So, 217-216 would be the sweet spot. So, that is correct, then. Boehner can lose 23, but not 24.
Just turned over to CSPAN. I guess with the debt crisis vote postponed, the House can get on the the second most important issue facing this country: The Naming of a Post Office in Guam.
Have you looked into the finer details of this? If so, are you happy with what it would entail?
I have. Which “finer details” do you fine troubling?
I am for the BBA and for drastically cutting federal spending as a percentage of GDP.
Don’t be silly. That’s far more important.
You claimed, falsely, that the debt ceiling was intended as a leash on Congress itself. “The question answers itself: The debt ceiling was put in place precisely to force Congress to make hard decisions in order to get an agreement to raise it if the debt ballooned.”
This is not true. The limit was, from the beginning, a leash on the executive, not on Congress. Ravenman has made the legal point that the ceiling can’t be eliminated. The leash on the executive is constitutional and therefore permanent, no matter what the money men would like to believe. (That last legal tidbit in particular has me especially surprised and depressed.) I have been wrong about the law, but that doesn’t make your own justification about the limit any more correct.
On the legalities, yes, I was wrong. I must admit that.
And yet here you stand, still defending a half-factual history. Here’s me, from the previous thread: “If they pull off a deal in the next week or so, then that will give much more credence to the “political drama” theory of these events, and I’ll be able to properly evaluate their evil again on a regular scale. Say, 2.2 nano-Hitlers. A spike worse than Obama’s, but nothing out of the ordinary for Congress. But if they press this so far that we have a genuine situation, then let’s be clear about what they are. We have very accurate descriptive words for the type of behavior they’re engaging in.” We’re about three weeks since I wrote that.
The GOP rhetoric has been consistently different this go-round. They have stated unequivocally that they’re not interested in a clean bill to raise the limit. Even three weeks ago, I was willing to accept the notion that this time was possibly no different from the previous times. The GOP rhetoric was much stronger than it had ever been in the past, but the possibility was still technically open that it was rhetoric only and that they would be willing to raise the ceiling without undue fuss, just as had happened before.
The previous times, with both the GOP under Clinton and the Demmies under Bush, Congress eventually gave in and raised the limit without more negotiation. Here’s the Demmies allowing a clean raise to pass in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006 (Obama’s vote). Clean bills, all. Naturally, the Demmies mostly voted against these raises, like good little minority party drones, but they didn’t filibuster as the GOP Senate did in 2010.
It’s been pointed out, repeatedly, both in this thread and the previous, that both minority parties have played with the limit as an attempt to score political points. It started under Clinton, and happily continued under W. And yes, starting with Rubin, Treasury has had to stop issuing bonds and start playing with accounts once the soft limit was reached. This was true from the 90s. It’s not a special new thing.
But previously, with both the GOP under Clinton and the Demmies under Bush, Congress eventually gave in and raised the limit with a clean bill. (One of the latter debt limit bills under Bush, with a Demmies majority was attached to a housing bill during the financial crisis, but I hope you’d agree that the crisis was a special case. The Demmie majority also passed a clean bill that raised the limit.)
Even when the soft limit was reached, and Treasury had to play with accounts to keep the cash flowing, neither party ever pushed their negotiations to the point that they refused to pass a clean bill when time was running out. All those previous times you complain about the Demmies “demagogueing” ended with the Demmies allowing a clean bill to pass, after they got their headlines. The same was true in the 90s with the GOP. Until now, nobody pushed these negotiations to the final week, with all possible Treasury retirement account options, and so forth, exhausted. This new negotiation is absolutely unique. A clean bill is still completely off the table, with less than a week to go.
Now consider, finally, the incentive aspect that you’ve ignored for the last two threads.
We’ve got a financial bomb here. It could hurt a lot of people. We don’t know how many, but the worst-case scenario in the past during a major financial crisis has not been pretty. And we’ve got a party that’s breaking with tradition, and pressing their “hard negotiations” even with the ticking clock counting down. And if Obama relents? It’s one thing to offer pizza to hostage takers. It’s another thing to release their leader from Supermax prison in Colorado. If people agree to extortion, even legal extortion, then you will create more of the same. If people realize that threatening catastrophe will get them everything they want, then they will threaten more catastrophe.
The proper time to negotiate a future budget is when you’re negotiating the actual budget. Legally, Congress has every right to do what they’re doing. But practically, they’re messing with a possible explosion here in a way that previous Congresses, both GOP and Demmie, have not done. You say they were elected to reduce spending? Yes. True. And they should reduce spending when they’re voting on the budget. Hard negotiation would cause a government shut-down, but it wouldn’t be flirting with the possibility of a default. That’s on a whole new level.
I have to say, watching Boehner scrape for a few Tea Party votes is mildly entertaining. Especially when getting this thing passed is the only thing that gives him any leverage at all in the final round of negotiations.
In the end I’m reasonably sure he’ll get the votes (either through promises or threats - apparently he’s been threatening some Boeing work in SC), but it’s still fun political theater.
I’m guessing he is either promising them prime pussy or threatening to kill their kids. If Boehner loses this vote, he loses all relevance as a GOP leader and negotiator. I would go so far as to say it might cost him the Speaker’s chair if he can’t lead his own party.
I’ll bet he’s crying.
Cuz when a bitch cries, it’s all over. Game, set, match. No man with a heart can resist the water works treatment.
Uh, he’s trying to convince Republicans.
Touche.
they have given up on the evian, and have called for…gasp… pizza!
goodness only knows what horrible thing they will do with that.
Papa John’s. They make $150,000/yr and they order in Papa John’s. Probably our nickel. Chump change tip.
ah, papa john’s. no doubt it will be something gruesome with the free breadsticks.
I’m kind of wondering, just what will getting Boehner’s plan passed in the House accomplish? Reid has already said the Senate Democrats are prepared to reject it. I imagine whatever plan Reid is coming up with will likewise be a non-starter among House Republicans. So what happens after each house rejects the other’s plan? Are we just pretty much back at square one?
And some Coors. Lite.
what ever they did, it has not worked. cnn is announcing that there will be NO! vote tonight.
yep. i believe that should the boehner plan pass to senate, reid would attach parts of his plan to it, then send it back to house.
at this point all is moot. as boehner has called off the vote.
So the question for Boehner is, will it be easier to make changes that appeal to enough Republicans, or to enough Democrats? I think he will eventually jettison the Tea Party Caucus and form a coalition with moderate Democrats to pass a debt ceiling increase. It’s not like he has a future as Speaker to worry about, perhaps he will do the right thing.