The lobbying industry, which has been laying in near-dormancy ever since sequestration kicked in, is getting ready to fight for money in the upcoming budget negotiations. Ironically, this means that Washington DC is kind of, sort of, working again. It also means that the Republicans are in for a world of pain. Because they refuse to lift spending above sequestration levels or tolerate any new revenue, that means that they are going to piss off every single lobbying organization in the country. It won’t be enough to tell a defense industry lobbyist that you’ll try to restore some of their funding by taking it out of granny’s fixed income. The scheduled defense cuts are far too deep for that game to work. The high-tech industry and the Chamber of Commerce still want immigration reform, and will be annoyed at the Republican leadership for not allowing a vote on it that would pass. Seniors and educators are going to be unsatisfied even if they get a good deal, relatively speaking.
Simply put, the budget is too austere. It’s so austere that the House couldn’t even pass a transportation bill because their own members couldn’t stomach the cuts. If the Republicans don’t make enough concessions to pass a Farm Bill, one of their strongest constituencies is going to revolt.
I don’t see how the Republicans can oppose immigration reform and stand by and allow the kind of cuts to defense, agriculture, entitlements, and transportation that they are contemplating and retain the loyalty of the armed services, the farmers, the elderly, and the Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know how the voters will react, but the lobbyists will turn to the Democrats.
To understand how the Republican Party is grinding itself into oblivion, you need to understand how their ideology has drifted away from the interests of their most powerful and organized supporters.
What has “NO” given the Rep Party?
While they counsel themselves to stand “NO” strong
While they dissolve into takers from the middle class
While they say “NO” to their own staffers and constituents because the lies tell them them to
All the while forgetting to leave the breadcrumbs on how to get back to a party of innovation and fiscal responsibility.
It’s the lack of breadcrumbs that will kill the Party.
I’ve been super pissed at the national Chamber Of Commerce and other larger business interests and their absolutist positions and scorched-earth tactics.
No regulation for worker and consumer safety, or to improve the environment and deal with climate change. No regulations to dissolve monopolies and prevent business practices that create obscene profit-taking from powerful financial, health care and energy interests. Destroy workers’ ability to protect their bargaining position through Union representation and Labor law. Extreme positions on tax policy, and desires to destroy our current Social Security, Medi/Medi and other programs which are opposed by Americans from across the political spectrum.
So now the CoC’s coming, hat in hand, because the Congressmembers they got elected to office have heads of lead? Well, Chamber, STOP killing the geese who lay your golden eggs: that’s the 300+ million consumers who can’t buy your products if they don’t have decent incomes. You may own businesses, but you don’t seem to know what the hell you’re talking about when it comes to basic economics.
said it before,and will say it again..
I don’t need for them to turn to Democrats..
I just need for them to close their checkbooks for 2 election cycles.
I believe this was Obama/Reid’s original strategy in the debt ceiling deal of 2011. The CW is that it was a capitulation and a failure. However, they set a trap for GOP, and now they are stuck in their obsession with austerity. It just took this long for it to play out, because the Republicans wouldn’t touch the sequester until now.
Leo Soderman put it like this back in August 2011:
“If Republicans want to extend the tax cuts, they will need to cut an equal amount out of spending, with half of that coming from defense spending. Half. This is in addition to the $350B that are already being cut as part of this deal. To get their tax cuts, Republicans would have to slash another $2T from defense spending. They would have to justify slashing the defense budget for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. And with all the social programs off the table, where will they find the other $2T?”
http://www.editedforclarity.com/2011/08/01/debt-ceiling-deal-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
Spandan also saw it as a major victory at the time.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/08/paul-krugman-is-political-rookie-or-how.html
And now he explains it in retrospect as “Obama’s smartest political move, [that] broke the elephant’s back”.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/08/why-2011-debt-ceiling-deal-is-smartest.html
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/08/why-2011-debt-ceiling-deal-is-smartest.html
I’m with conventional wisdom on this. Using the sequester as a wedge to break up the Republican monolith was part of Obama and Reid’s original plan, but they didn’t expect it to take so long or that two additional shots at the debt ceiling would be needed (and we’re not necessarily done).
Also, I’m not going to crow until the Republicans actually break. I personally anticipate that we are going to end up with the sequester minimally touched. For a House Republican to publicly split from the Tea Party is basically political death, either from a primary challenge or withdrawal of support in the general. Boehner is still going to want to keep the “moderates” in line and the CR battle shows that he can under current political circumstances.
The big payoff will come when the lobbyists and Chamber of Commerce really break with the Tea Party and start aggressively challenging them. The intraparty struggles will cost them votes in the general election and the lobbyists will also move the media away from the Republicans (remember, GE owns NBC). The election following that split will bring us big gains and then we’ll finally get some legislative progress.
So IMO the fastest likely timecourse is keeping the sequester in 2014 leads to serious primary challenges in 2014 and a Democratic House in 2015. But I think it’s very possible the lobbyist revolt won’t be firm enough and move fast enough to make a big difference in the 2014 election and the real payoff won’t be until the 2016 election.
I’m still relatively hopeful about the 2014 election as I see substantial benefits from Obamacare implementation, the CR fight, and the fact that many Republicans are so loony-tune that they think maintaining the sequester without causing a debt default is a “spineless surrender”.
GE doesn’t own NBC any more.
I hope your optimistic scenario plays out. I am optimistic about the ACA; it’s going to help many millions of Americans and the wingnut fantasy horror stories will not materialize.
GE doesn’t own NBC any more.
Correct. Comcast now owns it lock, stock and barrel. They’re horrible too. Fluffyhead suckles Old Gluehorse just as much as he always has.
Comcast, satirized mercilessly on “30 Rock” as ‘Kabletown’, the network’s new owner.
As far as i know, the conventional wisdom is that Obama “caved”, and that the debt-ceiling deal of 2011 was a failure that did nothing more than enable the Tea Party.
I think you are actually a lot closer to what I’m saying, you are just recognizing that the thing hasn’t played out yet, and you remain to be convinced that it will work.
That’s a good point, and I don’t disagree. Basically, I was just trying to back up what Booman said by reminding everyone that a small minority of commentators had been saying this at the time. A very small minority.
I sure as hell hope Dems don’t waver on their insistence that only when revenues are included that entitlement cuts are considered. While Sen. Durbin repeated that position, he also said today, “Social Security is gonna run out of money in 20 years. The Baby Boom generation is gonna blow away our future. We don’t wanna see that happen.” There are definitely pressures that need to be addressed, but SS is not going broke. If Dems chose to be the responsible party and cut SS growth, they will pay the price. Most folks are not prepared for that – they don’t equate “government spending” with Social Security and Medicare. Don’t doubt that R’s will clobber them for the cuts they want but don’t want to be associated with.
Why does Durbin do this? That SS statement he made today was bullshit.
He’s a tool of the one percent. No one knows what will happen twenty years from now. Projections are just that, projections. Maybe SS will run out of money in twenty years, maybe in five years, maybe never.
If Durbin can accurately predict the economy over the next twenty years then he should play the stock market and become the world’s first trillionaire.
Ive already determined not to vote for that son of a bitch, even if Joe Walsh runs against him.
The bothersome thing is that even under a worst-case scenario where FICA collection is hurt by suppressed payroll income AND Congress does absolutely nothing into the 2030’s (a totally unrealistic scenario), SS would NOT “run out of money in 20 years.” It may become unable to pay 100% of beneficiaries at current benefit levels, but that is not the same as running out of money.
Durbin’s full of shit regardless of budget projections.
That’s a bit of a quibble, it’s like saying not paying all the bondholders 100% is not a default. However, your other comments are spot on.
So why are so many Democrats jumping on the bandwagon to “reform SS””? Notice they are not talking about cutting the payroll tax in exchange. That leads me to believe that their real purpose is to maintain the payroll tax as a cash cow to fund other things, probably business pork.
Durbin notwithstanding, are there 51 Senators who have gone on the record as wishing to “reform SS”? They could probably get Warner; he’s a bootlicker for the financial sector. Who would the other Democrats be, and what would they demand in exchange?
If there is a majority, do we have 41 Senators who would filibuster such an effort? In reality, I don’t think that many Democrats have jumped on this bandwagon. That the President has jumped creates a problem, admittedly.
There is the President and that is a mighty force.
Reid’s been very aggressive and outspoken in leading the Senate to opposition to SS cuts so far. The Majority Leader is a pretty mighty force too.
It is such a shame that energy has to expended defending FDR’s and LBJ’s programs from Democrats when that energy should be expended on the mortgage/jobs/education crisis. No wonder Congress’s approval ratings are lower than used car salesmen.
Well, it might be good to keep some perspective here. We can’t get great things done with this insane Republican-controlled House. All the same, we have to govern, which is made much more difficult by the House’s near-complete DISinterest in governing.
Look at the accomplishments of Obama’s first Congress. That was an expression of Democratic Party values. We had the chance to govern, with the caveat that we were constrained by the whims and interests of Senators Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln and others. I’m proud of what the Democratic Party leaders of 2009-10 did.
I recognize the problems of new programs and that we have to defend existing programs from Republicans. I was deploring the energy spent defending Democratic programs from attacks by Democrats.
Large organizations like the AFL-CIO and AARP are mobilizing, organizing and issuing very specific threats on this one. No Dem will be allowed to say “I didn’t know this was a deal-breaker!”
I would like to know if we have an answer to the question I asked upthread. Are there five Senators on the record as being supportive of Chained CPI, the biggest threat at the moment? Go ahead, name them; there just aren’t that many. I found Durbin’s statement so remarkable because of how far it wandered from the Democratic reservation.
If you identify five, could we also identify 41 Senators who would filibuster such an effort? By his statements, I believe Reid would support blocking cuts to entitlement benefits, and if the Senate won’t move it, it ain’t happening.
Well Bernie Sanders has said he would filibuster it.
“That’s a bit of a quibble, it’s like saying not paying all the bondholders 100% is not a default.”
No, I’m not attempting to be deceptive here. It’s just that this framework of “we’re broke” or “bankrupt” or “out of money” is understood by too many people as the SS account being literally emptied of cash. If that’s the mental picture you have in your mind, it probably feels to you like you’re being lied to when you’re told that SS will pay out in full until 2039. Too much cognitive dissonance.
Hey, cognitive dissonance is the American way of life!
That’s why I only said “a bit”.
GREAT!
Now I don’t have to root for injuries, I can actually root for fatalities – and THAT’S a new feeling, for this old Libtard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funny, I’ve been rooting for GOP terrorist fatalities for many years now. Goddamned bastards.
I can only surmise that he is more realistic than you are. It was understandable, but not realistic, to root for fatalities then; now it is realistic.
Somewhat off-topic, but I know I’ve seen people talking about the debt ceiling and shutdown votes in comments and specifically mentioning that they didn’t have any good maps to look at, i.e. Suicide Caucus, etc.
Here’s a link to the NYTimes and a map they have of different factions in the House.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/20/us/politics/the-factions-in-the-house.html?hp&_r=1
&gwh=6C91ACF13F17EE61C4293DD17EBC3E8E&
Could be useful for parsing out good information.