In this morning’s weekly address, the president was to the point:
It’s not supposed to be this way. Manufacturing crises to extract massive concessions isn’t how our democracy works, and we have to stop it. Politics is a battle of ideas, but you advance those ideas through elections and legislation – not extortion.
Focus on the words: “we have to stop it.”
Why did the White House outright reject the House’s offer and why did the Senate Democrats reject Sen. Susan Collins’ plan?
It’s not because the deals were not good enough; it’s because they were deals.
Because the Republicans (in the leadership, anyway) are not actually willing to default on our debts, the end game here is that time runs out and Congress raises the debt ceiling. Whether they can get some kind of fig leaf to cover their defeat or not, they can stop making demands now because the most important thing to the president is to put an end to these kind of hostage negotiations.
Just to drive the point home, House Democrats assembled this morning to sign a discharge petition in an effort to force a clean vote on a continuing resolution on Monday. It’s doubtful that enough Republicans will join the effort to make it successful, but there will definitely be enough of them available to avoid a default.
Admittedly, the Senate Republicans’ filibuster of Harry Reid’s motion to proceed to a vote on extending the debt ceiling will make some people nervous, but there is no reason to be nervous. There is virtually zero chance that the country is going to default. In fact, the Democrats have such an immense advantage right now that they are actually in a position to hold the Republicans hostage. With the clock clicking down, John Boehner will be desperate when he eventually realizes that his options are exhausted and he needs Democratic votes to avoid causing a global economic calamity.
It will take some restraint from Pelosi to avoid asking for concessions.
Hannity and Limbaugh are holding them in line.
I’m thinking once again that the debt ceiling clock will strike midnight before the GOP starts scrambling.
Hopefully the financial markets are not so suicidal as to panic immediately but put off enough signals that the GOP smells the shit on their boots.
Not going to happen.
I hope you’re right.
I’m not sure that rational expectations modeling works with this bunch. I understand that you are expecting that less than 20 House Republicans crack, but there are not signs of that yet. And the howls of betrayal if and when it happens will be greater the later it runs.
And I know that some GOP shills are already trying to set expectations as well.
It’s like looking for some Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar “Profiles in Courage” style action on the part of some in the House GOP.
I hope you’re right but I’m not going to bet a mortgage payment on it. Too many of the GOP moonbats in the House want to default.
That isn’t the issue. There are enough of them that don’t. Pelosi’s saying 30. Of course they don’t even need 30, but I guess she wants to make sure there are some in reserve.
And Pelosi has held back 14 from the discharge petition just to force out 30 Republicans should they break.
As Boo pointed out elsewhere, they won’t break. Remember how Supremo Roberts was called a RINO for making a mess of ObamaCare? That’s nothing compared to what’s coming for any GOPer who breaks ranks.
For many if not all northeastern republicans, the Tea Party is more a liability than a benefit in the eyes of voters. We’ve already seen this in a number of elections in the northeast, where a Tea Party challeger either lost to the incumbent, or allowed a Democrat to win. That effect is even more likely now.
I guess, really, that is only question which is up in the air right now; whether or not to debt limit bell tolls before the Republicans cave. My hope is that Boehner, while publicly appearing to be willing to carry the Tea Party torch to its obvious and inevitable catastrophic end, is greasing the skids behind the scenes with Pelosi to make sure that a deal gets done before the financial markets have a chance to react in a suicidal fashion.
Boehner is almost required to play the Tea Party cards right up until 11:59:59, so that no one can make the argument that he didn’t at least try. Not that it will make any difference to the Tea Partiers. For them, it’s a zero sum game. The only thing classified as a win to them is total capitulation by their opponents to every demand. It is, obviously, an impossible dream. But in the world of skewed polls, Ted Cruz and trucker blockades; it’s absolute reality to the base.
If they cost their Wall Street masters money, they will be severely punished.
I heard on Bloomberg this morning that Fidelity Investments have sold all their Treasuries in the mutual funds they manage. Interestingly, Bill Gross of PIMCO says that he is buying Treasurys because they have a built in 30 to 40 point profit from the panic selling. I’d listen to Bill Gross on bonds. After all he become a billionaire on the bond market.
Fidelity was only selling short-term bonds(3 months or less). They weren’t selling anything longer. Besides, as Krgthulu said, longer term rates have barely budged. I wouldn’t totally put my faith in Gross though. Gross went from supprting deficits to deficit hawk/bond vigilante and back again. See here:
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/01/bill-gross-deficit-hawk-bond-vigilante.html
and here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/bill-gross-deficit-reduction-can–and-should–wait
/2011/05/19/AG85ZqeH_blog.html
if we truly do default it won’t matter what you’re invested in, there’s no escape hatch to this one in that arena
I was hoping that the business moneybags would start pulling the rug from out under the Tea Partiers, but I don’t see enough movement yet. And Krugman isn’t very hopeful that sanity will prevail.
The problem with people praying for the End Times is that they tend to do things to encourage catastrophes and don’t think about the consequences and will blame others for their actions.
Wall Street’s lap dogs are turning into hydrophobic pit bulls. They may well be put down.
I’m not sure we necessarily would see very much. This is behind-the-scenes kind of stuff.
Someone should point out that assholes like Peter King and John McCain keep claiming it’s the GOP’s fault for all of this – and then they go out and vote against any clean bills!
Seriously, someone wake the fucking media up and tell them that these so-called paragons of ‘moderate’ Republicanism are fucking hypocrites and liars.
The media is awake, which is why they continue to lie, mislead and obfuscate.
It’s how they get paid.
It’s probably too much to ask that things get settled on the first or second vote. Until leadership feels they’re at the end of the line, then the team will hang tight. I was reassured that Collins’ proposal fell through. Like Booman said, it was a “deal”. R’s know they are on the hot seat with a weak hand. The question is do they get a fig leaf or not. And do the Dems push their advantage to such an extent that prospects for other issues – immigration – get diminished.
If that’s the case, then these Republican shitheads are treating this more like a ‘game’ than anything else.
It’s more like they are giving their leadership time.
Time for what? Them to grow a pair, to recognize reality that they (Boehner and McConnell) are fools and idiots for following Ted Cruz and Mike Lee into a fight that everyone – including themselves – knew was a losing one?
The only way out for them at this point is complete and utter capitulation. Fund the government at the shitty sequestration levels for now, pass the debt ceiling for another year, if not longer, and stand back as the Republicans tear each other apart.
There is no other way for this to end. If they actually send us through the debt ceiling, it doesn’t matter then – we will keep giving them worse and worse offers (from the Republican’s standpoint – i.e. better for us) to ending the crisis.
These guys are total fucking fools for waiting until the last minute…again. They are weak, spineless, craven cowards who don’t realize that fucking around with these kinds of things are going to have severe repercussions.
Al Franken said this morning don’t worry things are falling into place. He may have been speaking somewhat in jest, but there seems to be movement in the Senate. The House is another matter, however. They don’t want to be disrespected! Robert Costa reported this morning that some Senate R’s feel Boehner has lost control over there. Of course that’s been obvious, but how it plays from here should be interesting.
I would like to see folks talking about a legislative fix so this cannot happen again!
Shouldn’t that be part of any deal? And require a super-majority to repeal?
Frankly, if I were a bondholder, that would be a first requirement. Without that, we could see our primacy in currency decline or other negative consequences.
We might have gotten away with it the first time, but this second brinkmanship episode has got to make the money men less confident in our ability to handle our wackaloons.
Fixed.
Retailers who are in the midst of ordering for holiday season inventories must be going nuts at the Rep holdout. Bad time of year to ask for patience and then forgiveness from business. A grand moment for business to recognize which Party is working to keep the shelves stocked…hope we reach without overreaching.
Mpst retailers are already stuck. They are three weeks from starting to put out holiday goods on the floor. The folks with short supply chains will order by the algorithm.
short or managed supply chains
The fallacy of “Just in Time”.
In this case, maybe not. Just-in-time saves you from large overstocks. And if your supply chain is responsive, sudden increases are not a problem either. But if increases swing more than 2-sigma or so you might be caught with shortages. In the other direction, you’ll be caught with less inventory in sharp downturns.
Just in Time works if everything runs smoothly. I’ll admit that Engineering rules of thumb are wasteful but statistically based methods exist to calculate any desired level of protection against running out of material. At least we used them in the 1970’s Navy. All the Armed Forces have done a huge amount of logistics research ever since WWII. If they run out of material, they lose battles, maybe wars. If they over-allocate in one area, they will be deficient in others and again, lose battles.
Just in time only works until it doesn’t work. Whether you have inventory you can’t sell; 800,000+ consumers out of the loop; credit tightening; and let’s not forget inventory tax looming…eventually someone ends up holding the bag.
Most retailers order a season or more ahead just to get things in the pipeline and then fill in when needed where they can resource. But this year, business is bound to get slapped coming and going. Course with the India superstorm, wonder what’s happening with the VISA call centers?
Whoa! Yeah, sure the opposition to Obamacare “isn’t” about race! I refuse to link to Joe The Plumber’s website. I’d rather give Politicalwire the traffic..
Remember Joe the Plumber?
Ah yes. Sam (he didn’t go by “Joe” until he became famous with that name) the Skinhead (he wasn’t a plumber either). What is it about young white men with skinheads and racism? When I lived in Germany 25 years ago the term “skinhead” literally meant a neo-nazi.
As usual the Democrats will do nothing with this incredible opening.
Not sure what Democrats could do with this. “Joe” is nothing more than a side show amusement at this point, throwing red meat out there for those who are even deeper in the fever swamp than he is. Read a few of the comments at his website. It’s nothing more than a cesspool of ignorance.
What can they do? Giving Joe the attention would be counterproductive. As it is now, he’s a nonentity, but he does havename recognition. Best leave it alone.
Nate Silver, Grantland: The Six Big Takeaways From the Government Shutdown
I think his six takeaways are indeed on target. From a statistician’s standpoint, we are in uncharted territory. It’s closer to a unique event than to anything modelable.
Thanks for the link.
Silver appears here in an unaccustomed role, because (as he makes clear) there is very little reliable statistical evidence to go by. So the points he makes have, at best, only a sketchy relation to statistical evidence.
Thus he is forced to speak not as a statistician, but as a political commentator. And in that role, I do not find his insights especially penetrating or insightful. The impression I get is that to him, without numbers, one event is pretty much like another. He seems to have little insight into qualitative differences.
For example, in his Point 1, he compares the polls on this issue to a number of other nine-day wonders that had no lasting impact. But those were mostly trumped up non-issues, this is a genuine crisis that is causing a lot of people pain and that gets to the heart of political conflict in this country.
His Point 5 (change in tactics because Obama is not facing reelection) is true. But what consequence do we draw from that? That the president has less incentive to make concessions. — I think the fact is equally important that he recently won reelection defeating the Republicans on the same issue(s). So he is doubly in a stronger position.
His Point 6 I find the most interesting and the most relevant. “The increasing extent of GOP partisanship is without strong recent precedent, and contributes to the systemic uncertainty about political outcomes.”
I think that casts doubt on most of his other points, simply because the polls (which he thinks are probably exaggerated) are indicating the public is getting tired of the GOP tactics.
Bill McInturff is also a statistician. Commenting on the recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which showed the public blaming the Republicans by a wide margin, and the GOP getting the lowest approval for any political party since the question has been asked, he says “Overall, this is among the handful of surveys that stand out in my career as being significant and consequential . . . “
“I would also say this about my general experience with this type of data . . . once there is this level of movement and change, it takes months for things to settle down in a way that is stable and easier to understand. This type of data creates ripples that will take a long time to resolve and there will be unexpected changes we cannot predict at the moment as a consequence.”
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/10/12/a_significant_and_consequential_poll.html
In large part that is because we don’t even know what is going to happen. But whatever it is, I find it hard to see how it could be good for the GOP. McInturff is A GOP pollster himself, and I think that was what he was suggesting, without actually saying it in so many words.
This kind of insight into the particularity of these events is just not reflected in Silver’s comments.
We now know something as a result of shifting GOP positions over the last week: Republicans listen (and respond) to polls, despite the “I don’t care about elections” bluster of the Tea Party. I think that is something Nate is overlooking.
That explains the uncertainty factor, no one knows for sure what the GOP is going to do in response to future polls. And since your are dealing with a herd mentality rather than a single presidential campaign, predictability goes out the window. Extreme herd mentality, something Nate gets right on the money.
Overall the damage is to the brand, which may not effect the hard core element of the GOP at all. 2014 might not do so much to the Tea Party, but it will the sow seeds of their ouster in 2016, which may then cause the House to go blue. Ted Cruz recently mentioned something about a 2nd term for Hilary; how Freudian is that?
I remember the ’90’s shutdown, not so much for the damage it caused to the economy, but because it was part of a long string of ratfucking carried out by the GOP. It was the ongoing Whitewater investigation that reminded everyone how shameless the GOP was, which was like a clearing house for all the conspiracy fetish they could muster.
Then, as now, if the GOP keeps stepping on their proverbial dicks, they will be asked to leave by the American People. While I have faith in the American People’s short memories as much as I do GOP’s, I also have faith in their low tolerance for bullshit.
Idon’t disagree with what you say. The fallacy I constantly see people making, is they try to get a sense of out how popular the Tea Party still is, they look at Tea PArty supporters and — lo and behold, they discover that the tea PArty supporters support the Tea Party more THAN EVER. Then they get discouraged.
People are looking at the wrong indicator. I have seen figures lately that only something like 40% of republicans even identify as Tea Party. Wwe need to be looking at the other 60%. And that’s not even getting to the moderstes, as to whether they lean R or D. Fewer of them will be leaning R, I guarantee you.
The problem is Obama and the dems caved for four years to crappy GOP deals. now that Obama is in his second term, he FINALLY grows a spine???
gimme a break, it’s more than a bit late.
It’s not just President Obama who had to grow a spine. And there are a bunch of the spineless ones who are not longer in Congress, in part because of their spinelessness.
It is what it is.
The history of the Obama administration won’t be closed until January 2017.
I get it, but I wonder which spineless democrats in congress were booted out of office and replaced by better democrats with a spine?
I’m aware a bunch of moderate repugs were booted out in 2010 midterm, replaced by teabagger clowns.
as far as Obama’s history, it will be a very mixed bag. he had a once in 50-75 year opportunity to take the banksters who caused the current Depression to the woodshed, nationalize one or two of the offenders in order to send a message to these arseholes. he did not do so; he let them off the hook, much to their relief and thus securing Obama’s high income level (sitting on bankster and corporate boards) after he leaves office. how nice for him and his family.
on the economic recovery front Obama and the “democrats” in congress are a huge failure. they are not serious about the sort of infrastructure program we obviously need, they have no bold plan. it’s baby steps and small beer funding. that’s not going to pull us out of the ditch.
Most of the spineless were replaced by Republicans who were willing to go further to the right.
But Joe Lieberman was replaced by Richard Blumenthal. That was a significant change.
Growing sick of the revisionist history. Obama and his first Congress had a tremendous record of achievement. Many pieces of major legislation were passed, and we were saved from another Great Depression. Those years were far from perfect, but they squeezed a lot of good into a couple of years. They bargained plenty well with the GOP.
“We were saved from another great depression”.
I wonder who WE is?? the multiple millions of people still unemployed and underemployed (that means they
have to work 2-3 jobs just to have the basics, like you
know food on the table and a roof over their heads).
and there are plenty of studies showing people graduating from college who don’t get work in their field will have their income level wrecked. it will take them years, IF ever, to get to the income level they should actually be at. does this sound like “being saved” to you? gimme a break.
the notion “we were saved” by Obama and the so called democrats in congress is total nonsense. they merely moved the deck chairs around. it’s still the same highly flawed and suspect system. Obama and the dems in congress refuse to get serious about a twenty year (minimum) national infrastructure repair and expansion plan. such a plan would employ tens of thousands of people at good paying, good benefit jobs: architects, engineers, consultants, construction workers, truck drivers– and the spin off benefit for hotels and restaurants would be huge– employing more people at entry level jobs.
Helloooooooooo? here’s the kicker: if a GOP president would propose this, I can more or less guarantee you most democrats would say “Yes! brilliant, this is clearly what our nation needs to pull out of the recession!”
so WTF? WHY do they not propose this NOW???
Wow, just be a little bit willing to be historically observant. In 1932 and 1933, the U.S. had two straight years of 25% unemployment. We didn’t get under 14% unemployment until the onset of World War II. In the recent Great Recession, even if we were to add the Americans who have dropped from the job market and the many who are clearly underemployed, we’re nowhere near that level of suffering. We never had real mass starvation dangers as we did in the ’30.
Measure the accomplishments of the ’09-’10 Congress against the alternative. If the GOP had greater or full control of the levers of the Federal government in those years, they would have been unresponsive to 10%, 11%, 12% unemployment and upwards. Do you doubt that Republicans would have been highly pleased to tell the jobless and starving that their collective suffering was good for them, that it was purging the rottenness from them and the system? Congressmembers with that Mellonesque view have openly obstructed Obama and the Dems throughout his Presidency.
And this offends in its falseness: “Obama and the dems in congress refuse to get serious about a twenty year (minimum) national infrastructure repair and expansion plan…”. Holy shit, you are apparently unaware that the Republicans have had control of the House and filibuster power in the Senate for 2 1/2 years. You are unaware that multiple jobs and infrastructure plans HAVE been proposed by the President, and that even those more modest plans have gone nowhere.
In your anger, cynicism and disappointment, you are a mirror image of the Cruz Caucus, demanding the President achieve the politically unachievable through…what? Your second-to-last paragraph is just bitter nonsense. And, to answer your last question, we don’t propose this NOW!!! because proposing new spending as a last-minute demand would unify the House GOP caucus. In these negotiations, we have the ability to create a more permanent cleave of their caucus and gain a new governing majority there. We will need to split the House GOP’s to get even a tiny jobs plan passed between now and 2016.
Republicans need to be removed from power to get the big jobs plan you demand. They have blocking power now. Elections have consequences.