Craziest Republican of the Day: Todd Rokita

By Michael J.W. Stickings

To put it nicely, Republicans -- wallowing in ignorance and delusion to the point they're prepared to destroy America -- have their heads so far up their asses on the debt ceiling they're spewing nothing but excrement every time they open their mouths.

Is that clear enough?

For some, it's not so much ignorance or delusion as it is pure politics. Sen. Mitch McConnell, for example, knows full well what's going on, but he's torn, as the party itself is, between the corporate financiers in the establishment and the anti-government Teabaggers on the far right. While trying to score political points, he and Speaker John Boehner are at least also trying to work out a deal with President Obama.

But, on Capitol Hill, they appear to be in the minority. Not only do McConnell and Boehner face the wrath of the Tea Party, which promises to launch primary challenges against any Republican who dares violate its orthodoxy, they also face the opposition of their own caucuses, particularly in the House, where Boehner himself has effectively been pushed to the side and where his main rival, Eric Cantor, has already made a move, if as yet informal and unofficial, to unseat him.

And, make no mistake, the extremists in the House, extremists who are really now the Republican mainstream, are crazy. For example:

Despite numerous warnings from three major credit agencies, economists, businesses, members of their own party, and general common sense, the Republican "Hell No" caucus remains ever vigilant in ignoring the economic disaster that will follow a failure to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. While some Republicans have offered simply ludicrous reasons to paint the deadline as arbitrary, an increasing number are pushing the notion that there's no danger at all in defaulting on our debt.

[Yesterday] on ABC’s Top Line, Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) went one step further and threw away the word "default" altogether. While he views Aug. 2 as an "important date," he refuses to "take the premise that we're going to default on our obligations." Believing "default" isn't even the right word to use to describe the economic consequences, Rokita slammed those who would avoid default as "piggish" and "un-American" for worrying about "my own little program or my own little economy." Rokita then declared defiantly that he's willing to vote down a debt ceiling raise even if it means "the economy might get worse."

Fuck the economy, in other words, not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who would suffer should the country go into default. This is pretty standard fare among Republicans, but the degree of abject ignorance on the economy, on what the debt ceiling issue is all about, on what would happen were America to go into default, is nonetheless astonishing -- even when you expect nothing else from them, even when you know these are your views, it's hard to believe that the people's representatives can be this stupid, this careless, this irresponsible.

Well, okay, no. Maybe it's not so hard to believe, not if you've spent any time thinking about the Republican Party, even just observing it from afar. And maybe that's part of the problem. We don't actually want to believe that the country is in the hands of stupid, careless, irresponsible, and downright fucking crazy blowhards who seem to have little to no regard for reality and who spew shit whenever they open their mouths. And so we pretend, or a lot of us do (not me, mind you), that it isn't that bad, that surely they know what they're talking about, that they're all in it for the common good, that it'll all somehow work out -- now pass the deep-fried pork fat, the extra-meat pizza, and the gargantuan Coke, and let us get back to watching American Idol.

Well, that's what you get when you elect a Republican, and it's only so much worse when you hand them the keys, say, to the House, where with a majority they can spew so much shit as to threaten to sink the whole country.

Which, apparently, they're more than happy to do. Even if they don't have a fucking clue.

On the debt ceiling, Obama turns tables on Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The New York Times

Something has to get done. Whatever sort of deal, or whether or not a deal at all, the debt ceiling must be raised. It's as simple as that, even if the process of getting there is mired in complication.

The Democrats know this, and they're pretty much all on board. But Republicans... oh, they're not quite as unified. John Boehner has lost control (and so is lashing out at the White House, because there's nothing left for him to do), to the extent that he ever had any, over the House, where Eric Cantor is angling for the top spot and most Republicans, Tea Party or otherwise, don't think there's any problem with not raising the debt ceiling. More than that, they object to raising it unless they can get something out of it, like a balanced budget amendment. Even a deal that would give Republicans so much of what they want, major spending cuts, including to hated entitlement programs like Social Security, offset by only a mild revenue increase, isn't enough, as Boehner has learned. House Republicans are right-wing extremists. They loathe compromise, refuse to agree to anything short of the absolute implementation of their extremist agenda, and aren't about to give in even to the corporate interests who fund the party.

Mitch McConnell has floated the idea -- his contingency plan -- of allowing for a debt ceiling raise in return for nothing, as Democrats are the ones who vote for it and hence the ones whom voters will blame for it. Conservatives reject this as well, as it would allow Obama to get what he wants, and what the country desperately needs. And I'm not sure McConnell is right that voters would blame Democrats for it. Ultimately, Obama would be able to make the case that it simply had to be done, and I'm really not sure this issue has political legs. What McConnell's idea reflects is the enormity of the pressure on the Republican leadership, at least in the Senate (there is pressure on Boehner in the House, to be sure, but, again, he is pretty much on his own now), to get something done, pressure coming from the GOP's corporate, Wall Street constituency. TNR's Jonathan Cohn explains:

Is Mitch McConnell panicking? It sure looks that way. The debt ceiling proposal he released yesterday afternoon confused pretty much everybody, including yours truly. But stripped to its bare essence it’s actually quite simple: Congress would give President Obama the authority to make good on the country’s debts, without imposing any binding policy constraints. This is, more or less, what Obama wanted originally and what Republicans have been saying they wouldn’t give him.

Perhaps McConnell is listening to business leaders nervous that Congress will leave the current debt ceiling in place, causing the U.S. to delay some government payments and potentially causing a financial crisis that could quickly spread around the world. Perhaps McConnell is watching the polls and noticing that voters don’t share his party’s aversion to taxes on the wealthy. Or perhaps it’s some combination of those and other factors. Whatever the reason, he’s clearly very worried. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made such an offer in the first place.

Of course, McConnell has designed his proposal so that it will inflict maximum political pain, or what he thinks will be maximum political pain, on the Democrats – by, among other things, forcing those who serve in Congress to vote to raise the debt ceiling. And who knows, it might work: Gaming out the possibilities is too complicated for me. But first McConnell must convince the rest of his party, particularly those who serve in the House of Representatives, to go along. And as of this writing that seems like it will be awfully difficult.

Yes, it might work, but I doubt it. And I also doubt that he'll be able to get the House on board. Boehner yes, the rest of the Republican caucus not so much, particularly with Cantor looming.

But the panic is understandable. Business is terrified. No one quite knows for sure what would happen were America to begin go into default and be unable to pay its bills, but it wouldn't be good and could potentially be apocalyptic. And, make no mistake, there's no way around it. Moody's has already put the country on notice. And that's far more worrisome (and far less funny) than when, say, Stephen Colbert puts someone or something on notice.

Republicans -- or at least the McConnells and Boehners of the party -- are in a tough spot, pretty much a no-win situation. Basically, Obama has skillfully, and amazingly, backed them into a corner. As TNR's Jonathan Chait explains:

If you told me last week that we might get a debt ceiling hike without Obama making policy concessions to Republicans, I wouldn't have believed you. What happened since then? Well, Obama called the Republicans' bluff. He turned the debate from a generalized question of cutting spending, where the public sides with Republicans, into a debate over specific policy priorities, where the public overwhelmingly supports the Democrats. Most people want a balanced package of revenue increases and spending cuts, in contradiction to the GOP's all-cuts-or-die stance. The public strongly favors higher taxes on the rich and strongly opposes entitlement cuts. Obama smoked out the GOP's actual policy choices. And he smoked out the Republicans' refusal to compromise on its unpopular priorities, establishing himself as the one party who was willing to make the kind of compromise that was the only plausible avenue to deficit reduction.

More recently, Obama said that if the debt ceiling is not lifted, he won't be able to send out Social Security checks. Imagine how that one would play out for Republicans. In general, he demonstrated yet again that it's very hard for Congress to win a public relations fight against the president. Meanwhile, the business lobby was no doubt pushing hard behind the scenes, and the business lobby usually wins.

*****

I've been lambasting Obama's strategy pretty much on a daily basis. It appeared that Obama blundered into a hostage crisis he didn't need, and then wound up offering Republicans an absurdly generous deal, trading away major entitlement cuts in return for a pittance of revenue -- no higher than what will be raised if the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule.

So those were the options as of last week: A massive policy giveaway that won Obama some centrist credibility at immense substantive cost, or else let the economy get killed. Instead, Obama has reestablished credibility on the deficit at zero substantive cost. (He can always cut a deal without a gun to the economy's head.) Either the administration is run by pure political geniuses, or they're the luckiest sons of guns who ever lived.

Yes, the "worm" has indeed turned. I admire and respect the president's political skills enough to know that this was always a possibility, and I have thought it was throughout this whole process, but I didn't actually think it would turn out this way. Just a couple of days ago I was wondering why Obama was willing to give up so much to get a deal done, and I objected strenuously to his putting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table -- again, pretty much willing to give Republicans what they wanted in exchange for a debt ceiling raise and possibly a relatively small revenue increase. I wondered why Obama wasn't calling the Republicans' bluff, why he continued to allow them to determine the narrative and set the parameters for a deal.

But then... we knew this was all politics, right? Here's what I wrote, sending that things, it seemed, were changing:

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.

*****

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.

Does he? Or has it just worked out that way? Well, nothing is worked out yet, and I still object to giving away so much, or to being willing to give away so much, but it looks like Obama may just triumph yet again over an opposition that, while generally extremist and obstructionist, is divided so deeply internally that it's almost about to cave in on itself.

No, no, I'm not getting ahead of myself. It's still possible that nothing gets done. Obama walked out of talks with Cantor et al. yesterday, perhaps more theater than anything else (he's the adult here, after all, and was probably just making a statement), and Alan Simpson is saying there's "no hope" of getting a deal done. But, politically, Obama now appears to have the upper hand -- he's winning, in other words, and you can tell that just from the way Republicans are acting, a mixture of resignation, frustration, and exaggerated outrage. They know they're losing, you see, and they don't quite know what to do.

Quite the turn of events.

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.

(photo)

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.