I was going to write this piece until I realized that Ed Kilgore had already written it almost word for word.
It’s why I hold Grover Norquist at least as responsible for the current crisis in Washington DC as Ted Cruz or the Tea Party.
If the Republicans were willing to raise taxes on rich people ever, for any purpose, then they could make a deal with the president on reducing the deficit and getting our debt under control. But they are not willing to raise taxes on rich people ever, for any purpose, and so they cannot negotiate at all.
Since they cannot negotiate, they cannot come to any agreement with the Senate on a budget. And since they cannot agree to a budget, they have to shut the government down.
In this sense, ObamaCare is almost a distraction. If it didn’t exist, the Republicans would still be unable to break their pledge to Norquist and they would still be unable to make a deal with the Senate.
They can’t make a deal, but they don’t even want to spell out what they are demanding because their agenda is less popular than the ebola virus. So, they want to force the president to make cuts to entitlements without giving anything in return, and then they will blame the president for the cuts.
Basically, there is nothing that we can give the Republicans that they want to accept, and there is nothing that they will offer that we have even the slightest reason to accept.
What this crisis is doing is exposing the Republicans’ internal dilemma. And it is taking away the cloak that they have used to hide the fact that they can’t make any offer or accept any offer. Once they are forced to go to a budget conference committee, they will be forced to vote on what they want and accept compromises. They will have to break their Norquist pledge and accept increased funding for the president’s priorities. They will have to explicitly ask for and vote for highly unpopular cuts to programs that serve their elderly base. They do not want to do those things and they have been trying to avoid doing those things all year long.
The truth is, the party as a party can’t live with itself.
sounds like a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation waiting to happen
We should be so lucky.
“they don’t even want to spell out what they are demanding..”
And that’s the point which Ed’s otherwise spot-on piece missed. Not only can’t they negotiate, they can’t even ask for anything. They can only demand that Obama and the Democrat divine their secret, unholy wishes, and give them every vile, unpopular thing they want without even being asked to.
No other course allows them to blame the Democrats for their own policies. They are not even willing to murder the Democratic party. They insist on our committing suicide.
Perhaps Booman will write more about this angle on it: the president’s long, patient community organizing-like strategy of forcing one’s opponents 1) to have to reckon publicly with the contradictions in their own position and, 2) to force them into acting in ways that alienate moderates, undecideds (and even some of their own followers).
Yeah, but if they were that flexible we’d have been shafted with a “grand bargain” in 2011. Government would have been permanently shrunk due to cutting the most popular parts (SS and Medicare) and destroying the credibility of the party that’s been pushing to maintain them.
As it stands, the budget cuts and sequester resulting from 2011 will probably be reversed once we get a Dem trifecta back. So, assuming the current crisis doesn’t blow up into a Depression (not guaranteed, I grant) I think it will be better that the Republicans are just nuts than if they were more rational but still just as vicious.
Ironic, that for the last two Dem presidents, progressives have had more to fear from our friends than from our opponents.
What the hell does this even mean? Obama has been super progressive in terms of reversing DADT, DOMA, and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would go on, but yours is not even a serious comment.
Well, I do tend to concentrate on the economic side of things. Not the social.
Or, I guess I should say cultural. And economically, I am dead serious. Our side are much stronger defenders of the social contract when they are in the minority, it seems to me. When they are in the majority, you get card check never even brought to a vote.
Your comments are spot on. The Democratic Party(with a few exceptions) is “liberal” only on social issues. On economic issues, where the emphasis should be, they’re missing in action.
This is not the party of FDR. Or even LBJ. Or William Jennings Bryan.
Then the fact that the ACA is (by far) the single largest redistribution of income from the rich to the working poor in over 40 years ought to count for something, no?
Yes, it does. But the fact that for the past thirty years or so, many folks saw any meager increases in salary eaten by health insurance costs counts in there, too.
I don’t know…. Sociopaths manage to be totally nuts while infinitely vicious and rational. That’s what we’re dealing with.
They will have to explicitly ask for and vote for highly unpopular cuts to programs that serve their elderly base.
No they won’t. They’ll go into committee and demand a bunch of crazy shit (see Obamacare, defunding of) which Senate Democrats will ignore, causing House Republicans to wail, “See? They’re not willing to negotiate!”
And then it’s 6:01 a.m. the next morning and it’s Groundhog Day all over again.
Until they meet with Obama and he offers it. Then all the Dems will say he had no choice. And they win again and again.
@BenjySarlin 32s
Woah RT @nytimes: Breaking News: Obama Rejects Republican Proposal for Short-Term Debt Limit Plan http://nyti.ms/Zf40cq
The empty heart of evil comes into view.
The contradiction at the heart of modern conservatism is that they cannot tell their political program to their supporters because their supporter will hate it. So….Freedom…Socialism…and all the culture issues.
When I say they have to hit bottom, I mean they have to understand that they have no way out except to deal with the mess they have caused.
And the key piece of that IMO is financial transfer tax, which amounts to a financial bubble tax.
If they’re going to bust their Norquist cherry, they might as well do it in a way that doesn’t hurt ordinary people.
That is a very good idea for many reasons, but Goldman sachs will never agree to it.
Eff Goldman-Sachs.
If that’s the Dems excuse, they would be digging their own demise as well.
Both paries have outlived their raison d’etre.
Don’t worry, both parties are nearing their expiration dates anyway.
And taking us with them.
You’re absolutely right about the GOP and taxes.
They argue that dividends should not be taxed because that is double-taxing corporate earnings. They argue that corporations should not be taxed because those taxes hurt job growth. But if you propose a zero corporate taxes and to tax dividends at the normal income rate they still argue that dividends shouldn’t be taxed … just because … probably the economy.
They argue inheritances shouldn’t be taxed because the money was already taxed. But argue that capital gains shouldn’t be taxed – although they haven’t yet been taxed – because of job growth or economic growth or something.
Ultimately, when pressed because even conservatives realize there have to be SOME taxes (for their military porn fantasies, of course) they advocate sales taxes. Ironically, although the economy is the reason they give for opposing other taxes it is the sales tax which does have a direct impact on the economy in terms of retail sales – and a very high sales tax (which would be required to pay for the military industry) of 50% or so would put a lot of small businesses into the red.
In truth, all of their tax theories, like the Laffer Curve, are based on half-baked economic analysis without a whiff of verified statistical data. They start from the basic premise that they want to pay no tax and go from there.
This is a political party and political ideology that belongs nowhere near the policy making apparatus.
What does Norquist have on them, anyway? I’ve wondered about this for years. He’s a zero, an unindicted crook who never won an election or did anything else but be a a money broker. He’s never done anything of note. Basically a big fat zero. I doubt that most teabaggers even know who he is.
Obama and the Dems have been doing pretty well at holding their ground and making their case despite a numb-brain media establishment. I wish I felt a little more confident that they’d use their advantage to break the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. It has become a plague we can’t tolerate anymore.
He speaks for “taxpayers” and can run ads during primary elections. And a lot of Main Street business types have lapped up Norquist’s BS and are small contributors to his organization, giving him a nationwide astroturf network. Those same business types are the backbone of local Republican Parties and recruit the folks that turn out the vote.
@BenjySarlin 32s
Woah RT @nytimes: Breaking News: Obama Rejects Republican Proposal for Short-Term Debt Limit Plan http://nyti.ms/Zf40cq
That was pretty much know this morning. The White House was not about to accept that poison pill preventing “extraordinary” efforts to avoid default.
Says he didn’t accept it because it didn’t open the government, too. Although your reason could be the “real” reason.
That’s even better, but does not allow Dems to use the split situation to force Gephardt Rule, long-term increase in debt ceiling, or debt ceiling repeal.
But at least Obama’s forcing them to proffer instead of the other way around.
GOP “save face” spin?
@markknoller 3m
House Budget Chair Paul Ryan, R-WI, says Pres Obama neither accepted nor rejected GOP offer. Mulling it over.