Obama's sharp right turn

A horrible deal is taking shape in Congress, which Obama has negotiated with McConnell. Reid seems to have signed up for it, but Pelosi is not onboard yet. It is unclear whether Boehner has the ability to sign up on anyone's behalf. I hope Obama does not push this deal, but tells McConnell and Boehner that he will invoke the 14th amendment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/31/us-debt-crisis-obama-cuts

When Bill Clinton lurched rightwards to secure re-election in 1996,
he had at least the benefit of a strong economy. And Republicans got the
politics of standing by their principles wrong. Barack Obama,
in contrast, does not have a strong economy behind him. Growth in the
first quarter all but ground to a halt, and in the second, posted an
anaemic annual 1.3% rate. His economy, like ours, is crying out for more
jobs, and all Washington can deliver, one with a Democratic president
and a Democrat run Senate, is cuts. The stimulus has run out of steam
and like ours, the economy risks flat-lining. Nor, unlike 1996, is there
any indication of a voter blacklash for mainstream Republican
candidates. On the contrary, Republicans can argue persuasively that
where they blazed the trail on slashing spending, the president has
followed.


So the outline deal on raising the debt ceiling which emerged yesterday
is not a triumph of compromise and reason. True, it will avert a
disaster, but one that had been fabricated by the Tea Party themselves.
Raising the US debt ceiling is in any other time a matter of arcane
interest nodded through Congress without anyone much noticing. It has
happened about 140 times in the last 60 years. If the emergency of a
default was a false one, so the relief that a deal brings is ersatz,
too. Make no mistake, the deal itself marks the sharpest rightwing turn
of Mr Obama's presidency – $3tn in cuts over the next decade, much of
which would be decided by a joint congressional committee. The scale of
the cuts is guaranteed with triggers of across-the-board cuts if the
committee can not agree on where to find them. There was still a gap
over what those triggers would look like, and a fight lies ahead about
which programmes to cut, but the principle of spending cuts in the
absence of tax raising-measures, has been surrendered.

If Obama doesn't have the balls, I hope the Tea Party's lack of a grip on reality does the trick of killing this horrible compromise. If Obama wakes up on Tuesday with no bill to sign, he might legitimately claim that he has to use the 14th against his own preferences, because Congress failed at its job.

I think he is being a deft politician.

People already realize the Reps are crazy. Obama can claim to cut spending, and he will get the credit despite rep claim.

No talk till next election.

Now he has done his job and which ones are to cut will be left for the bipartisan committee - through which he can pull the strings. He can blame it all on the congress.

He will live to fight another day, whereas some in the congress may not be there. When the next round of war starts, the real strength and influence of the Tea Party Trash will be known.

All in all a smart move.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:I think he is being a deft politician.

People already realize the Reps are crazy. Obama can claim to cut spending, and he will get the credit despite rep claim.

No talk till next election.

Now he has done his job and which ones are to cut will be left for the bipartisan committee - through which he can pull the strings. He can blame it all on the congress.

He will live to fight another day, whereas some in the congress may not be there. When the next round of war starts, the real strength and influence of the Tea Party Trash will be known.

All in all a smart move.

My big problem with all this is that he has ceded the debate to the other side. He allowed them to frame the terms of the debate -- for instance, the idea of one dollar cut in spending per every dollar raise in the debt ceiling; the idea of a two-step raise. This will prompt liberal Democrats to attempt a primary challenge to Obama, which will only make the election more chaotic than it already is, given all the idiots running for the GOP nomination.