Tag: Gridlock

GOP: Party of Compromise

Greg Sargent talks Bush tax cuts and GOP/Democratic comity and compromise:

There is a way a one-year or two-year temporary extension could represent a compromise of sorts: If Republicans signal a willingness to at least entertain the idea of letting the high end cuts expire after that temporary extension. But many of them aren’t doing that. Their position is that the high-end cuts need to be made permanent. Full stop.

Exactly right. The GOP idea of compromise here is permanent Bush tax cuts. I suspect they might be willing to dump the tax cuts for the bottom 99% of America, but that top 1% isn’t going anywhere and they don’t want some two-year fix, they want it made permanent.

Democrats need to get through their heads that losing the entire Bush tax cuts package is actually the best long-term policy outcome; that this is also the “no deal, time expires” outcome makes it all the more powerful as a bargaining chip. Always be willing to walk away from the entire thing, and always make clear that all blame rests on the GOP by making clear that full-extension is their position, so partial repeal is the compromise position. Yes, walking away means short term harm to everyone making below $250k/yr, but if that’s what it takes to roll back the tax cuts for the richest of the rich: so be it. Only from that position of relative strength do you get the GOP to even approach the table. And, I’ll let you in on a secret: they still won’t.

This is why it’s the perfect issue for the Democrats. It’s important, easy to understand, and directly pits the hyper-rich against the interests of most Americans. Swing for the fences. You’ve got nothing to lose. If you force the GOP to accept short-term, top 1% cuts, it’s a win. If you force the media to face the fact that the GOP has zero interest in compromise on anything, it’s a win, and if you force the true compromise position of time-limited cuts for 99% of Americans and an immediate roll-back to Clinton-era rates for the top 1%: it’s a giant win of the sort that could redefine the terms and dimensions of exactly how policies do or don’t get done over the next two years. So why not try?

I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table.

Nancy Pelosi.  I wonder if we will be so fortunate with Speaker Boehner.  (via jonathan-cunningham)
I’d say it’s actually more important to recall that Pelosi was fairly literally dragged in front of cameras and forced to make this statement before it was even entirely clear just how many laws the Bush/Cheney trek to the DarkSide had broken or denied the existence of. Has Boehner even been asked? Of course he hasn’t. And won’t be. After all, Obama sets the agenda, and the GOP is certainly now pursuing a life of diligent Broderism.

This year, though, right-wingers barely even pretended to have [a serious agenda]. Their main talking point about health reform was that it would cut Medicare benefits. They railed about TARP and the auto bailout, but the former originated in the Bush administration, and they will not attempt to repeal it. They talked about creating jobs by reducing the deficit, which is economic nonsense. Moreover, not one of the policy plans the Republicans produced would reduce the deficit by a penny. Tea Partiers ranted about constitutional and economic schemes that they probably won’t even introduce, much less pass.

Mark Scmitt, writing for The American Prospect.
I’d say that about sums it up. To me, the most breathtaking one is that recurrent bit about Medicare: keep your government claws off of it, and/but don’t cut a penny; we are, however, against any and all forms of government intrusion by you filthy socialists.
That the core concept in that piece of “reasoning” was never challenged (successfully or otherwise) is precisely why last night happened. Now they’ll gridlock the government, sit on their hands, default on the debt, and then blame Obama, Our Agenda Setter in Chief, for all of it.

One More Thing…

John Boehner, amidst his tear strewn recitation of the robotically, preternaturally, hypnotically exact four things that he and all of his GOP cronies claim to believe the election results told them, accidentally let slip the next great product we can expect from the GOP:

While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it’s the president who sets the agenda for our government.

There you have it. Where in their beloved Constitution is the establishment of a parliamentary system in which the Congress (either house) takes its marching orders from the President? But that’s what we’ll be told as they sit on their hands and do nothing other than obstruct, obstruct, obstruct: the President is the one with a problem. His agenda doesn’t meet with our approval. So, more in sadness than in anger, we’re required to shut the government down and default on the debt. Sorry, but Obama made us do it by not “heeding the public” and installing a full, far-right GOP agenda (that Obama’s own overwhelming electoral majority also wanted, apparently. Or did that election not deliver any cogent message from the public?). Because, you know, the President sets the agenda. Nobody else can or will, because that would be wrong.

Democrats, they’re teeing it up for you, and have been for a long time. History will call them the Tee Klan. Well, they will if you’ll just take a swing.

Disconnect the Dots

NYT/CBS News Poll: 78 percent of [likely voters] said they believed Republicans in Congress should compromise some of their positions to get things done and 15 percent said they should stick to their positions even if it means getting less done.
House Minority Leader John Boehner: This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles [if and when we gain the majority].

A Discontinuous Discussion

Mike Lee, (likely: R, Utah): Our current debt is a little shy of $14 trillion. And I don’t want it to increase 1 cent above the current debt limit and I will vote against that. [A Government shutdown is] an inconvenience, it would be frustrating to many, many people and it’s not a great thing, and yet at the same time, it’s not something that we can rule out. It may be absolutely necessary.
Alex Seitz-Wald (ThinkProgress): [Disgraced] Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s government shutdown in 1995 was disastrous; it ended up costing taxpayers over $800 million in losses for salaries paid to furloughed employees, delayed access to Medicare and Social Security, and caused a ‘[m]ajor curtailment in services,’ including health services, to veterans.
Eric Cantor (R, VA, Minority Whip): No. I don’t think the country needs or wants a shutdown. [We in the GOP] have to be careful [pursuing our agenda such that we’re not] seen as a bunch of yahoos.”
Lemkin: I wouldn’t worry about that, Cantor; that hasn’t cost you a thing yet and presupposes a MSM that, you know, gives a shit about objective reality. Mark it: government will be shut down early 2011.

On Consensus

President Obama: [Democrats need to have an] appropriate sense of humility about what we can accomplish; [to that end, I pledge to] spend more time building consensus.”
Mitch McConnell, (R, KY): The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.