The point is that, based on 2012 election returns, the approach of refusing to compromise with the President is a bad strategy for the GOP. They lost seats in each chamber, and did particularly poorly in contests at the state-wide or nation-wide level.
Even from a policy standpoint it’s hard to argue that the debt ceiling strategy was successful. The GOP seems to have gotten far less by holding out to the last minute than they could have earlier on in the process.
Unfortunately, which may be your point, what is bad strategy for the GOP as a whole may be very good strategy for individual Representatives.
The question, same as it has been for the last 4 years, is to what extent the GOP leadership can prevail upon the caucus that compromise is a better long-term strategy than brinksmanship.
True. Shutting down the government did not work out well last time, and it won’t work out well this time, either. Default is equally bad, if not worse.
I think Obama should force Congress to go back to the old days, when they included the funding in the appropriations bills (apparently going to the point of specifying bond numbers).
Don’t sign an appropriation bill/continuing resolution unless it includes a debt ceiling level that the CBO estimates will allow the funding.
:rolleyes: Og, “Bob” and Allah, can no Pub now in Congress remember back to 1995-96?! It was the Pubs, not Bill, who came out of that mess smelling like shit!
Why? What if they don’t have strong feelings over where the money comes from? Besides, if they do that, then the debate stops being about the debt and deficit and starts being about the merit of the program, and you he things like “Republicans want to starve babies” or whatever.
You just let the Repubs pin “he’s soft on defense!” on Obama.
If the Republicans want cuts, let them say what to cut. It’s all fine and dandy to say “cut” but when it’s your ox being gored…
The flip side of party discipline strongly weighs against it. Bucking the powers that be invites primary challenges and assignments to sit on undesirable committees.
But they do have at least semi-strong feelings on it - the money is supposed to come from entitlements, not defense. They just know that if they actually make a proposal to reduce SS or Medicare, they’re going to lose a big chunk of the old, mostly white part of their coalition.
So they want Obama and the Democrats to make the first move - which, aside from the fact that they don’t generally support that idea any way (Obama sometimes seems to lean that way), the Dems aren’t stupid enough to make the first move there either (I hope).
Well, there are two strategies and I think both have merit. One is the GOP propose the cuts it wants, alright, fine. But the other is that the GOP proposes a deal specifying how much they want cut, and the President gets to decide where the cuts come from.
The reality is, there are some cuts the President will simply never agree to, so the GOP just proposing a list of its most desired cuts probably won’t help, because some of them will fall into the category of “Obama will never approve.” Likewise, the President doing all the cutting himself means there will be cuts the Republicans will never approve.
What I’d like to see is the Congressional Democrats work with Obama to determine what cuts they can stomach first of all, and then what cuts they will accept in exchange for Republican concessions in Republican sacred cows. Then I’d like to see Congressional Republicans and Congressional Democrats work out the budget details. It’s obvious these private negotiations between top congressional leaders and the President aren’t getting the job done all that well, and it isn’t good for the country for all of our spending and revenue decisions to no longer be debated in regular congressional budgeting processes but instead in private meetings between high level officials.
As I said in the other thread I completely agree. Either abide by the ceiling or get rid of the joke that is a spending cap that you change whever you want.
Again, a majority of representatives want the debt ceiling to increase; there are certainly more than 18 sane GOP representatives who would vote for it. There aren’t even any formal parliamentary rules (like the Senate filibuster) to prevent this vote.
It is simply a small minority of hard-liners abusing our byzantine legislative process to get what they can’t enforce via democratic election, judicial review, or even their own goddamn skills at politics. They are hostage takers, pure and simple. Given his history, I’m not sure Obama won’t cave, but his rhetoric is in the right place when he says he will not negotiate. Call your own reps to make sure he feels the political pressure to hold fast.
As I understand it, nothing comes to the floor of the House but by the grace of Boehner. He very likely promised his caucus that he would bring nothing to the floor unless he had a majority of the caucus behind it. So unless a majority of Republicans can agree to the ceiling raise, it doesn’t happen.
My guess is that the Wall Street CEOs will start to panic and call in their minions in the House to raise the ceiling. This won’t happen until after a shutdown is imminent or has had a week to fester.
You understand wrong, any majority of House members can bring something to the floor without the Speaker’s permission. They just have to file a discharge petition, which requires a simple majority vote to pass, and then the issue is voted on.
It’s not a double standard. What I’m saying is Obama and congressional dems need to have a unified approach on what spending they are willing to cut, this would be an internal, mostly private negotiation. Then they and the Republicans would meet (ideally through open budget discussions in the House, where budgeting is historically supposed to happen) and work out the horse trading to get spending cuts.
What I’m saying is there is no real purpose for the House Republicans to just publish a laundry list or make a list of spending cut demands, the only cuts that matter are the ones both sides either with compromise or whatever are willing to approve. So neither side benefits from a unilateral approach.