Are Republicans sure that this is the place to make a stand?
The last couple of years, Republicans have argued repeatedly — and passionately — that the lack of predictability and confidence could drag down the fragile economic recovery.
The theory goes that if business owners and investors don’t have a clear picture of where policy-makers are going in Washington DC, they won’t brave an already nervous climate with their dollars.
Uncertainty is the enemy.
Yet now the GOP is taking a hard-line stand on tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans, staking out a position that increases for those earning more than $250,000, returning them to 1990s levels, is a non-starter.
(Correction: Obama’s latest compromise offer only raises taxes on income over $400,000 per year.)
Obviously, every political movement is free to carve out their own ideological ground.
In this case, Republicans are rejecting an offer from Democrats that would preserve the vast majority of Bush-era tax cuts.
The compromise deal offered by Mr. Obama would also forestall sweeping and clumsily-conceived cuts to government programs, while making at least some down payment on the kind of larger cuts that will eventually be necessary.
It’s also a deal that a clear majority of Americans support, according to consistent opinion surveys.
Let’s be clear. There is no doubt that accepting the deal would represent a harrowing political defeat for Republican leaders.
That is a steep price for conservatives to pay, especially so soon after the bruising 2012 campaign.
But set against those institutional and ideological priorities is a level of uncertainty and fear which our economy hasn’t experienced since 2008.
It’s also worth pointing out that sometimes political parties lose big battles. In the decades after Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory, Democrats have been taken to the woodshed again and again on some of their biggest priorities.
They gave up ground, they accepted setbacks — without ever drawing lines in the sand that wagered the nation’s prosperity and reputation against a single issue or defeat.
The beauty of democracy is that you can lose big battles and still recover and rebuild and perhaps prevail in the larger debate.
The stakes now are remarkably high. If this impasse tanks the economy again, hundreds of thousands of American lives will be impacted.
Homes will be lost, jobs will be cut, and people living on the edge of poverty will tumble over, well, the cliff.
Despite those very real risks, this may, indeed, be the place for Republicans to make a stand.
The party’s leaders and core supporters may feel that this is the pivot point that will lead the nation toward the kind of political and fiscal solutions that we need.
If so, it would be great to hear those ideas, a big-picture agenda for how this all plays out. A good time for Paul Ryan to step forward, or Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner.
But if this is mostly a moment of gridlock, uncertainty and political disarray within the GOP — as some Republican leaders have suggested — perhaps the better part of valor is to live to fight another day.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that this is exactly the situation we are in. This isn’t a monolithic, passionate, confident coalition of Republicans.
This is a movement riven, in conservative Charles Krauthammer’s words, by “civil war.”
The most important conservative think-tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, are in free fall, with top right-wing leaders staging coups, purging dissidents, and silencing heretics within their own movement.
We also have the specter of House Speaker John Boehner failing to rally his own caucus to support any of his own ideas. It’s hardly the sort of thing that builds confidence and certainty.
In terms of the GOP’s own future, it’s also worth asking whether Americans will continue to have patience for this kind of take-no-prisoners politics.
Increasingly, in recent years, conservatives have staked out inflexible positions where the lack of a deal will mean a government shutdown, an international debt default, or a ride over the fiscal cliff.
But you can only cry “fire” in a crowded movie theater so many times before people start questioning who is to blame for all the flames.
I also suspect that voters are tired of the “no-deals-with-Obama” sentiment that clearly frames the actions of many rank-and-file House Republicans. It was a remarkable stance to take in the president’s first term.
Now that the Democratic president has been re-elected, rather handily, I suspect that the political posture of pure obstructionism is untenable — for the GOP writ large, if not for individual members of Congress.
So again, this may be the moment of truth for Republicans, the exact right place to draw a line in the sand. They may feel so confident in their positions it’s worth daring a second deep recession.
But so far, they haven’t made that case.
They haven’t laid out a narrative for how this confrontation, right now, helps the business owner on Main Street or the single mom who’s trying to hold down two jobs, or the young couple trying to buy their first house.
That stubborn, deafening silence is grounds for a lot of uncertainty, about the future of the country and the economy, but also about the future of the GOP.
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Is this all about one man keeping a job? John Boehner could bring a bill to the House floor that would pass with bipartisan support, but he will probably not be reelected as Speaker if he does so.
Meanwhile, I’m glad that I don’t work in a payroll office – or that I’m a programmer for a software company that puts out payroll software. Talk about uncertainty!
If so, it would be great to hear those ideas, a big-picture agenda for how this all plays out. A good time for Paul Ryan to step forward, or Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner.
They can’t talk about their big ideas because a majority of Americans don’t support those ideas.
And,…. their only economic idea is “always lower taxes, never raise them”. They are kind of stuck. All those rationalizations, like economic uncertainty, confidence, etc are just after the fact. They dont even really seem to care if lowering taxes blows up the deficit, even though they rail against deficits.
But my fear is that they try to make a last stand at the deadline to raise the national debt limit, and bring down the world economy.
The Republicans have drunk too much poisoned Kool-Aid (no tax increase pledge to name only one poison) and have thus built their own coffin in the process.
They seem to care only about what Grover and the NRA want and don’t give a damn about the people of this country or even the country itself.
Obama has got them right where he wants them. If we go to next week and don’t do anything he wins, if we do something now he wins. Which is ok by me, I think it will be a natural process of change for the GOP, they have to bottom out before they can really regroup as a party. They have to destroy the small elements of their party that is causing so much trouble for them, that might mean they all lose for a while.
The fact is big money does not like to lose, they will not continue to back a losing cause and in the end they will force some long term changes, but that will take a little time.
If the Republican Party is in such disarray, you would think Obama would be able to work his will on them, especialy considering the “mandate” he won in the last election. Give me a break here and get back to reality. You speak as if the Obama way is a sure-fire winner. That’s very much not the case, especially given the dismal results of his first administration. The guy is a nascent dictator and not even a particularly good one.
Peter Hahn,
Your comment about the deficit perfectly illustrates the flawed, circular logic of the Democrats. Having driven the deficit to insane levels, they now complain because the Republicans won’t save them from themselves. I guess that’s what happens when you can no longer blame Bush for all your troubles. Face reality; Obama has done nothing for four years but increase the deficit and now he wants the Republicans to bail him out. He should try acting like a President.
Nascent dictator? You’ve got to be kidding! If he was a nascent dictator, he wouldn’t have wasted all that time trying to be bipartisan with people whose only interest was making sure he didn’t win a second term.
Jeeze, Larry, it was not the Democrats that drove the deficit to insane levels, it was the Bush tax cuts combined with his two wars combined with the financial crisis he created and the resultant bailaouts (started, incidentally, on his watch).
blah, blah, blah…. blah, blah, blah, tax hikes on the rich, blah, blah, blah… blah blah blah…
Tell me again what spending cuts Obama proposes?
Larry I don’t see him as a dictator at all, I see him as a very good politician, he is not as good as Clinton, but he is pretty good. So here we have a situation politically that the Republicans get blamed no matter what happens, if we get a deal Obama looks like he negotiated one, if we don’t get a deal the Republicans will be blamed. Politically it is great you have to respect him for that.
” it would be great to hear those ideas, a big-picture agenda for how this all plays out. A good time for Paul Ryan to step forward, or Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner.”
They do not have some secret, master plan sitting in a vault somewhere waiting to be revealed.
We’ve heard the ideas they have… and the American people rejected them. Does it seem right that our economy is now being held hostage by people who insist on fighting for those rejected ideas?
This will not end well for Republicans.
Their best hand here would seem to be compromise, and then they can finally get their wish and blame the President for any lack of recovery afterward. But I guarantee if they continue with their tantrum and it throws us all over the cliff, anything bad that comes of it will again be blamed on them… and rightly so.
Very true, Mervel. Obama’s considerable political skills are another topic all together. As to him being a dictator, I did say he was only getting started and that he wasn’t that good at it either.
Really, Walker, you need to start actually reading my posts before you start the automatic writing. The Bush excuse is played out; what’s Obama going to do now besides continue to blame someone else for all our troubles?
I feel as if we are living in some cheesy, made-for-TV remake of “The Follies of 1936” starring Barack Obama as FDR and Mitt Romney as Alf Landon. Then, as now, the President, having been first elected by blaming everything on his predecessor, wins reelection over uninspired opposition that fails to capitalize on the President’s mediocre performance. Despite the President’s best efforts, or perhaps because of them, the economy goes over a cliff early in his second term and doesn’t recover until a war gets us out of it. Assad can play Hitler, or better yet, Mussolini. Putin can take over the Hitler role, he’s pulling the strings there anyway. It makes me crazy to even thnk of the possibilities.
“They can’t talk about their big ideas because a majority of Americans don’t support those ideas.”
now thats ridiculous circular logic. i don’t even buy it for a second.
They are behaving as bloodclots in the vein of politics.
“go away” or “get out of the way” their choice– and by their own logic above–
no sense trying to lead if no one will follow.
Its a party in transition. Before the Democrats and those more on the Left start celebrating however, just remember how fast things can change. Texas voted for Jimmy Carter. They did not start voting Republican until 1980. Republicans can easily come back, I think right now they are really at a low point, I think caused by some short term political calculations that have now had some consequences.
The ideas however will always be there. Lets face it at the end of year 8 of this presidency, if we are still in the same situation as we are now as a country, the Democratic brand will be seriously damaged.
The blaming works for a while, but in the end it won’t work for the long run. I think the Republicans should just back away and let things go, remove the excuses. It will be plainly obvious if the health care plan works, if the economic plans work, and if our deficit non-reduction has any impact on our country. This will all be much more clear in 2016.
“… what’s Obama going to do now besides continue to blame someone else for all our troubles?”
The president can not just unilaterally do “something” or “anything”
If he could, then maybe the right wing’s paranoid dictator delusions would have some merit.
Congress makes the laws. There are two houses of Congress. Right now you have one house where the minority (republicans) is abusing the filibuster rules to stonewall the President’s proposed solutions… and another house whose majority (republicans, again) has taken a hard line position and refuses to consider, or compromise on, any of the President’s proposed solutions.
He can’t force them to do so.
The American public understands this, they voted for his ideas and are not happy that they are being blocked. If the republicans continue to obstruct efforts to fix the economy, then when the recovery falters, they will be blamed.
I guess Bush was the last President who was able to do things unilaterally.
OL –
Actually, your point speaks to my original post. Bush was able to do things with the cooperation of Democrats. In many cases, the Democrats were compromising on some of their most important principles. Though in negotiation, they also got things that they wanted. That’s how the system works. There isn’t much that happens unilaterally. It requires compromise, and the willingness to occasionally suffer a setback.
–Brian, NCPR
Brian,
Sincerely, and without sarcasm, if Bush was able to do things with the cooperation of Democrats, how has it now become “all his fault”? Similarly, if Bush, whose own supporters acknowledge his shortcomings, was able to forge a compromise with the Democrats, how is it that Obama, acknowledged by all to be a master politician, cannot reach the same level of accord with the Republicans? Have things changed that much or is it perhaps that neither of those men are what we think them to be?
I would say yes and no Larry. Bush was not the evil malignant force that ruined the country that many believe and Obama is simply not as competent as they believe and not nearly as evil as the right wing thinks he is. BUT there is a new element in congress and they were elected promising not to compromise, these are the tea party guys. Personally I don’t think they are very bright people, they don’t understand politics or our government and I think they honestly don’t care what happens to this country in the short run for the “long run” benefits they feel would happen, this is the thinking of a zealot and we see in history many zealots, to them the ends always justify the means, when in reality just the inverse is actually true, ends never justify means.
Larry – have you been paying attention? The republicans in the house have a rule – the majority of the majority has to support anything in order for it even to come up for a vote. There is nothing Obama can do about that. If they want to be intransigent, and they do, nothing happens. If the rump majority – representing maybe 25% of Americans – insists that no taxes can ever be raised, even if a majority of Americans disagree, and are willing to torpedo the US economy in order to get their way, then we are in trouble.
In the Bush (W) years the Democrats went along with the Bush tax cuts because he ran on that and won. “Okay, that’s what the people want so we’ll go along and see how it works.” Any reasonable person would conclude that it didn’t work. It was a flaming disaster and yes, we are still recovering from it, a recovery that has been hindered by the intransigence of those who insist on believing in trickle down economics despite its having been abandoned even by its ‘father’, David Stockman.
Now we have a president who has won reelection on a promise to tackle the deficit with a balanced approach of cuts mixed with some higher taxes and the Republicans are ignoring both the president’s reelection and their own losses in congress, not to mention the polls indicating that the majority support the president’s plan, and threatening to destroy the country’s (perhaps the world’s) economy in order to defy the will of the majority and force their minority plan on the nation (they may be the majority in the House but they are a minority in every other sense).
The role of congress in our system is to “deliberate” and compromise on solutions to our problems. This insistence on rigid adherence to an ideology of no tax increases and a pledge to a self appointed dictator smack more of criminal extortion than deliberation. IMO any politician who signs any ‘pledge’ other than their oath of office should be disqualified from office. Holding a higher allegiance to anything other than that oath is a violation of the oath of office and verges on treason.
Let’s go over the fiscal cliff. It’ll suck if you’re poor, but that’s a given. Everyone will have to pay more taxes, thereby un-doing all that Reagan and the Bush’s accomplished, and that will be a mixed blessing. The military will take a huge cut, and that will be a huge relief to every American, as well as many that we oppress around the globe. And lastly, any discomfort felt by the people will be blamed on the Republicans. It sounds like an overall win to me.
The real result will be to start a real conversation about what we want to fund, and how we want to tax, and where we want to go after this last election.
I was ready for the cliff the last time around. Obama should have let the Bush Tax cuts expire then – as they were meant to when the law was written. Why do the Republicans hate Bush?
W did not intend for the tax cuts to actually end. It was the only way he could get the tax cuts passed. The idea was that they could be made permanent later under a more cooperative congress. His rational was that reducing taxes would spur the economy even further and there would be no need to end them. Then then 9/11 happened and we got into a war that we had no budget to pay for along with a major tanking of the economy instead of an expansion. He capped that with a second war that he said would be paid for out of the Iraq oil revenues. The war happened along with incredible waste by contractors whom Chaney said could do things more effectively than our military. They didn’t, billions went unaccounted for, and the oil revenue never happened leaving the tax payers stuck with the bill. Then the housing investment bubble burst and the taxpayers got tagged to pay for that too. We had little choice. The alternative was a repeat of the Great Depression. We settled for a Great Recession which some delusional people think should have blossomed into a new boom by now. We need to cut spending but we also need to raise taxes. It’s a complex problem with no simple solution.
theOL:
“if Bush was able to do things with the cooperation of Democrats, how has it now become “all his fault”?”
One thing we learned from this last election is that the “low information” voter now outnumbers those who pay attention and can think.
If you repeat “it’s Bush’s fault” long enough and loud enough, the “low information” voter believes it.
Face it, theOL, we’re outnumbered, for now.
“We need to cut spending but we also need to raise taxes.”
James, nice summary of how we got here. But your conclusion misses the fact that 1) we desperately need stimulus measures to get the economy moving again (and to repair infrastructure in danger of crumbling away), and 2) the fact that interest rates are at historic lows means that deficit financing of (1) is much less of a problem than it might be in ordinary times. The deficit hawks have been screaming bloody murder for so long that it’s hard to ignore them, until you consider that their willingness to continue cutting taxes proves that they can’t be taken seriously.
When we recover the six to ten TRILLION that we spent on Bush’s wars, then it won’t be his fault anymore.
When we repeal the Patriot Act, then it won’t all be Bush’s fault anymore.
When Dick Chaney is brought up on war crimes charges, and his family and friends have to take second jobs to make ends meet, then it won’t be Bush’s fault anymore.
That said, I don’t see how it’ll ever change.
Yeah, let’s raise taxes; that way, we can put more money in the hands of the same people who have been blowing our money all along. If it isn’t there, they can’t spend it. Did anyone take a look at the “projects” NY State recently blew over $700M of our tax dollars on? If there’s already enough money in the State budget to fund state agencies with no discernable purpose and to develop supermarkets in areas that cannot support a supermarket then we certainly don’t need to contribute any more. I can’t listen to anyone complain about education funding while they approve the state spending this much money on buying votes. It is even worse at the Federal level. You think we spend too much on Defense? Change it by not providing more money that might be spent on it. There’s already plenty of money for important things; it’s all the waste that we can’t afford.
What is it exactly that Obama has done to compromise on this? Where are his spending cuts? And the ever larger question- where is Congress on the cuts? I don’t see any spending cuts. All I see is more debt, more spending, more taxes. We cannot pay for what we’re doing now. There are only 2 workable options- either raise taxes on everyone and cut spending too or it collapses. We can keep on as we are for a while longer, but this system will collapse. QE4 won’t fix things, it will just make our money worth less and less. I don’t see a way out of this without major pain. And I lay that at Obamas feet. The Republicans are drowning in their own self pity, doing all they can to stay alive. Let them drown. They brought this on themselves by trying to appeal to Democrats. So fall on the sword and have it done, you failed because you put staying in office above your moral and ethical compass. This mess belongs to Obama entirely. He’s had 4 years to make real advancements and he’s done nothing but make it worse.
You will never recover the money spent on the war and Obama isn’t doing anything to lower costs there.
Obama’s signature appears on the Patriot Act now, he owns it.
When Eric Holder stands trial for Fast and Furious, when Obama, Clinton, etc, stand trial for Benghazi, who will it belong to then?
JDM, I’d say the problem is more on the side of ‘mis-information voters’
Walker, I wasn’t proposing a detailed solution, just correcting the misinformed notion that the current situation is all Obama’s fault. I agree that we need stimulus to get the economy moving again but we also need more revenue. The revenue will have to start with those at the top (because they can afford it and the people at the bottom can’t) and as the economy grows the tax increases will have to expand downward until we reach surplus again so that we can start paying down the massive debt. In my household we’ve done exactly that with the deficits created by sending our kids to college and trust me, it works. My wife went to business school (stimulus spending) and she got a job that increased our revenue.
We also need to cut unnecessary spending, especially in the military. We are building too many weapons that the military doesn’t need or want. Medicare spending could be tightened by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. I’m sure a bit of effort would find that there are other places we could cut without hurting significant numbers of people.
Those ‘misinformation voters’ love to remind us that Obama “promised” that everything would be fixed by now but those of us with functioning memories know that isn’t true. He say it could be fixed by now but that it could take 5-6 years or more. He was also expecting help from the Republicans, something he not only didn’t get but they set out on the first day of his administration to sabotage any effort to fix the economy on their hope that if things stayed bad they could make him a one term president, a goal, that to Republicans, was apparently more important than the good of the country.
OL, I saw that 700M, too, and I was livid. Our schools are in deep trouble and the Wild Center gets 1M for an elevated boardwalk?
I don’t begrudge these projects. But now? When we are in a crisis?
I can’t believe anyone seriously proposes higher taxes while money is being wasted on similar projects.
The problem with the Bush tax cuts was they were instituted at a time when we were getting involved in two very expensive wars, a time when taxes should have been raised to pay for the wars.
Put the tax cuts together with the cost of the wars and you end up having the huge deficits we now have.
The only solution is to eliminate those tax cuts to pay for the unfunded wars.
“I can’t believe anyone seriously proposes higher taxes while money is being wasted on similar projects.”
Larry, if you had a job building that project you wouldn’t think it was a waste. And the money those workers spend help keep Tupper’s small businesses afloat. That’s how a stimulus works.
Let’s face it folks. We are a wasteful nation all the way around – top to bottom.
As far as the military, cuts are needed. Where? How about military brass? My resource (with reputable military credentials) tells me there should be a 20-25% reduction in the number of admirals and generals. Additionally, the Army Spouse Employment Partnership has secured 40,000 jobs for military spouses. Why?
Housing allowances for mid-level and top brass: $3200 to $8,000 a month. Seriously?
Taxation in early America was to provide defense for the country – not to provide free food, medical care, housing and education. It was understood that men were required to work to provide for themselves and build their community and nation.
So, “it’s not all Bush’s fault.” Time to grow up. If I come into a situation that I’m now responsible for, belly aching about the previous manager is pitifully immature. Step up and take charge without blaming, even if there is some blame. That is a real leader.
Larry, if you had a job building that project you wouldn’t think it was a waste. And the money those workers spend help keep Tupper’s small businesses afloat. That’s how a stimulus works.
Where does it end Walker? We are in a state and national crisis.
Sure I care about that builder and a town’s small businesses. But how do you reconcile our schools in serious trouble and throw money at some of these 501(c)3s?
How is it that SLIC gets a free pass to extend it’s service to Long Lake, etc. Isn’t it a business that should fund itself?
$700 M in make work, luxury and idiotic projects is waste, pure and simple. How about some stimulus for education? For property tax sanity that helps older people stay in the homes they bought 40 or 50 years ago? For medical care for the truly poor? I could go on but there’s no point. It’s the liberal democrat philosophy: spend money on every half-assed project that comes up and then throw the blame for the fiscal disaster on anyone handy.
It appears that the republican party is over with. It seems that you can only be recognized as a republican if you are conservative. Therefore, the conservative party is in charge of the republican party. The way to get ahead in the republican party is to claim to be more conservative than your opponent. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. We could use more political parties to free up the govonment so that it can move. I vote for third parties whenever feasable though I’ve never seen a political party that I thought was worth joining. Thing is how many of the issues involved have only two sides to them. Why have only two parties? It seems that the two party system causes an agreement to disagreee and to keep others out of the conversation.
Larry, Do you also consider funding weapons programs (billion dollar aircraft and mulch-million dollar tanks) that the military says they don’t need or want as “make work? The people in congress who push those things through do so because it means jobs in their district manufacturing the stuff. But it is stuff that gets shelved and has no ripple effect of further economic activity unlike projects that promote tourism or Internet service lines that open up areas for e-commerce. To use a favorite conservative analogy, paying people to make weapons we have no use for is like giving a man a fish. It does nothing further in the economic chain. He gets to pay his mortgage and eat today but his product is an economic dead end. Better we should pay those folks to build farming equipment to donate to poor countries so that they could be better off. Those countries would then like us more and we wouldn’t need the weapons. It isn’t just about cutting, it’s about spending more frugally and wisely on those things that promote growth and add to the”general welfare”.
Walker,
It’s a waste now and it will always be a waste. Also, it’s not a stimulus, which is intended to encourage activity. If there’s no activity to begin with, it’s make-work, welfare or relief, take your pick. Whatever it is, we can’t afford it when legitimate needs go begging.
Well James, if you weren’t so anxious to get on my case you might know that I essentially agree with you about military spending. To paraphrase myself, if you think we spend too much on defense, stop asking for more money that might get spent on it. If the government is forced to live within its means, we’ll soon have a re-allocation of funds to worthwhile, necessary projects. Make-work, whether on a national or local scale, is a waste of time and money.
Raising taxes?
The top 10% pay 71% of the income tax.
How about the lower 47%?
They pay nothing, nada, zero.
Hmmm. Let’s start there.
“I saw that 700M, too, and I was livid. Our schools are in deep trouble and the Wild Center gets 1M for an elevated boardwalk?”
You need a strong community to have strong schools. If you don’t invest in other community assets, like businesses and attractions and infrastructure, you won’t have to worry about the schools because no one will live there.
“What is it exactly that Obama has done to compromise on this? Where are his spending cuts?”
Anyone with access to the internet has no excuse for being this poorly informed.
If you have 5 minutes of time, and know how to use google, you can find not only the massive cuts that he has proposed (and taken significant heat from his party for) BUT you can also find the massive cuts he has already implemented.
One of his proposals offered 2 dollars of cuts for every 1 dollar of revenue. Re-read that…. he offered a 2 for 1 deal. A true compromise would be a 1 for 1.
He has been OVER-compromising.
I think the House Republicans may regret rejecting Boehner’s Plan B, which only would’ve raised taxes on people making over $1 million a year. Whatever deal ends up being forced through now will probably raise taxes on people who make less than that. (Obama and the Senate are proposing $400,000 now.) Passing some kind of plan of their own would’ve given the House Republicans a lot more leverage than they have now.
JDM,
the top 1% hold 20% of total adjusted gross income and they pay 38% of taxes, average effective tax rate 23.27%.
the top 10% have 45.77% of AGI and pay nearly 70% of taxes for an ave. effective rate of 18.71%.
the bottom 50% have just 12.75% of AGI and they pay a mere 2.7% of taxes.
But wait, there’s more! Check out this link:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
You’ll find that the top 20% own about 80-90% of all the wealth. The top 1% alone hold about 35-40% of all wealth.
Lots of good tables on the site.