From what I can tell the House baggers still think they can get cookies and candy if they keep holding their breath. Yesterday afternoon Robert Costas wrote at NRO:
It hasn’t been announced, and you won’t hear about it today, but the final volley of the fiscal impasse, at least for House Republicans, is already being brokered. And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides — it won’t end with a clean CR, or with a sprawling, 2011-style budget agreement. It’ll end with an offer — a relatively modest mid-October offer that concurrently connects a debt-limit extension, government funding, and a small, but strategically designed menu of conservative demands. …
… What I’m hearing: There will be a “mechanism†for revenue-neutral tax reform, ushered by Ryan and Michigan’s Dave Camp, that will encourage deeper congressional talks in the coming year. There will be entitlement-reform proposals, most likely chained CPI and means testing Medicare; there will also be some health-care provisions, such as a repeal of the medical-device tax, which has bipartisan support in both chambers.
To which Ed Kilgore responded,
You get the feeling Costa’s informants are really proud of themselves for being so very modest in their demands, albeit with some worry that it won’t be enough for the Tea Folk, some of whom would just as soon see a debt default anyway.
Nowhere in the piece, of course, is there any recognition that the president and Harry Reid might mean what they say in stating over and over again that they will not negotiate over a debt limit increase.
Meanwhile Ted Cruz, playing the role of Mad Hatter, said,
“The House began — it is the view of every Republican in this body, and indeed every Republican in the House, that Obamacare should be entirely and completely repealed. Nonetheless, the House started with a compromise of saying not repealing Obamacare but simply that it should be defunded.â€
John Boehner is telling the baggers to hang tough, and that they are locked in an epic battle. Boehner is either the Dodo (who suggested a Caucus Race in which everyone just runs in a circle until they stop, without declaring a winner) or the Mock Turtle, who cries a lot.
Here is a partial list of bipartisan budget negotiations we’ve had since 2010: The Simpson-Bowles Commission (which, people forget, was the legacy of a 2010 debt-ceiling increase). The Domenici-Rivlin commission. The Cantor-Biden talks. The Obama-Boehner debt-ceiling negotiations. The Gang of Six talks. The “Supercommittee.” The Obama-Boehner fiscal-cliff talks.
All these negotiations have one thing in common: They ultimately failed.
This is the baffling context for Speaker John Boehner’s interest in a conference committee (which, by the way, Republicans have been refusing on the budget for six months) or some kind of tax-reform commission. We have run this play before. We have run it again and again. We have run it using top congressional leaders and President Obama. We have run it using B-string congressional leaders and Vice President Biden. We have run it using retired politicians and wonks. We have run it using various non-leadership members of Congress. We have run it with fast-track authority, and with the threat of sequestration and with the danger of the debt-ceiling. It hasn’t worked.
In fact, it’s worked so poorly that, of late, Republicans have simply refused to be part of these negotiations. After the fiscal cliff, Boehner told his members he was done with backroom negotiations with the president. And Republicans have spent the past six months refusing to enter budget negotiations with Senate Democrats.
Dave Wiegel writes that Dems have been uncommonly tough.
The intransigence of Democrats, from Obama on down to red-state senators, has surprised the GOP. They honestly expected a few of the Democrats to crack—after all, four of them are running for re-election in states that voted for Mitt Romney. …
…Landrieu and Pryor never buckled. They voted with the rest of the party to amend or table every House bill. So did Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan. …
…Why do they stick with Majority Leader Harry Reid—why, when three of them could cast “safe†no votes and Reid could still beat the House bills? Democratic aides say that the red-staters are “scared straight†by the House GOP. They’re not getting the calls from home to defund Obamacare. Their home-state papers aren’t dogging them, either. They’re in no fear of losing an “optics†battle to John Boehner and company.
Neither are the House Democrats. Neither are progressive organizations—not even labor unions like the Teamsters and AFL-CIO, which loudly demanded changes in the law, got cited by Republicans as proof that the Democratic coalition was imploding, then started showing up on the Hill for solidarity marches with furloughed workers. … There’s a new, near-total refusal to compromise….
…“Dealing with terrorists has taught us some things,†said Washington Rep. Jim McDermott after voting no on one of Thursday’s GOP bills. “You can’t deal with ’em. This mess was created by the Republicans for one purpose, and they lost. People in my district are calling in for Obamacare—affordable health care—in large numbers. These guys have lost, and they can’t figure out how to admit it.†Why would House Democrats give away what the Supreme Court and the 2012 electorate didn’t? “You can’t say, OK, you get half of Obamacare—this isn’t a Solomonic decision,†McDermott said. “So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin’ lost.â€
The GOP is frantically messaging that it’s really the Dems, not them, who are the “party of no.” Yeah, like that’ll work.
I am enjoying this bit, I will admit.
Nonetheless, the House started with a compromise of saying not repealing Obamacare but simply that it should be defunded.
Yes, because that’s totally different. And then they get even more reasonable and say they won’t even defund Obamacare, they’ll just “delay” it for a year!
I mean, at least Lucy lets Charlie Brown try to kick the football. She doesn’t say “You can kick this football one year from now. See how reasonable I am?”
This post led me to pull out my copy of The Annotated Alice. Here’s the annotation on the Caucus-race:
Unfortunately the White House switchboard is shut down for the nonce, but I am writing a letter urging the President the STAY HELLA STRONG!!!!! Kick them when they’re down, when they’re confused, when they’re trying to re-run the election, when they are still breathing. Demand some human sacrifices! Or at least get resignations from Cruz and Foxx and Gohmert. Had to use this chance to clean up the NC delegation a little.
“So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin’ lost.â€
That’s my Congressman and we’d elect him again! Yes!
Even if, as he signaled at one point, Obama were in favor of chained-CPI and Medicare changes, I think he realizes that he can’t possibly agree to them under these circumstances. If he gives them anything, he rewards the bad behavior, and guarantees that we’d see a shutdown over any-darn-thing the Nutjobs get a wild hair about. Any concession now puts us on the road to a shutdown until ‘Obama comes clean on Benghazi!”
No, as I’ve said before, the President needs to be ramping up the punishment on the GOP for this stunt. There should be consequences. No GOP priority should even get a hearing until six months after people are back at work, and they’ve gotten their back pay. I heard it may take months to restore the computer models that predict the weather. How about we just suspend action on any GOP proposal until the NWS tells us that their data is back up to snuff?
We should wait until the mess they’ve made is fully cleaned up before we listen to their next request.
Not repealed, just defunded. Like I want to fire you illegally, but I’m willing to compromise by you agreeing to my not paying you. Be reasonable, will you.
I contacted my Congress critter — Rep Bill Young — and expressed my displeasure. He is one of the 21 Repugs who jumped ship, but his sincerity in doing so looks like political maneuvering rather than genuine concern for the American people. I find it difficult to understand how somebody can vote in favor of a patently foolish attempt at extortion and than just 2 days later come to see the light. Is he so stupid that he can’t see far enough in advance to understand what would be the result of his joining in originally to the hair-brain tactic of extortion.
I’m far from being a wizard, but even I could see their tactic involved taking the American public hostage. How can any man or women have any respect for somebody who would stoop to that kind of behavior?
Fuck ’em all.
It might seem like an improper analogy, but the dynamic underlying their tactic is the same for a wife beater. You make me beat you.. If I didn’t love you I wouldn’t beat you and I only beat you because I love you. Don’t ya see, honey?
biggerbox,
Yes there should be consequences!
Now if only Howard Dean was still in charge of a 50 state strategy!
Another point about consequences:
This, and the last House were, thankfully, rare animals. Most Congress people go to DC to bring home some bacon back to their districts, to keep the folks at home happy.
In these last two houses, these republican pigs came to DC to make TV and talk radio appearances, and do just enough to get reelected in their safely gerrymandered districts.
These assclown pigs ain’t bringin’ home no bacon – ‘Earmarks” are evil, dontchya know!
And not ALL of those “R” districts are that safely gerrymandered.
And, people finally getting access to PPACA may shed a different light on a lot of the ones who think they are in safe districs.
When Cousin Zeke in Gohmert’s district, who won’t have access to Medicaid as part of Gov. Goodhair/Badbrains rebellious hissy-fit, calls his cousin Zack in a Democratic Congressional district in a Democratic state, and calls to have a few laughs at how horrible that Obamacare must be for him and his family, and finds out their health insurance costs went DOWN, while Ol’ Zeka and his family don’t have any, even a goober and a rube like him might start questioning what he hears of FOX, and from Rush.
And maybe question his Congressman, his Governor, and his state legislators.
Uh huh. So when Mike Pence led the chant of “shut it down,” and Sarah Palin crowed that “We’re the Party of Hell No,” that was … Oh, I can’t even joke about it. It’s just astounding what liars they are.
Yet there are people out there who, no matter how many times they are lied to, continue to vote to harm themselves.
Republicans are correct about one thing – they sure have decimated the education system in this country!