that isn’t extremely acceptable to the Democrats, and therefore a total non-starter with his caucus.
His only choice is what McConnell proposed, so Obama is free to offer then anything he wants without fear that he’ll be taken up on his offer.
The only point of these negotiations is to paint the Republicans as intransigent and the president as bending over backwards to get a deal.
“The only point of these negotiations is to paint the Republicans as intransigent and the president as bending over backwards to get a deal. “
Seems like the same could be said to characterize pretty much all of BHO’s presidency so far. What worries me is that even after all this time, it’s still not clear that mainstream America is paying any real attention. The President has done more than plenty of bending over backwards and putting up with a lot of crap like having his appointments held up in the Senate after 2.5 years; does anyone out there besides the political junkies even realize what’s going on, and who’s to blame? Apparently they didn’t last year.
does anyone out there besides the political junkies even realize what’s going on, and who’s to blame? Apparently they didn’t last year.
With our crapticular corporate media? Are you kidding me?
This isn’t being done to win over voters to an agenda.
This is fight over fixing blame for grandma and wounded veterans not getting checks if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Everyone intends to raise the debt ceiling – the Democrats don’t want the country to go through a disaster, and Wall Street won’t let the Republicans cause a financial panic. So, something has got to give.
If one side can make the other look like the ones responsible for a deal not going through, then that side has to cave.
You ARE aware that it is possible to make money on a default? Interest rates go up and guess what? If you lend us money, you make more of – especially if you’ve borrowed it from the Fed at 0%.
In the case of default, those who do will be the last men standing. Those folks happen to be Wall Street Bears, the gold bugs, (mostly Repug donors) and China
GET IT?
Actually, I think you are the one who is misreading the article. It clearly states that Obama told republicans that he was willing to go for 1.5T cuts, maybe 1.7 with further negotiations, but anything beyond this required revenue increases.
“don’t call my bluff” referred to cantors repeated insistence that they go for a short term extension. It had nothing to do with revenues per se.
Now, these negotiating positions may all kabuki, and maybe the repubs “know” that obama won’t actually agree to cuts without revenue, but that does seem to be an offer on
The table.
Obama knows that the GOP needs 46 votes from Democrats in order to pass any debt ceiling increase.
And the fact that Republicans have a majority in the House to avoid the debt ceiling crisis (the press should stop calling it default) and act like they don’t is why they will get blamed for the failure of a deal.
Obama is essentially telegraphing to the world, “I can persuade my caucus to vote for $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years with no revenue increases, but the Republican leaders can’t get their members to pass a debt ceiling that ends the posturing until after the election”. In other words, the GOP wants all or nothing. And that is not negotiation, that is extortion.
And the public is beginning to get it.
It is kabuki only because the GOP is too dumb to spring for the deal.
The GOP aren’t “too dumb” to spring for the deal, it’s a bad deal for them.
Because, as the Bush years showed us, the GOP could actually give a rat’s ass about balanced budgets, the debt, deficit spending or anything else like that. Only Democrats actually care about that stuff.
Look at what Obama is offering – “1.5 trillion in cuts if you pass a resolution that eliminates your ability to use the debt ceiling for politicking”. And he knows that they’ll refuse it because it eliminates their ability to use the debt ceiling for politicking.
The GOP’s corner makes a helluva lot more sense once you realize that they care fuck-all about actual governance and only care about politics. Obama is asking them to make an exchange where they get policies they like (spending cuts) in exchange for giving up a political tactic and they can’t do it. Because they don’t actually care about the policies, they only care about the politics.
No. It doesn’t say that.
He’s saying two things. He wants revenues and he wants one deal that covers the rest of his term.
You’re reading it too literally and not contextually. That’s partly Stein’s fault.
The President is insisting on tax increases.
Actually, no. The President is insisting on closing several significant loopholes in the tax laws and Republicans are calling them tax increases. It’s like saying a cut in Social Security benefits is a tax increase. It’s that sort of obfuscation.
It increases revenue. It does not affect the public generally, but only some coddled industries and individuals.
Boehner only has 172 votes for any debt ceiling, regardless or the negotiations. And Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is putting up ads trying to decrease that number. (And sway the public with scare tactics.)
Pelosi only has 166 votes for a clean debt ceiling if no Tea Party types vote for the debt ceiling. And she loses up to 80-90 votes if the safety net is seriously damaged in addition.
I’m back to the GOP is going to force the train wreck. And the White House better move swiftly to cut spending in a way that shows what the issues really are–and hold harmless folks with safety-net entitlements.
Of course, my chorus right now is to include in that deferrals of all but what the salary would be if were annualized at $60,000 (median family income) for all elected and appointed federal officials (that picks up the judiciary), the military brass, and the civil service Senior Executive Service. These are the folks who set the pay of everyone else in the government. And make the purchasing and expenditure decisions.
So, for the duration of the crisis, their pay would be $2307 every two weeks before deductions. Roughly three to five times the average unemployment check.
The President would be receiving one-sixth of his salary, members of Congress one-half to one-third. Most senior WH staffers and Congressional staffers one-half.
Deferred, not cut. Until the debt crisis is over.
I guess you would call that The Austerity of Hope.
Because it isn’t being offered.
Democrats are demanding revenues. And they have all the leverage among the sane participants. And the insane aren’t really moved by anything anyway.
In a sane world, the two sides could ostensibly trade stimulus for a package of cuts that don’t come into effect until 2013 and forget about revenues until the fall. But Republican House members probably still wouldn’t take that deal. They want to cut (destroy) government, and they want to cut (destroy) it now, damn it.
That’s not what the Stein article says, and that’s not how it’s been reported thus far.
What’s reported is that Obama agrees to 1.5 Trillion in cuts EVEN WITHOUT REVENUES. The argument is over whether or not additional revenue is required if the cuts are to go further.
It’s the ol’ “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to” move.
There’s no agreement on cuts until there’s an accompanying agreement on revenues. Those cuts mean nothing in isolation.
The President is under no obligation to make a deal. He has no reason to backpeddle from any of his sticking points. There’s nothing he can propose short of the Ryan budget that House Republicans would agree to at this point. The GOP is stuck by their own nihilist volition. If you choose to play all-or-nothing, odds are you’re gonna get nothing.
They can’t come to an agreement on everything, so it doesn’t matter if they allegedly agree on some things. There’s either a deal or no deal, not part of a deal.
GDI bazooka!
Said it better, with fewer words. Bastird!
.
Actually, the article does, here;
“His preference, he said, was to continue to push for the biggest package possible, so long as it was balanced”
“balanced” to Obama means they must give up something. What you are missing is how, from the very beginning, the Democrats kept saying ‘nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to’. Watch Wednesday’s O’Donnel show. It was brutal.
I still do not like Obama’s using republican phrasing, but there is no doubt he has SCHOOLED the republicans. I can imagine how pissed they must be, particularly factoring in the superiority complex when it comes to people who look different than they do. If this becomes a straight vote (a BIG if), the republicans are done. They will not be able to pass anything without substantial democratic votes.
Probably Obama will give them too much so they can save face, and ruin the political opportunity. But I was wrong. I thought Obama’s use of republican rhetoric made this a win for them. Boy, was I wrong! So far, anyway. It’s hard to imagine, at this point, any agreement that can turn this into a republican win.
Yep! He’s got this.
.
There has been no position by the Democrats on cuts that has not included some revenue increases.
Stein’s piece is a bit misleading in this respect. And I think it has more to do with his phrasing than intent.
“The Stein piece says that all sides agree on 1.5 Trillion in cuts, even if there is no revenue.”
That’s not really what it says.
Imagine that you and I are arguing about how to make the perfect Cosmopolitan. We both agree on 3 ounces of vodka, but then it all goes to hell after that. We can’t agree on how much orange liqueur, or what kind. We can’t agree on how much cranberry juice. We can’t agree on lime.
We haven’t reached any agreement, because we both understand perfectly well that 3 ounces of vodka is not a Cosmo, and we’re not going to drink anything except a Cosmo. Neither of us drinks straight vodka, anyway. There have to be other ingredients, so we haven’t reached any kind of agreement.
Well said, and a key part of understanding how negotiating actually works and why things so frequently fall apart even when (in the case of say Israel, or the ACA) “80% of the issues are already agreed on”.
Without that last 20% there is often never going to be the 80% either.
I never really understood why Boehner was involved at all. I mean I know Cantor has nothing at all in his head, but DeLay ran the house. Hastert couldn’t do it, we all saw that. With the Republican party unity the way it is, why bother with the Speaker? The real power is the majority leader of the GOP.
Anyhow, Cantor thinks he can do this because the strategy has worked almost every time the GOP tried it from 2009 to now. Either because of stupid rightist Dems or because it’s what Obama himself wants (to cut spending and raise taxes to improve long term solvency in this case) or because they had enough Republicans.
The rightist Dems in the House are reduced to 26. And, they are not voting on a debt ceiling unless almost all Republicans vote on a debt ceiling. They will not provide cover only to be hammered next year with “XXX raised our debt, just a tax and spend Democrat”.
That’s why the magic isn’t working for Cantor. Plus the 68 folks in the GOP caucus who won’t vote for any deal raising a debt ceiling. And then you add in Ron Paul.
The math is different than it has been since 2009.
this to Cantor
it means he’s finally going to DO what you, Booman, say I’ve been whining about for two years – stand up and lead.
Bravo.
Watch this for the next 24 hours. The GOP is going to try to make the “angry hot-headed black man” narrative stick. Then fall back to “Professor Obama lectured us like a child.”
When that doesn’t stick, and very close to August 2, is the time for Obama to use the bully pulpit. Right on the cusp of the crisis itself. And he must lay the crisis clearly on the Republicans from start to finish and tell how he going to cope with it by cutting spending and ensuring that we do not default. As well as pulling all the “Americans have always done well in a crisis” and steel-eyed optimism that he can think of.
He’s stood up and led any number of times…when he’s laid the ground work for it.
You know, like Monday’s speech. He spend months setting up the Republicans to look like irresponsible bastards, and then when the time was right, BAM!
This is quite different from the ALWAYS MAKE LOUD NOISES! advice you’ve been giving him.
from Obama, it will be the first. His negotiating style is to give the other side everything they ask for and then ask if they’re sure they don’t want anything else.
That’s exactly what he did for START, DADT, ACA, Student Loans, etc! You are so damn perceptive!
This is my favorite part of the Stein article:
“I have reached the point where I say enough,” Obama concluded… “Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.”
It’s like he’s getting ready to fire the air traffic controllers or something. HA! That asshole move made Reagan more popular than ever with the ignorant electorate. Talking like this will get Obama re-elected in a landslide! Come on, Mr. President, hit the airwaves at 8pm and tell the American public they are about to be personally financially RUINED because the Repugs are refusing to allow puny taxes on billionaires. Bring it home and destroy these idiots!
That makes it a lot easier for the president to put his own sacred cows on the table. He knows they won’t be accepted.
I don’t believe that Obama is playing some sort of theater on this point. I know it’s popular to believe that Obama only offered cuts to Social Security and Medicare because he knew the Republicans wouldn’t bite. But my bet is that Obama is completely serious.
Social Security and Medicare are now officially on the table. And that’s an incredibly bad move for Democrats, whether this deal is accepted or not.
“On the table” means subject to negotiation. And the “cuts” to Social Security would apply only to certain people and not to the current recipients. The dickering would be over which future recipients would be hurt. And the fact that they are talking about future recipients means that a future Congress could undo any “cuts” before actual people got hurt. But it is politically a wake-up call to people to talk about “cuts to Social Security” to shake them out of idea that only “unworthy” government beneficiaries will experience the pain.
It turns out to be a good move for Democrats precisely because it is a wake-up call.
Democrats don’t get hurt on this one unless they actually vote for those “cuts”. Which they could do only if all Tea Party Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling.
Unlike the health care debate. Unlike last December. Republican control of the House means that the math is on the Democrats’ side this time.
And the fact that they are talking about future recipients means that a future Congress could undo any “cuts” before actual people got hurt.
And what happened last time? Did they ever repeal the Ray-gun/Greenspan cuts?
the “cuts” to Social Security would apply only to certain people and not to the current recipients.
Isn’t that Paul Ryan’s line?
As one of those “certain people” to whom it would apply, let me tell you what I tell my crazy Uncle Ed when he lectures me about how my generation is going to bankrupt the country. I’m spending 12% of my income every year making sure he’s happy in his retirement. But if Social Security and Medicare are gutted for those of us 55 and under, we’re going to need that money just to survive. And that means that if they end the program for us this year, we’ll end the program for them next year. The AARP understands this, which is why they didn’t fall for Ryan’s sales pitch.
I don’t see why “certain people” should have to bear the costs of a deficit that has been ballooning since before they were born.
Cantor on Obama: No disrespect intended – San Jose Mercury News
I suppose that’ll be Obama’s cue to go all gracious and understanding and presidential. Maybe throw in another concession or two just to show there are no hard feelings.