Upon reflection, this was overstated. I have become annoyed.
Please be assured, John, of my continuing respect for your intelligence and intentions, even on the occasions wherein I think you are wrong.
I’m really not seeing the problem here. The Republican Party in the USA is demanding to destroy free-market capitalism. In a couple of weeks the global elite will see their ‘wealth’ evaporate and Mr Obama will lead us all into a global socialist utopia. What exactly does anyone object to? It could hardly be a more win-win situation.
No worries. I just didn’t think Bricker deserved the snark since he was, afterall, debating the topic as put forth in the OP. And, he clearly stated that he did not approve of the tactic, and there really are a bunch of other threads where the OP is focused on “the fate of the republic”.
As you know, there is a custom here to not hijack threads (that is, take them in a direction other than the OP) and while I am not accusing you of trying to hijack the thread (I don’t think you really wanted to take that thread there), I don’t think it’s fair to blame someone else for not doing so.
I’m happy to criticize Bricker when I think he’s wrong, and I’ve done so many times. I just don’t think this is one of those times. If you think I’m wrong about that, so be it. You’re entitled to your opinion.
That’s all.
Not to be all petulant or anything, but I’ve put forth my understanding of what a good-faith negotiation is in several threads, including above in this post, and I’m not seeing any response to it (except for a few fairly weaselly responses in other threads perhaps). Am I drawing a meaningful and correct distinction here, do folks think?
Yes.
Its not so much whether or not the negotiation is in good faith or not, its simply the fact that the time for negotiation is before the matter is settled. And it was settled, the Dems didn’t pull any legislative trickery to con the Republicans out of their opportunity to negotiate, nor even their opportunity to daub themselves with shit and set their hair on fire. And then they voted.
On what legal basis do they demand a do-over, a Mulligan? By what right do they impose hardships on millions of Americans in order to assert a privilege they are not entitled to? Whether or not they intended to negotiate in good faith or not, their hour for negotiation had passed.
Isn’t it perfectly possible to negotiate in bad faith without it qualifying as extortion or hostage taking? For example, Republicans are now tacitly saying, “C’mon, just delay the individual mandate for one measly little year, and then we’ll be off your back.” Suppose they were making this offer, not against the current backdrop of a government shutdown, but in ordinary circumstances. Still, I would say this offer was not being made in good faith, given the overwhelming evidence that they won’t rest until ACA is dead and forgotten. But does that in itself make it extortion? To me, it just means they’re being dicks.
I’m really not trying to be a pickle-in-the-butt prick here. If saying that the Republicans are being extortive is just shorthand for saying “what a bunch of cynical jerks,” then sure, you have my exhortion to say “extortion.” But I thought the distinction between extortion and hard bargaining was pretty central to the substance of this discussion: a) can what’s going on even be described as a negotiation? and b) is the stance of one side qualitatively more abhorrent than the other’s, even though both sides have the power to unilaterally end the shutdown (Boehner by putting a clean CR to a vote, Obama by getting the Senate to go along with a dirty CR presented by the House and signing it)?
The House is given the Power of the Purse to prevent excesses by the Executive Branch, not to reverse elections, or rescind legislation, as a Republican political strategy.
Crane
Speaking of the power of the purse, in a debate in another board, someone claimed that Rand Paul had claimed that originally the funding of bills was voted on individually, and that the Continuing Resolution was just an aberration created by the inability of the Congress to pass a budget, and that therefore this whole CR-debt ceiling debacle as all the fault of Obama and the Democrats, not the Republicans.
This smells like arrant lies and knavery, but I want to have my facts straight before I wade in. Anyone got any idea what Paul was on about?
Here’s a draft constitutional amendment:
Amendment 28
Article 1.
We humbly beseech our gracious sovereign for forgiveness over the late unpleasantness and petition her to appoint us a Governor-General.
Article 2.
Should Congress fail to pass, or the President fail to sign, annual appropriations bills for all cabinet departments by July 15 for any fiscal year beginning October 1, said Governor-General shall appoint a caretaker government and immediately schedule new elections for all federal offices to take place on or about August 15.
Again, the distinction I’m drawing isn’t between asking for something big or asking for something little. It’s in whether you’re offering to give up something that you don’t want to give up, but the other side does want you to give up, and that the other side lacks similar control over.
If the Republicans asked to defund Obamacare entirely, and they were only offering to give up something like a 1-year moratorium on deporting undocumented immigrant minors, I’d think that a terrible trade, but that’d be good-faith.
If the Republicans asked to change the tax on medical devices, and the only thing they offered was that they wouldn’t torpedo the economy, that’s bad faith and extortionist.
It’s all about what you offer that determines whether you’re extorting.
Not really. I’m contrasting “he must!” with “he might.”, and then on top of that pointing out that what might well appear to be concern about legacy could easily be concern about actually doing shit, given that legacy is partially dependent on what shit got done. If a President passes a highly popular law, it could be because it’s highly popular and they want to be known for it, or it could because it’s highly popular because it’s a good law and they want to make good laws.
Regardless of whether or not a President is good or bad, they will still get lionised by some portions of the nation, they will still get to be “Mr. (or Madam) President” for life, still get to be respected politically even if they did nothing worthy of respect. Look at Nixon. Whereas, a political pundit’s career absolutely requires accurate assessment of presidency. If they’re bad at it, or if they ignore it, they could easily be out of a job. People would have no interest in media featuring them or opinions issued by them. And while a President has the fallback of doing things based on their being a good idea and not just percieved as a good idea, a pundit doesn’t have that; their jobs are entirely about perception. So it seems reasonable to me to say that there are almost certainly more people concerned about a President’s legacy than that President.
What do you think the definition of the word “extortion” is and how exactly does the current GOP strategy differ from it?
I think it means “to obtain by threat of force, intimidation, undue or illegal power.”
It differs from the current GOP strategy because the power being exercised by he GOP is neither undue nor illegal.
LHoD:
I suppose the response to how you’ve stated the argument is that it can also be framed as Obama making the same extortionist threat (at least with respect to the shutdown, if not the debt limit). That is, why can the situation not be viewed as Obama saying that the House must fund Obamacare or otherwise he will refuse to sign a bill to fund the rest of government?
That’s why I think part of the element that makes it bad faith negotiation has to do with the objective unreasonableness of the demand–defunding of the centerpiece of Obama’s first-term agenda because they don’t have the political power to repeal the thing–and not just an assessment of whether the offered trade is symmetrical in terms of a you-want for an I-want.
Many of us believe that shutting down the Federal Government in order to try to reverse the passage of a law is “undue” in the extreme.
He’s saying, fund the laws in effect. That’s what Congress does. He’s not saying, give me something that’s not currently in effect or I’ll shut things down. I think it’s really weak sauce to suggest that he’s doing the same tactic as Republicans.
In other words, he’s not actually asking for anything except that the law be respected. That’s totally different from asking that the law have an end-run around it.
But that’s just framing the baseline as “fund everything.” There’s nothing intrinsically correct about that baseline. The actual baseline is fund nothing. And, indeed, “fund everything” isn’t what happens. The so-called clean CR already reflects a bunch of changed funding levels from the last budget negotiations.
So I think that argument is just arbitrarily picking “fund most things including Obamacare” as a baseline. Why is that objectively the correct baseline?
__
To put it another way, suppose the Republicans said they want to cut $1 from the Pentagon’s budget, and they pass a CR that is different from the last CR only insofar as it cuts that $1. Would Obama be justified in vetoing the CR unless the Republicans go back and put the dollar back in?
This standard makes a union’s threatened strike an automatic bad faith negotiation.
That reduces the word to matter of opinion. The Congress is clearly, explicitly, by the plain text of the Constitution, due the power to propose and pass appropriations bills.
So while your opinion might be that the exercise of the power is undue, the fact remains it’s exactly their due.