Sarah Palin still terrifies me

By Frank Moraes 

As The Des Moines Register reported the other day, "Palin Compares Federal Debt to Slavery at Iowa Dinner." And you may well ask why I care. After all, Sarah Palin is always saying something stupid and she is always somewhere. This weekend, it was Iowa.

But I think it is important. I don't care about the slavery bit and all her racist talk. What does bother me is this, "Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China." There are two things wrong with this sentence. First: China. It's been a while since I've talked about this, so I think it is worth bringing up again. As I discussed in China Owns America! In Republican Ads, only 32% of our debt is owed to anyone outside the country; only 8% is owed to China. The vast majority of American debt is owed to ourselves.

I see this kind of fear that we are going to bury ourselves in debt -- especially from conservatives. But it is based on an extremely poor understand of finance. Consider this example. When I was five years old, my parents bought a house for $17,000. It is now 44 years later. Imagine that they had kept that house all this time and had only paid the interest on it. Let's also assume that their mortgage rate was 8%, which is actually kind of high. That would mean that today, they would be paying $113 per month in interest. Clearly, they would be better off having paid off the principle -- $113 per month better off. But it's not the case that they would be buried in principle. What's more, they would now have a house that is worth about a quarter million dollars.

That brings us to the second problem with Palin's sentence. We aren't taking money away from our children by borrowing money today. That is especially true if we are using the money we borrow to invest in infrastructure, health, and education. College graduates are having a hard time finding jobs right now. And that will hurt them into the future. Having a low paying job or no job at all will be a big problem compared to that modest $113 mortgage we are supposedly saving our kids from.

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More Thomas Friedman bullshit

By Frank Moraes

I know that Thomas Friedman doesn't exist just to piss me off, because he pisses a lot of other people off too. But at the moment, I'm feeling persecuted, because I was tricked into reading his most recent column. It is all Matt Yglesias' fault. He tweeted, "Everyone is going to hate this Tom Friedman column, but once again he's basically right." Yglesias is a smart guy, so I thought I'd check out the column to see if Friedman is "basically right." No, he isn't. In fact, he is just giving us the same line that he always does.

Thomas Friedman, like most Serious Centrists, is above ideology. He just wants to fix problems. Sure, he can see that the Republicans have gone on tilt. But that doesn't mean the Democrats don't have their own problems. This always reminds me of someone in 1969 watching the Cuyahoga River on fire and saying, "This is bad, but the nitrogen levels are elevated in the American River; let's not forget that!" Balance!

Now, Friedman tells us that if Obama wins re-election, this will cause the Republican Party to reevaluate and move to the center. Okay. That's fine. Friedman is a naive man with no understanding of psychology or sociology, but that doesn't make him evil. If the Republicans lose the presidencies, they will (1) blame it on Mitt Romney being a moderate; and (2) become even more extreme.

In the longer term, there may be something to what Friedman says. If the Republicans do not do very well in the 2014 midterms, then the party will likely start to moderate to some degree. But even then, it is not going to be a sudden lurch to the middle. It will be a slow process that will work from the more liberal areas out. Eventually, we may see a more reasonable center-right party. But to think that this will happen in the next couple of years is ridiculous.

But it isn't when talking about the Republican Party that Friedman is most off the mark. He can't talk about this stuff without blasting the Democratic Party over supposed entitlement reform. For Friedman, this means screwing the poor and middle classes. He seems never to have heard of the idea of eliminating the Social Security cap. Mustn't harm the rich! Instead it is: cut and delay benefits. Friedman is like a personal trainer who only thinks you are exercising if you are in great pain.

What is most annoying about Friedman and what is very much on display in this column is his hubris. Somehow, because he talks to taxi drivers, he thinks he has his fingers on the pulse of America. And this causes him to make ridiculous, untrue proclamations about what the common man wants:

A truly center-right G.O.P. would force the Democrats to have their own civil war -- the center-left versus the rest -- largely over tax/entitlement reform and defense spending. Obama has never fully tested where the Democratic base is on these issues, but that's coming. The Democratic civil war will encompass fewer issues than the G.O.P.'s, but it will be intense and unavoidable -- if we are to forge the Grand Bargains that America's center-right/center-left majority clearly wants and the country clearly needs.

I like the idea that Obama has never tested his base. The truth is that the liberal base of the Democratic Party has been constantly tested. Labor unions, for example, have continued to be loyal partisans even while the Obama administration has done nothing for them. Liberals got Republican health-care "reform" that they hate. On immigration, drug policy, and taxes, liberals have gotten nothing or worse. A man delusional enough to think that "moderate" means pro-gay marriage economic extremism is certainly delusional enough to think that liberals have gotten everything (or anything!) they wanted. But few others would.

The real belly-laughing aspect of that quote is that America wants and needs a Grand Bargain. Americans don't care about the debt. Unless they are specifically asked about it, they rarely mention it as a concern. As for what we need: it is more deficit spending. We need to stimulate the economy. What we don't need is more rich idiot blowhards like Thomas Friedman explaining to us what we really want.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

The fiscal havoc Republicans have wreaked

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Republicans are in Tampa this week blaming President Obama for... well, for pretty much everything, but mostly, it would seem (based on Christie's speech last night), for not being serious enough and so not doing enough about the bloated budget deficit and ballooning national debt.

The propaganda will be in heavy supply, and Romney is being touted as, and will tout himself as when he takes the podium Thursday night, just the sort of responsible fiscal conservative America needs at this time of fiscal crisis.

Don't believe a word of it.

First, of course, there's the Romney-Ryan (and orthodox Republican) "plan," which mostly focuses on tax cuts for the wealthy (you know, people like... Mitt Romney), paying for them, sort of, by crushing government into oblivion -- there are a lot of unspecified spending cuts, though not to national defense, which is indeed rather bloated, unspecified largely because the devil, as they say, is in the details, or in other words because any such cuts would be unpopular, along with entitlement reform of the kind that would essentially destroy hugely popular and hugely successful programs like Social Security and Medicare -- that is, summing up, paying for them by burdening everyone else, the vast majority of Americans who aren't rich.

You won't hear any of that in Tampa, though you'll hear a lot about how Obama and the Democrats are waging class war and unfairly picking on the wonderful job creating "makers" who just happen to be rich, boo-hoo for them, pity the poor souls and their god-given wealth, and you'll hear a lot about how the only way to get the economy moving again, and to resolve the fiscal crisis, is to reintroduce some serious trickling down. Oh, they won't call it that, but that's what they mean when they propose slashing taxes (on the rich, though they'll claim it's much broader than that) and spending (mostly for programs that benefit everyone else).

But then, second, there's this... the fact that the current fiscal crisis is largely a Republican creation, a product of the gluttonous Bush years, when the GOP controlled the White House and Capitol Hill and ran roughshod all over fiscal responsibility through tax cutting and warmongering.

Here's where a graphic would help, and helpfully Ezra Klein provides one:

Pretty clear, no? As Klein explains:

The top layer, the orange one, that's the Bush tax cuts. There is no single policy we have passed that has added as much to the debt, or that is projected to add as much to the debt in the future, as the Bush tax cuts, which Republicans passed in 2001 and 2003 and Obama and the Republicans extended in 2010. To my knowledge, all elected Republicans want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Democrats, by and large, want to end them for income over $250,000.

In second place is the economic crisis. That's the medium blue. Recessions drive tax revenue down because people lose their jobs, and when you lose your job, you lose your income, and when you lose your income, you can't pay taxes. Tax revenues in recent years have been 15.4 percent of GDP — the lowest level since the 1950s. Meanwhile, they drive social spending up, because programs like unemployment insurance and Medicaid automatically begin spending more to help the people who have been laid off.

Then comes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's the red. And then recovery measures like the stimulus. That's the light blue, and the part for which you can really blame Obama and the Democrats– though it’s worth remembering that the stimulus had to happen because of a recession that began before Obama entered office, and that the Senate Republicans proposed and voted for a $3 trillion tax cut stimulus that would have added almost four times what Obama's stimulus added to the debt.

Then there's the financial rescue measures like TARP, which is the dark blue line. That's almost nothing, as much of that money has been paid back.

In other words, a largely Republican mess, made worse by a global economic downturn that hardly was Obama's fault. And, indeed, the president has tried to do something about it.

First, he pulled the economy back from the brink of collapse, not least through a stimulus package that Republicans tried to block and through rescuing the domestic auto industry, which some Republicans, including Romney, also tried to block.

So contrary to Republican propagands, it's not that Obama has done so poorly at fixing the economy, it's that the economy would be so much worse were it not for him, were Republicans the ones calling the shots.

Which in many ways they have, controlling the House since 2010, using the filibuster like a disloyal opposition in the Senate, and pursuing a course of absolute obstructionism at every turn, even when the president was handing them a deal that was incredibly friendly to conservatism: "Obama has proposed a multi-trillion dollar deficit reduction plan. Republicans just refused to pass it." He was more than willing to compromise, even to put key entitlement programs on the table, much to the chagrin of progressives, but... no. Never. Refusing to hand him any sort of victory, Republicans chose to block any measure other than one steeped in their right-wing extremism, like the Ryan budget, that aimed to get the country's fiscal house in order.

All of which makes their rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, about how Romney will do what needs to be done, complete and utter bullshit.

Paul Ryan is no deficit hawk

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you know how Paul Ryan has a reputation -- pushed self-aggrandizingly by the man himself, as well as by his party, and spun by a willing, kowtowing Beltway media establishment -- for being an uncompromising deficit hawk, for being ever so willing, unlike most of his Capitol Hill colleagues, to make the tough fiscal choices that are required at this time of urgent fiscal panic?

Yeah, well, here's a shocker. Seems that reputation is completely undeserved:

A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that Ryan voted to add a grand total of $6.8 trillion to the federal debt during his time in Congress, voting for at least 65 bills that either reduced revenue or increased spending.

From 2001 to 2008, Congress passed legislation that increased the national deficit by a total of $4 trillion — the number grows to $6 trillion if you add in the how much those policies have cost through 2011. Ryan voted for 90 percent of these deficit increasing bills. 

Of course we knew this already. It's just good to have a number attached to it.

And that number is $6.8 trillion. That's trillion. With a T.

Paul Ryan isn't a deficit hawk, he's an Ayn Rand-loving trickle-downer whose aim is to reduce the tax "burden" on the rich while screwing everyone else.

Remember that next time he's held up, including by Mitt Romney, as a serious, courageous man with serious, courageous "ideas" for America.

I don't see how any American who isn't a complete idiot can vote for a Republican

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitt Romney, yesterday, at The University of Chicago:

I don't see how a young American can vote for, well, can vote for a Democrat.

He was referring to national debt and the accumulation thereof, trying to make the case that Republicans are "consumed with the idea of getting federal spending down and creating economic growth and opportunity so we can balance our budget and stop putting these debts on you."

Which makes him sound all responsible, though of course what he was doing was being dishonest.

Republicans aren't consumed with balancing the budget, they're consumed with lowering taxes on the rich, on people like, oh, Mitt Romney.

And if they were really consumed with improving the country's fiscal health, they'd support the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare, itself derived from Romneycare, Mitt's relatively progressive reform package in Massachusetts), which seeks to get health-care spending under control and which will significantly reduce the deficit. But of course they consider it the worst attack on freedom in American history (one of the truly most ridiculous claims in American history) -- even if it's actually a Republican idea.

And if they were really consumed about balancing the budget, they'd support cuts to military spending and, yes, progressive taxation that places a fair burden on the shoulders of the rich, particularly Romney and his plutocratic ilk, not just letting the disastrous Bush tax cuts expire but advocating higher taxes on those who most certainly can afford to make a greater sacrifice. But of course tax increases of any kind, even returning to the tax rates of the prosperous Clinton years, are anathema to Republicans, without exception. And, no, they don't support military spending cuts either.

But let's get back to what Romney said. Why would a young American vote for a Democrat? Because it's not just about balanced budgets, it's about doing something about climate change, about caring for the poor, about not waging war on women and their health, about extending health coverage to the uninsured, about not getting entangled in imperialist foreign wars, about making sure air and water are clean, about being fair and compassionate to undocumented immigrants who only want a better life in America. It's about so many things that really, truly matter to young people today, things about which Romney either doesn't seem to give a shit or doesn't seems to have a clue. And on these and so many other things, it's the Democrats who stand for the hopes and dreams of young Americans.

Mitt, if you want to know how a young American, or any American who isn't a complete idiot, can vote for a Democrat (you know, like President Obama), go take a good long look in the mirror. There's your answer.

(photo)

Obama 2012: Just do it!

By Nicholas Wilbur

Watching President Obama's press conference, you got the feeling he wouldn't care if Congress put a bill on his desk ordering the immediate demolition of Capitol Hill, so long as it included a measure to increase the debt ceiling.

"Let's step up," he told a packed house of reporters. "Let's do it. I'm prepared to do it... Let's consider it... Let's go... Let's act now... Let's get this problem off the table... Let's deal with it... Now is the time for us to go ahead and take it on... Do it now... I'm ready to do it."

If nothing else, he's got a new slogan for his 2012 re-election campaign, assuming Phil Knight doesn't mind the trademark infringement.

As further evidence of the complete incompetence of the United States Congress, the president has once again been called in to play the moderator in a partisan battle over a routine budgetary matter that in the last 40 years hasn't been any more controversial than a declaration to rename the Inverness, Calif., post office.

Congress didn't balk when it voted to triple the national debt with 18 increases to the debt ceiling during Ronald Reagan's two terms. No Republican majority leaders stormed out of the room before Congress voted a half-dozen times to increase the debt ceiling during George H.W. Bush's one-term presidency. There were never any threats of defaulting on the nation's credit card when Congress voted seven more times to raise the debt ceiling and nearly double national debt during Junior's two terms in the White House.

But Obama isn't a Republican president, and Republicans today have no other choice in the matter. If you sow beets, you will not reap olives.

They thumped Democrats in the midterm elections by campaigning against big government, against government spending, and against the national debt. To break that promise would be to sever the support from one of the most vocal and active factions in politics today, the Tea Party. Reneging on their vows would carry the consequence of early retirement, as Tea Party organizations across the country have threatened to oust "Republicans in Name Only" (RINOs) in 2012 primaries if they fail to seriously tackle the debt. It would also carry the risk of making Republican members of Congress look like H.W. Bush after he uttered the now infamous campaign promise, "Read my lips: No new taxes."

On top of that, Republicans know that a poor economy (made worse by their efforts to enact massive federal spending cuts) is their only hope for a repeat performance in 2012.

Barack Obama Swoosh

What GOP leaders fail to realize is that their stall tactics and obstructionist strategies only make the president stronger. They've fought "big government" by demanding massive spending cuts as part of a deal to increase the debt ceiling, but they've vehemently opposed every option put on the table. Their House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), walked out on negotiations because Democrats wouldn't agree to 100 percent of his demands. And then they had to call in the president to help heal the wounds and iron out a deal.

Just like in April when Obama took over the 2011 budget negotiations, he's re-framing the debate, and it doesn't look good for Republicans.

He agreed to $2 trillion in spending cuts. Republicans said no. He then offered more than $3 trillion in spending cuts. Republicans again said no. As the icing on the cake, he proposed significant reforms to Social Security and Medicare, the Democratic Party's sacred cows, and the GOP still said no.

He's taken to the podium twice in as many weeks to lay out the general scope of the negotiations, to ask for some modicum of urgency and fairness in the talks, and to send the message to the American public, to the electorate, that he's willing to go to any length to avoid an economically catastrophic default. The only caveat: reciprocity.

"I'm prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done," Obama said, "and I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing – if they mean what they say, that this is important."

"Now is the time to do it,” he said in a warning to Congress about the added pressure of continuing this debate any further into the 2012 campaign season. "It's not going to get easier. It's going to get harder. So we might as well do it now – pull off the Band-Aid; eat our peas."

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Obama is showing the American people that there actually is an adult in this fight, and that that adult doesn't care about the political differences. He wants results.

"[I]f each side takes a maximalist position, if each side wants 100 percent of what its ideological predispositions are," he said, "then we can't get anything done."

He's direct and pragmatic where other politicians are demagogic. He's confident about the potential for compromise where other politicians are frantically, stubbornly obstinate. And he's reassuring where other politicians are apocalyptic.

The more time he gets in front of a room full of reporters and cameras, the more he gets to demonstrate to the American public that sanity has a seat at the head of the table in the daily operations of an otherwise insanely politicized federal government.

"[I]s the package that we're talking about exactly what I would want? No. I might want more revenues and fewer cuts to programs that benefit middle-class families that are trying to send their kids to college, or benefit all of us because we're investing more in medical research," he said. "I make no claims that somehow the position that Speaker [John] Boehner and I discussed reflects 100 percent of what I want. But that's the point. My point is, is that I'm willing to move in their direction in order to get something done. And that's what compromise entails. We have a system of government in which everybody has got to give a little bit."

It's the reason political analyst Mark Halperin described the president not as an "ignoramus" or an "economic bonehead," but as a "dick" following his last debt ceiling press conference.

Obama wasn't wrong. He wasn't misinformed about the necessity of increasing the debt limit. Rather, Halperin knew no other way to vent the frustration of seeing a Democratic president take the upper hand in a debate that Republicans not only started but started with the self-assurance that its outcome would wreak havoc on Obama's approval rating and credibility. 

 

Understandably, it must be quite embarrassing to pick a fight only to bow out every time the opponent steps into the ring. 

It was Republicans, remember, who spent a year campaigning against excessive government spending.

It was Republicans who demanded "historic" federal budget cuts.

And it's Republicans who are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to secure even more "historic" cuts.

The debt wasn't only contributing to the economic "uncertainty" that Republicans claimed was hampering job growth. It was also going to destroy the American Dream for all future generations.

Then the president said, "Okay, let's do it... I'm prepared to do it... Let's go," and the GOP panicked.

The big-government loving socialist suddenly endorsed one of the most un-socialist, small-government policy positions ever.

Obama 2012: Just Do It! 

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Obama is full of shit

By Nicholas Wilbur

(Ed. note: For more on the politics of the debt ceiling debate, not that there's any real debate, see my post from yesterday, "Why the hell is Obama willing to give away so much just to get a debt ceiling deal done?" -- MJWS)

I don't think President Obama is a dick, but I do think he's full of shit – and I mean that in a the most adoring and respectful way possible.

The Huffington Post reports that House Speaker John Boehner gave an emphatic "NO!" to President Obama's proposal to cut Medicare and Social Security spending if Republicans agree to $100 billion in annual tax increases as part of the debt ceiling negotiations: 

Boehner is rejecting President Obama's offer to make historic cuts to the federal government and the social safety net, saying in a statement Saturday evening that he can not agree to the tax increases Democrats insisted on as part of the bargain. 

Unless Obama recently was lobotomized, this is just politics.

Putting "entitlements" on the table merely adds to the image of the president as a moderate negotiator, a sane, bipartisan national leader who's willing and ready to attack the big problems of the country by reaching across the aisle and making the unpopular decisions no president or Congress has been willing to make for decades.

He may want to appear as that guy, and he is appearing as that guy, but he's not actually trying to be guy – mainly because that guy would be an idiot.

Obama saw the incensed response from the electorate when House Republicans voted on a budget plan that essentially privatized Medicare. Members of Congress were being booed out of town-hall meetings by 90-year olds, for Christ's sake. The reaction wouldn't have been any different if Democrats had proposed it. And that is why I don't think Obama's "Grand Bargain" was made in good faith.

It was political posturing, pure and simple. Obama needed no contingency plan because he knew Boehner couldn't afford the political blowback within his party of accepting such a deal – not with the Norquistian Tea Partiers equating tax increases with treason. Republicans would have been slaughtered just as savagely by their constituents as Democrats would have been by theirs.

As Jay Newton-Small put it:

[T]the collapse of the grand bargain leaves President Obama in a more favorable political position. If both parties agree to cut $2 trillion from the budget with minor tax increases, he'll notch a bipartisan accomplishment. But he can also say he tried something more ambitious in putting cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table without facing the political fallout of actually slashing those programs. He went big and congressional Republicans – not to mention the noticeably silent 2012 Republican presidential candidates – didn't.

Well said.

Obama isn't a dick. He’s a political genius.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Government shutdown 2.0: The debt ceiling

By Nicholas Wilbur 

It's getting down to the wire. The eleventh hour. Crunch time.

If Democrats and Republicans don't make a deal on the debt ceiling by August 2, the Earth will explode. The U.S. will default on its debts. Interest rates will rise. Rep. Eric Cantor will make a killing on his stock investments against the U.S. economy. And who knows, Ann Coulter might not look like a barfly in her next book-jacket photo, Jon Stewart might sign a contract with Fox News, Rep. Barney Frank might go back into the closet, and Marcus Bachmann might come out.

Golfing Buddies: Obama & Boehner
Source: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Nobody knows for sure how bad it would be if America defaulted, but everyone who's trained in the economic arts to have an educated opinion about such things seems pretty well convinced it wouldn't rank very far behind "vicious shark attack" on the summer fun scale. And isn't that odd? Doesn't President Obama have an apocalypse czar for this sort of thing?

The fact that nobody knows the exact consequences of a default says something about the likelihood of Congress not increasing the debt ceiling. Maybe it's just me, but this seems oddly reminiscent of the media frenzy surrounding the government shutdown threats in March and April of this year, when Republicans demanded a "historic" $100 billion in spending cuts to the 2011 budget.

Remember that? All the hype about the effects a shutdown would have on society – the unsettling mental images of senior citizens rotting in their own filth because they didn't get their Social Security checks on time to pay the nurse, little kids burning American flags in protest of Yellowstone campground closures, foreigners rioting in the streets (of their home countries?) because their VISA applications weren't processed? It was going to be chaotic. And then, suddenly, it wasn't.

It didn't happen. The Republicans who'd threatened to shut down the government if Obama and Co. didn't defund Planned Parenthood and NPR and the health-care reform law and the EPA, they eventually compromised, threw in the towel on the Tea Party's demands for radical policy riders, and settled on a budget deal that satisfied everyone, more or less.

Leaders from both parties boasted about the agreement, the shared sacrifice, "the biggest annual spending cut in history."

Facing threats of a primary election challenge from the Tea Party, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had to confute his right-wing critics who claimed he was a spineless "Republican in Name Only" (RINO). And he did. He secured "historic" budget cuts and proved himself a socialism slayer, a fiscal hawk, and a trusted advocate of the small government ideal that is foundational to the Republican Party.

"This has been a long discussion and a long fight," he said, "but we fought to keep government spending down because it really will, in fact, help create a better environment for job creators in our country." The "fact" about a better job creating environment didn't pan out exactly as planned, but he heralded the deal as a victory for the GOP, because it was, and he promised to continue fighting for even more spending cuts in the future, which he has.

President Obama got what he needed from the deal as well. He was the lead negotiator of a compromise bill that was both fiscally and socially responsible. "Reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense," he said. He demonstrated his leadership skills by negotiating what amounted to a short-term stimulus bill, and he upheld his promise to govern from the middle – an appeal to both independent voters and the moderates who comprise the majority of the Democratic establishment. Once again, he looked like the adult sitting at the kids table. 

They avoided a government shutdown, and something tells me Congress won't let the country fall into default, either, if only because nothing has changed since the April budget deal.

Raising the debt ceiling isn't uncommon, not since Reagan anyway.
Source: TheAtlantic.com

The same Tea Party leaders continue to threaten RINOs with primary-election challenges. The same Democratic president continues his pursuit to convince the nation that he's not the radical left-wing socialist Fox & Friends accuse him of being. And the same anti-Washington blowback is at stake if the two parties fail to reach an agreement.

Will there be significant spending cuts? Probably, at least compared to what Republicans managed to finagle from Obama last time around. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported after the budget agreement was approved that the $78 billion in alleged spending cuts actually resulted in a net increase in government spending – to the tune of about $3.2 billion.)

Will the country crumble under the pressure of such austerity measures? Probably not, as Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party understand much better than I do that appearing as the sane and level-headed party of political moderates means nothing in the eyes of the electorate if the spending cuts they so pragmatically negotiated end up causing a double-dip recession.

As Andrew Leonard predicted, the final product will likely involve "loophole closing, public-sector-employee squeezing, inflation-index finagling, and tax code juggling that allows Democrats to claim revenue increases while Republicans can pledge allegiance to the god of zero tax hikes."

But at the end of the day, the details of an agreement matter less than the politics of it. Boehner and the GOP need only look like hawks in the eyes of the extremists and the 67 percent of Republicans who identify as "conservatives." Obama and the Democrats need only appear as moderate and responsible peacekeepers who saved America from an economic apocalypse without giving away the farm in the process.

When each side agrees to the talking points, they will emerge from the negotiations and begin a joint press conference announcing in broad strokes the "historic" agreement to increase the debt ceiling before the August 2 deadline.

Because that's politics.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Why the hell is Obama willing to give away so much just to get a debt ceiling deal done?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At his press conference yesterday, President Obama said that it is still possible "to construct a package that would be balanced, would share sacrifice, [and] would involve both parties taking on their sacred cows." He is confident that a deal will get done by August 2, the drop-dead date for raising the debt ceiling, but he wants a major deal, a grand bargain, not some temporary solution that isn't really a solution at all: "Pull off the band aid. Eat our peas."

Bullshit, Mr. President.

What he really means is that Democrats need to take on their "sacred cows," specifically Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while Republicans will essentially be allowed to get away with giving up almost nothing at all.

And it's insulting to refer to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (and entitlement programs generally) as "sacred cows." These aren't partisan pet projects, these are core components of America's already weak safety net. They aren't "Democratic" programs, they're universal, non-partisan, and popular programs deeply entrenched in American life.

But Obama doesn't seem to care. Republicans won't have to eat their peas, nor will the wealthy or any other major Republican constituency. If any pea-eating is required, any sacrifice, it will be put squarely on the heads of those who actually need these programs.

Shared sacrifice? Please.

Oh, sure, Obama is pushing the Republicans on taxes:

At the presser, Obama laid down a firm line for the first time: There will be no deal unless the GOP gives ground on revenues. Previously, Obama had hammered the GOP for protecting low tax rates and loopholes that benefit the rich, but he had stopped just short of saying he couldn't back a deal which didn't bring in new revenues.

But this time, asked directly whether he would support a deal if the GOP didn't give ground on revenues, he said No.

"I do not see a path to a deal if they don't budge — period," Obama said. "If in fact Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are sincere, and I believe they are, in that they don't want to see the U.S. government default, then they're going to have to compromise."

Bullshit again, Mr. President.

Obama may demand a budge, but he'll accept a small one just to get a deal done, one that unfairly demands far more from his own side.

Are McConnell and Boehner sincere? No, they're just torn between two competing factions in the GOP, the corporate interests who fund the party and who want the debt ceiling raised (because they know the horrible consequences of not doing so) and the Teabaggers and others on the right who oppose any debt ceiling race, demand massive and hugely unpopular spending cuts, and will run primary challenges against any Republican who violates their extremist tenets.

Obama is offering them so much -- including raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and reforming (i.e., cutting) Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- but they still won't compromise. Indeed, what they're saying now is that just agreeing to raise the debt ceiling is enough, that that's their compromise. Which is ridiculous, of course.

And, of course, they're bluffing. They need to do a deal -- and need to raise the debt ceiling. Their corporate backers demand it. They're just holding firm to extract more and more out of Obama, and successfully it seems, as he's proven more than willing to give them more and more.

Why not just hold firm on his part? Why not call their bluff?

It may be that Obama is just some sort of centrist who wants to get some long-term deal done not just for the country but for his legacy. But he's also playing politics, as they all are, trying to win independents for 2012. If he can show that he's serious about getting a long-term deal done, and about dealing with the debt in a serious way, particularly in opposition to an obstructionist party that has no interest in agreeing to a fair deal, he may just cement his prospects for next year, in a good way, many in his own party, progressives objecting to giving away so much, be damned.

Actually, though, it's all about the politics. Here's what's happening:

-- Obama has positioned himself roughly in the center, given away a lot and now demanding that Republicans give up something significant in return. If they do, he'll get his deal and Republicans will face the wrath of the Tea Party, the party dividing in upon itself heading into 2012. If they don't, he can point to them as the obstacles to a deal, as partisans who refused to compromise even when he was offering them so much.* (And, if need be, he could go the constitutional route, however fraught with difficulty that would be.)

-- Meanwhile, Republicans realize that the only way to get through this without self-destructing is to avoid choosing between their corporate interests and the Tea Party. If they get a deal done, it will only be because Obama has given up even more, including on revenue (which Republicans want to be neutral in any deal). If they don't, they'll try to pin the blame on Obama for refusing to meet their supposedly reasonable demands, even if they were anything but reasonable.

I do see what Obama's doing here. It's what he's done all along, from issue to issue. He's agreeing to concessions in the name of compromise and then taking the high road while Republicans dither over whether to make any concessions of their own. If they do, Obama can present himself as the guy who got it done, as a non-partisan leader who brought both sides to the table and put country before partisanship or ideology. Voters, and especially independents, seem to like that. If they don't, he can present them as extremist and obstructionist. This is what happened on health-care reform and it's what's happening now on the debt ceiling.

In some sense, more power to Obama. If he can make the Republicans look bad, great. But at what cost? And couldn't he be doing this without giving up so much in the first place? He surely knows that Republicans are torn. He should have used that to his advantage instead of conceding point after point and alienating many in his own party, including many of his supporters. I get that he wants to get a deal done. He certainly doesn't want to be the president if and when the country defaults. Even if he could make the political case against the Republicans, just being in the Oval Office at a time of potential economic apocalypse could be enough to bring him down for good. And maybe he just doesn't want to risk playing a blame game after the fact. Just as he surely knows that Republicans are torn, surely Republicans know that his position isn't much better.

But still.

Obama has handled this whole issue badly and is now in a position of having to give up a lot just to get anything done. It didn't have to be this way. I call bullshit on much of what he's saying, but I really do hope he knows what he's doing.

**********

* More to this point, see Krugman from last Thursday:

Now, this might just be theater: Mr. Obama may be pulling an anti-Corleone, making Republicans an offer they can't accept. The reports say that the Obama plan also involves significant new revenues, a notion that remains anathema to the Republican base. So the goal may be to paint the G.O.P. into a corner, making Republicans look like intransigent extremists — which they are.

But let's be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama's motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.'s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that's not a false impression; maybe it's the simple truth.

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This day in history - July 11, 1804: Former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton is mortally wounded in a duel

By Richard K. Barry

The duel in question was between Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr. It took place on July 11, 1804, and Hamilton, having been shot in the lower abdomen above the right hip, died the next day.

The cause of the duel was, of course, some sort of affront to Burr's honor, which required that he receive what I think they called in the day "satisfaction." All in all, it ended badly for Hamilton.

I thought the item interesting this week in particular because Hamilton was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.

I note that he was involved in 1790 in writing something called the First Report on the Public Credit, which analyzed the financial standing of the United States of America and made recommendations for the retirement of the national debt.

Hmmm. What advice would Hamilton offer our national leaders today on the debt ceiling as one who worked so hard to ensure that the debt and honor of his fledging country would be secured following the American Revolution and the debt incurred to conduct it?

I'll bet Glenn Beck could tell me.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mitch McConnell says no one is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. In other words, Mitch McConnell is lying.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, the Senate minority leader said that "nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven't heard that discussed by anybody." (See clip below.)

But actually, many Republicans are talking about that, including Michele Bachmann. Host Bret Baier pointed that out, but McConnell preferred to ignore that inconvenient little fact. McConnell surely knows what other Republicans are saying, what views are prominent throughout the Republican Party. So who was he referring to, and what was his point? Here's Digby with an explanation:

I'm fairly sure he's talking about the people who are negotiating the deal, not Michele Bachmann. And yes, they all agreed up front that they must raise the debt ceiling. Nobody is seriously contemplating walking away. The President hasn't even made the slightest feint in that direction by issuing a veto threat if they send him something outrageous, so the Democrats aren't even pretending to play that game. And McConnell just let the cat out of the bag (it has never exactly been in) that they don't take the Tea party caucus seriously either.

In other words, this is all just negotiating -- "the trial balloons all show that the 'negotiation' is really over how much cutting -- and in what areas --- each side can agree to," and so all the serious Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing now is "negotiating the spin."

Like Steve M., I disagree. While I think that a deal will likely get done soon, mainly because Obama has agreed to give up so much, McConnell was simply lying, not just spinning:

It's McConnell's job to go on TV and do as convincing an imitation as he can of a reasonable man. More to the point, it's his job to spin any failure to reach an agreement as 100% the Democrats' fault.

Okay, so that's lying + spinning. Digby seems to think that McConnell is actually being open and honest about what's going on in the Republican Party, but it seems to me that he's just preparing for the apocalypse that would follow a failure to raise the debt ceiling -- and preparing to score as many political points as possible off it by blaming Democrats.

"Who us? No, we were never talking about not raising the debt ceiling. We were all for that. But Obama, he just wouldn't compromise, and the Democrats just wouldn't negotiate seriously. It's a lack of leadership on their part. These are tough times and we need to make tough decisions. We were prepared to work out a deal, but they said no, and now we're all fucked. So vote for us!"

I have no doubt that some Republicans, including establishment types like McConnell, think that the Tea Party is insane. But this isn't about the McConnells and Boehners of the party warding off the extremists to get something done for the common good. This is about Republicans refusing to agree even to a deal that would give them almost everything they want, which seems exactly what Obama is willing to agree to at this point, about Republicans walking away from the negotiating table, and about Republicans essentially being held hostage by the Tea Party, which is not just talking about not raising the debt ceiling but which is also prepared to run primary campaigns against anyone who deviates from their right-wing orthodoxy.

Republicans are scared shitless, which is why they haven't agreed to a deal yet, and why they're doing everything they can to pin the blame on the other side, and to convince the media to pin the blame on the other side. Why else did Boehner back away from a comprehensive deficit-reduction package over the weekend? The man fears for his political life. Many Republicans do. 

And they apparently think that the only way they can win this, politically speaking, is to avoid altogether choosing between what must be done (and what the party's financial backers say must be done), namely, agreeing with the president to raise the debt ceiling, and what the Tea Party and various others on the right say must be done, namely, standing ideologically firm and refusing to allow it. Maybe the saner Republicans know that the apocalypse is at hand, but internal political pressures seem to be just as powerful, if not more so. Forget the future health of America. These guys just want to get re-elected. And, again, they seem to think it might just work out for them if they don't choose one or the other, which would mean alienating one side or the other, and instead do what they can to spin the problem as the Democrats' fault.

It's an awfully dangerous game to be playing -- not so much for them but for the country. But it's what the Republican Party is all about these days.

Debt ceiling madness: Standing on the brink of economic apocalypse

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There may soon be a deal, and maybe even a "grand" one (or maybe this more realistic one), that will see America's debt ceiling raised. It has to be, if economic apocalypse is to be avoided, but the default deniers in the GOP are resisting to the end and seem to have no problem, probably because they have no idea what's really going on here and what the consequences would be, accepting, as Sen. Jim DeMint ignorantly put it, "serious disruptions" to the economy.

Of course, there wouldn't just be "disruptions." Defaulting would wreak havoc on the economy and on millions and millions of Americans:

If Congress fails to raise the national debt limit by early August, the Obama Treasury Department will have to choose between defaulting on obligations to the country's creditors -- triggering higher interest rates and perhaps damaging the country's credit rating for months and years to come -- or freezing outlays to contractors, entitlement beneficiaries and others who are also expecting prompt payment as well. In either case, the macroeconomic impact will be staggering.

This according to Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist and former McCain advisor.

Now, if there's no deal, there's another option, a constitutional one:

Last month, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional because of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States... shall not be questioned." If the Obama administration were to embrace this view, the country could avoid default in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised by the Aug. 2 deadline.

This may not be the preferred option, and it may just be the option of last resort, but what else is there to do when the other party has succumbed to sheer madness?

And mad it is. House Republicans are actually considering filing articles of impeachment against Obama should he end up having to go the constitutional route. That's how wildly disconnected from reality they and their priorities are, how blindly partisan they are, how closed to compromise in the name of any sort of common good they are, how unable or unwilling they are to dealing in any meaningful way with the country's long-term fiscal problems, not to mention the debt ceiling crisis they themselves have created.

Look, there are good reasons to criticize the president. To say the least, he has handled the debt ceiling issue poorly. He seemed (and still seems) to have all the leverage, with Republicans torn between the party's corporate establishment (which understands that the debt ceiling needs to be raised) and the Tea Party (which fervently opposes any compromise on the debt ceiling and will launch a primary challenge against any Republican who violates its extremist demands). Boehner is the one in the difficult position, not Obama. And yet it is Obama who is the one giving in, and who is prepared to give the other side almost everything it wants just to get a deal done. No, not what the extremists want, but certainly what Republicans should be prepared to accept and what would, for them, constitute victory.

Obama has even put Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table. This has justifiably incurred the ire of many liberals, including this one. It appears that Obama is desperate to do a deal -- or, if not desperate, willing to go to great lengths, willing to give up a great deal, to avoid risking a debt ceiling crisis, even if it would be the Republicans to blame for it. (The White House is pushing back against the story, saying that it "overshoots the runway" and that the president wants to strengthen Social Security. But that's awfully vague and keeps everything on the table.)

But, seriously, impeachment? Republican craziness is piling up, higher and higher, at a time when what is needed is maturity and sobriety, a willingness to work for the American people, including for future generations of Americans, by putting aside ideological extremism and working towards a deal that makes sense to both sides.

Yes, Obama deserves to be criticized -- though we'll have to see exactly how much he gives up if and when a deal gets done -- but we mustn't forget that this is all happening because Republicans simply refuse to work constructively with the president and the Democrats, that is, refuse to help govern the country in any productive way. They're such extremists, and so ignorant of what they are doing, that they're taking the country to the brink of economic apocalypse and are willing, it seems, to pull it into the abyss.

Ultimately, Obama and the Democrats, along with the few Republicans who actually want to help, must do whatever it takes to save America.

The real fight

By Carl 

The drums have been beating for months over this fight, ever since the GOP took back the House in November. This week, they get much louder. The time is at hand:

"Obviously, we need to look at all corners of government," said Obama senior adviser David Plouffe in announcing the speech on NBC's Meet The Press. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on Fox News Sunday, said, "we've had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending."

Obama's forthcoming plan to reduce the government's red ink will also re-frame a variety of budget-related political battles. 

Cantor's comment is particularly irritating, since Obama's original budget proposal cut $33 billion dollars, which is eerily close to what Boener caved in on for the continuing budget resolution.

But I digress...

What this week's battle will really be about is the debt ceiling. Approve it, and the nation can go on and try to get a handle on the bills. Turn it down, and the nation will instantaneously lose any and all credibility in the world, becoming no better than Uganda or Zimbabwe or Myanmar or Greece or Portugal, or any number of nations who have repudiated or otherwise abrogated their responsibilities to the world.

Like those other nations, we will have sold out to tyrannical dictators, only ours won't be in office, only the men behind the curtains.

The Republicans have already signaled they will agree to the raise, but in exchange they want spending cuts.

Um, duh. Then ur doin et rong, if you're going to play brinksmanship without the very real threat you'll go over the edge. After all, what's the thrill in seeing someone swim in the Niagara River if he's tied by a rope to the mainland? It just amounts to an exercise in exhaustion.

What this really amounts to is the Bush tax cuts, which will expire next year after an extension... again... in 2010. Allowing these to expire would of course immediately cut the deficit and the growth of the debt, but it would also inflict pain on the überrich and the corporatocracy.

Pain, in this case, being defined as the bite of the mite that sits on the gnat that's piggybacking on the mosquito on the collective butt.

The rest of the debate is really just smoke and noise and amounts to next to nothing in terms of cuts... no one seriously thinks Paul Ryan's plan is worth the paper it's printed on... and really is just the GOP saving face from the charge of being the Party of No.

Which they are. You really ought to embrace your inner hater, boys.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.) 

Addendum: I just wanted to add my voice to those who are expressing their regrets over the loss of one of our very best and brightest here at The Reaction.

Creature, in your retirement, may you find the thread you believe you've lost and come out fighting again really soon. You will be missed.