The “grand bargain” as campaign ploy
[Posted by Karl]
Ed Morrissey does a good job of explaining the apparent collapse of any “grand bargain” between Pres. Obama and the Congressional GOP regarding the public debt bomb. He’s no more partisan about it than the faux-objective Politico (seriously, even compared to the WaPo and McClatchy(!) coverage, David Rogers and Jake Sherman should be ashamed of their unbalanced hackery). But I want to go a step further to explain why the “grand bargain” is an extension of Pres. Obama’s re-election campaign.
First, as James Pethokoukis (who beat the establishment media like a drum on this story) suggests, there is little political downside for Pres. Obama in such negotiations, so long as he insists on major, unambiguous tax increases and opposes entitlement reform. If Republicans caved in to such a deal, it would demoralize the GOP base and possibly prompt Tea Party challenges, splitting the vote on the right. Moreover, a deal would help fool the casual, low-information voter that Obama cares about and is addressing the public debt bomb.
Second (and perhaps more significant), failing to reach a “grand bargain” is Pres. Obama’s current campaign strategy. You need not take my word for it. Instead, you can observe what Pres. Obama has done since before the midterm elections.
Consider the general political environment before the midterm election. The right and the Tea Party raised the political temperature on the issue of the public debt bomb. Pres. Obama punted on the issue by forming the Simpson-Bowles commission. After the election, he tossed their recommendations in the trash bin. However, in doing so, Obama created a politcal vacuum, which was filled by the House GOP budget devised by Rep. Paul Ryan. The left needed a response.
Accordingly, Pres. Obama (as he always does) gave a speech (which was not a budget, and has never been made into one). While much of the establishment media spun that speech as an embrace of the Simpson-Bowles recommendations, it was not. Simpson-Bowles sought to clothe its tax increases in the garb of the Tax Reform Act of 1986: lowering tax rates and eliminating deductions. But the Simpson-Bowles recommendations were not revenue-neutral. Even so, they were at least structurally similar to the House GOP budget, which proposed similar tax reform that was revenue-neutral. Any purveyor of Beltway conventional wisdom could see the type of deal to be struck.
However, Obama’s non-budget speech did not adopt the basic structure of the House GOP or his bipartisan commissioners. Rather, Obama proposed raising tax rates and eliminating deductions. Moreover, Obama’s proposed enforcement triggers would exempt more than 90% of government spending from his supposed automatic across-the-board cut. Combined with grossly hypocritical demagogy on entitlements, Obama’s speech was not a forerunner to a serious plan, but an attempt to rerun the Clinton ’95 re-elect playbook.
Anyone harboring any doubt over who is responsible for the failure of a “grand bargain” must consider Pres. Obama’s record. He avoided the debt before the election. After the election, he submitted a budget so absurd it got zero votes in a Democrat-controlled Senate. [Indeed, Senate Democrats have yet to submit a budget of any kind.] He has not moved from the positions he staked out in April. His position is not balanced, no matter how much the White House and the establishment media try to spin it as such.
Furthermore, there should be no expectation that Obama will budge on the budget. Obama’s non-budget speech was a tacit admission that he cannot run for re-election on his record, but must demonize his opponents with class warfare and MediScare. He would be willing to entertain a GOP surrender on his terms, because he likely calculates that the liberals put off by any deal will be outnumbered by demoralized conservatives and libertarians, while he gains casual, low-information independents. Otherwise, he has already announced his intentions. He will do the only thing for which he has shown any talent: campaign. Whether he can run a negative campaign running from his record, as opposed to standing as the blank slate of Hope and Change, remains to be seen.
–Karl
The only successful GOP strategy is one that separates out the Senate Democrats from Obama. That’s the weakness. If the Senate and the House pass a deal, Obama can’t then veto it and blame the GOP.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:01 amThe famous line, “Read my lips, no new taxes”, should’ve been the last time the GOP believed the dimocrats wrt raising taxes for a future promise to cut spending. If they fall for it again, they deserve the same fate as Bush 41.
∅ (e7577d) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:12 amSPQR,
Agreed, but I suspect the Dems have figured this out. Bet on the Senate Dems floating a budget even more ridiculous than Obama’s current position.
Karl (30c6cc) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:14 amIt is clearly Bush’s tax cuts for the richest and unfunded wars that led to the budget crisis today.
JD (29e1cd) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:16 amKarl, so far the Senate Dems are playing hide and seek with their budget proposal. Evidently its too sooper sekrit to be shown in public. Its probably just shy.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:18 amJD, indeed for those Democrats who can’t do simple math.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:18 amWell said.
However, for once, the voters may actually be paying attention.
There’s nothing wrong with lowering the tax rate and eliminating substantial numbers of deductions. No tax payer can possibly object to finding his tax return easier to fill out.
Dianna (f12db5) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:19 amDianna, some of the “simplification” being proposed by Democrats is to reduce the deductability of mortgage interest for those evil rich people who dared to actually buy a home for themselves.
Remember that to the Democrats, the Kulaks had it coming.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:21 amSPQR – we had a troll arguing that in the Tribe thread this morning. He had his marching orders.
JD (85b089) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:22 amThank you Karl. SPQR was discussing this yesterday, but when you lay out the pattern of not really seriously trying to create a budget that addresses our deficit, and it’s quite a pattern, it’s hard to resist the fact this is a planned strategy.
It just seems so insane to me. Obama cannot succeed unless the economy recovers. These games with forcing the GOP to compromise a political advantage with the TEA party or call the ultimate bluff seems incredibly stupid.
Why did the democrats play politics in the first place? Presumably they play these political games to get power, and they originally sought power because they wanted to do some good in the world. At this point, anyone who believes this of the Obama administration sounds naive. They really don’t give a crap about this country. Just the power. Perhaps a few radicals (and also reactionaries, though obviously not in this administration) actually think the destruction of the economy will result in some ultimate good, but how can those people ignore that a lot of Americans just need a job right now.
This could get extremely ugly. I suggest folks have enough food to outlast a little turbulence.
Dustin (b7410e) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:27 am“The last best hope of earth”, weakened and struggling for its breath is being ruled by a congress which is largely for sale, and as a permanent presidential campaign. Decisions about America’s future made under these conditions are likely to be very poor decisions.
elissa (26a465) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:44 amSPQR, I know.
I’m assuming that even the Republicans are not going to be quite that stupid. Or even Dems – because the entire middle class, which floats on the Mortgage Interest Deduction, would vote every single incumbent out.
A 10% tax rate, without the Mortgage Interest Deduction, would work just fine. A 20% rate and no such deduction, and about half the middle class would no longer own a home.
Dianna (f12db5) — 7/10/2011 @ 11:45 amA subsidy is a subsidy. They pick winners and losers and they seek to reward/punish without understanding the law of unintended consequences on the free market.
Green energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies, mortgage interest deduction subsidies (just to name a few)–and the regulations and social goals that spawned all such subsidies just flat out need to go. No picking and choosing which ones should stay and which should go. They all need to go. Replaced, hopefully, with a flatter, lower rate, and a less encumbered by politics tax code (as Dianna points out).
If the “entire middle class floats on the Mortgage Interest Deduction” and it is sacrosanct, I am a monkey’s uncle.
elissa (26a465) — 7/10/2011 @ 12:15 pmI like this dedication a lot, but being a Texan, it hasn’t escaped me that this deduction disproportionately benefits blue states and urbanites.
Dustin (b7410e) — 7/10/2011 @ 12:17 pmI really hope it’s not sacrosanct; a more comprehensible tax-code is one of my most fondly cherished political ambitions. But there is no denying that, in the current environment, most homeowners would turn deathly pale and start shaking if they took the mortgage interest deduction away!
Dianna (f12db5) — 7/10/2011 @ 1:10 pm_____________________________________________
Why did the democrats play politics in the first place?
Since I’m of the right, perhaps I exaggerate the amount of left-leaning idiocy in the human race, among many people in America in particular, the Western World in general. But the dumb voters in that district in New York state who not long ago fell for the crap of the Democrat running against the Republican emboldened ultra-liberals like Obama.
Plus, such politicians see what’s going on in societies like Greece, observe the various opinion polls that reveal quite a streak of self-entitlement greed and lazy leftism in this society, and conclude there are a lot of willing suckers out there for liberal tactics, liberal propaganda.
Mark (411533) — 7/10/2011 @ 1:49 pmThe reason we are here is that a “clean” debt limit increase bill was introduced in the House and voted on. Eighty-two Democrats voted no.
Obama voted against the debt limit increase when he was a Senator.
This is theater.
Mike K (8f3f19) — 7/10/2011 @ 2:39 pmMajor pushback against the “14th amendement solution”.
David B. Rivkin, Jr., an attorney who served in the Department of Justice during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said the DOJ would never advise the president to use the 14th amendment as a legal run-around on the debt ceiling.
“It’s so absurd,” Rivkin said. “It is an empty threat. Not even a threat, it is a legal impossibility. … It’s not just a question of opinion, it’s a question of case law.”
Still, Republican push-back over the threat of a 14th amendment solution has been swift and fierce. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Republicans would take the president to court over it, while Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said it would be “an impeachable act.”
Rivkin agreed. “Any president who did something like this would be engaging in the most outrageous conduct of any president in … constitutional history. There’s no doubt that this would be an impeachable offense,” he said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/170555-legality-of-14th-amendment-solution-under-fire
elissa (26a465) — 7/10/2011 @ 3:32 pmClassic Barack Obama. </i>Since I can’t blind them with brilliance, I’m going to baffle them with bullshit.
Mike Myers (0e06a9) — 7/10/2011 @ 3:59 pmWhile much of the establishment media spun that speech as an embrace of the Simpson-Bowles recommendations, it was not.
I think you’re wrong on that point. At the very least, I’ve never heard Obama’s treatment of Simpson-Bowles being mentioned in the MSM as anything other than either ignoring it or going against its proposals.
JBS (4fe729) — 7/10/2011 @ 6:08 pmJBS – Go read the speech he was referencing.
JD (318f81) — 7/10/2011 @ 6:23 pmABC, CNN, and Reuters bought into the White House spin too, almost verbatim: http://bit.ly/ohWu0h
Poor Richard (7b5aee) — 7/10/2011 @ 6:45 pmJD–I understand. I’m not disagreeing with Karl’s view of what Obama is saying and doing. I’m disagreeing with him on the (tangential) point of how the MSM is treating Obama’s treatment of Simpson Bowles. I think the MSM is being more accurate on that point than Karl gives them credit for. I suppose I don’t pay attention the MSM anymore, but I don’t remember hearing any talk on the MSM that suggested Obama was doing anything other than ignoring or going against Simpson Bowles.
But to repeat, this is a tangential point, and I agree with Karl’s main point.
JBS (4fe729) — 7/10/2011 @ 8:25 pmKarl: FABULOUS analysis of Obamao’s motives. He has to run on the platform of higher taxes for the rich class-warfare, no cuts in entitlements, no meaningful cuts on anything in the short-term, and this makes it HARD to adopt ANY real action by Democrats. Maybe this is why they didn’t even pass a budget in ’10 ! What fiscal cowards — Obama/Pelosi/Reid, all the Dems in Congress. Their ultimate goal is to win the ‘next’ election — never to take responsible action to help the economy. Why doesn’t the MSM EVER ask them how tax increases can do anything but hurt the economy? MSM = cowards as well !
steve bourg (49fbaa) — 7/11/2011 @ 4:51 amNine months ago Republicans promised economic prosperity and drastic reductions in unemployment if Bush’s tax cuts were extended.
The result? 9.2% unemployment.
But it’s all Obama’s fault.
Republicans, focused like a laser on jobs.
JEA (e73032) — 7/11/2011 @ 3:08 pmNo, they didn’t. They correctly promised disaster if they were not extended; thankfully that disaster was averted.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/12/2011 @ 12:55 pmGreat correction, Milhouse.
It’s very telling when democrats try to shift the goalposts.
Now all economic problems are blamed on the tax ‘cuts’ (a strange way to describe keeping taxes where they have been for years).
JEA is blaming the unemployment level on the taxes not going up. He couldn’t be less serious.
Dustin (b7410e) — 7/12/2011 @ 12:58 pm