Actually my analogy is squarely on point for the purpose intended.

From the sound of things (if today's rumours are accurate), the Republicans are once again playing games...and wasting time. It is reported that they are about to present (tomorrow) a proposal that calls for a short-term (3 - 6 months) increase in the debt ceiling, despite the fact that Obama has already made it very clear he would veto any such proposal, and the reality that the credit rating agencies would downgrade the U.S. bonds (resulting in an increase in across-the-board interest rates, which will effect EVERYONE) unless a longer-term solution is reached. Given the gridlock and "politics" (on both sides) that have occurred the past 6+ weeks in debating this issue, the markets will have no appetite to go through this uncertainty again in 6 months, and then just before the 2012 election.

A short-term solution does absolutely nothing...and both the credit rating agencies and market will react accordingly...and it will not be pretty.

As usual, when two parties are being stubborn, the lack of a compromise is always the other sides's fault.

(07-24-2011 07:29 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  As usual, when two parties are being stubborn, the lack of a compromise is always the other sides's fault.

With all due respect, Buddy, there is only one side unwilling to compromise here. Despite the requisite vocal outcry, Obama and the Dems would be prepared to include entitlement reform in the spending cut package, but ONLY if there is balance as reflected in revenue increases and tax reform. The House Republicans have shown absolutely no willingness to give an inch on their no revenue increases period pledge....and that's what has caused the stailmate.

(07-24-2011 09:54 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  ONLY

I think this is a keyword in the definition of unwilling to compromise. I am willing to offer you the use of my baseball season tickets, but only if you wear a clown suit. And the clown suit is nonnegotiable, although we could discuss the shoes, and maybe the wig. What - you won't wear the clown suit? How unreasonable of you. well, I tried....


“There was an agreement with the White House at $800 billion in revenue. It’s the president who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money at the last minute,” Boehner said.


Plus, aren't these negotiations supposed to be on CSPAN? Was there a promise to that effect? Sure would be easier to keep the facts straight instead of deciding which finger-pointer to believe.

I see no difference in either side. It is a colossal game of chicken, and it takes two to play. Both sides are blaming the other for the failure to cave, and both sides are still saying NO at some point, or we would have an agreement.

The President made certain promises to his base, and the Republicans made certain promises to their base. Neither side wants to break faith or break promises. Under other circumstances, this steadfastness would seem admirable.

(07-24-2011 09:54 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(07-24-2011 07:29 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  As usual, when two parties are being stubborn, the lack of a compromise is always the other sides's fault.

With all due respect, Buddy, there is only one side unwilling to compromise here. Despite the requisite vocal outcry, Obama and the Dems would be prepared to include entitlement reform in the spending cut package, but ONLY if there is balance as reflected in revenue increases and tax reform. The House Republicans have shown absolutely no willingness to give an inch on their no revenue increases period pledge....and that's what has caused the stailmate.

With all due respect, Walt, your partisanship is showing and you have this dead wrong.

Neither side is willing to compromise until the clock starts to strike midnight. They both know a deal will get done at the nth hour, and they both know that we could miss the deadline by a few days without default or any other of the Armageddon scenarios actually materializing.

Republicans may actually snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on this. They have succeeded in turning the tide of public debate. They should take what gains they can get, declare victory, and live to fight another day. Instead they are over-reaching, and losing the public relations battle.

As for the democrats' alleged willingness to compromise, where? What have they actually agreed to? Obama has said that he agreed to $3 trillion in cuts over ten years. Without specifics, and I've seen none, all that means is that Obama said some words.

If I were the republicans, I would gladly trade cuts for revenues on a 3:1 basis, if combined with tax reform to lower andflatten rates over a broader base. I'd also demand that any meetings to discuss the issue be live on CSPAN and any other network that wanted to carry them. After all, it's just holding Obama to what he promised, isn't it? Somebody is lying about what happened in those meetings. As long as the vast majority of the media are playing on Obama's team, the republicans are going to lose the PR battle regarding what happens behind closed doors. So open it up, do it in the light of day, and let the American people figure out for themselves who's lying.

(07-25-2011 01:34 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2011 09:54 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  ONLY

I think this is a keyword in the definition of unwilling to compromise. I am willing to offer you the use of my baseball season tickets, but only if you wear a clown suit. And the clown suit is nonnegotiable, although we could discuss the shoes, and maybe the wig. What - you won't wear the clown suit? How unreasonable of you. well, I tried....


“There was an agreement with the White House at $800 billion in revenue. It’s the president who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money at the last minute,” Boehner said.


Plus, aren't these negotiations supposed to be on CSPAN? Was there a promise to that effect? Sure would be easier to keep the facts straight instead of deciding which finger-pointer to believe.

I see no difference in either side. It is a colossal game of chicken, and it takes two to play. Both sides are blaming the other for the failure to cave, and both sides are still saying NO at some point, or we would have an agreement.

The President made certain promises to his base, and the Republicans made certain promises to their base. Neither side wants to break faith or break promises. Under other circumstances, this steadfastness would seem admirable.

Even a guy like Mickey Kaus (center-left blogger and Dem) caught that fact, where the WH is (to use a term they like to tag the Republicans with) "moving the goal posts":

Quote:Here is a paragraph from Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook:

At the Roosevelt Room briefing, a White House official cast it differently: “In tax reform, we were apart by $400 billion. We’d agreed to set a level of a target for tax reform that would be $800 billion above the level that it would be if the Bush tax cuts were extended. We said on top of that, we thought it was appropriate — given the scale of savings in so many important entitlement and discretionary areas — that balance required that there be a little more, and we said $400 billion more was something that we thought was appropriate.”

source: http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/23/sounds...ing-to-me/

Now that the Democrats perceive a public advantage, they're trying to use their leverage now. So please, Walt - give up the no-revenue canard. You can see from OO's quote and from the anonymous WH quote that there already was $800M in new revenue already on the table and agreed to. There's plenty more pox to call on both sides than that untrue misdirection.

Both sides are probing for advantage until the very end, though I have a feeling that the psychological damage has already started in the markets (and that damage can get much worse as this continues to play out without detail). And I'm speaking broader on markets than just the stock indices.

Since we're talking about moving goalposts, it looks like Reid's about to call Boehner's bluff. The two big requirements for him were that 1) the debt ceiling increase be matched be spending cuts and that 2) it not include revenues. Reid's plan apparently does that. And indeed it's what would have been considered a complete cave by the Dems and Obama a few weeks ago.

Will his Tea Party masters let him take it?

I'm at a loss how the Republicans have the advantage in public perception as virtually EVERY single poll shows the public sides with the President over the Republicans in the handling of the debt ceiling negotiations, and by a 2:1 margin. Heck, even amongst Republicans, almost 65% favor some sense of balance in reducing debt (via increased revenues). As for the $800B so-called agreement on revenue increases over 10 years, my understanding is that the vast majority of that increase would be in the out years; whereas the spending cuts would kick in immediately. That's not balance.

(07-25-2011 10:09 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Since we're talking about moving goalposts, it looks like Reid's about to call Boehner's bluff. The two big requirements for him were that 1) the debt ceiling increase be matched be spending cuts and that 2) it not include revenues. Reid's plan apparently does that. And indeed it's what would have been considered a complete cave by the Dems and Obama a few weeks ago.

Will his Tea Party masters let him take it?

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is expected to outline a blueprint calling for roughly $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade while raising the debt limit by $2.4 trillion -- an amount sufficient to fund the government through the 2012 election. Reid's plan would not require any new tax hikes or reforms to politically popular entitlement programs."

That's from CNN. I'm curious as to how that is going to work without hitting the entitlement programs. I guess we will have to see when he releases it.

And Walt, I've seen those polls too. I'm just wondering why the President didn't take the $800 billion. I have not seen what you are saying about the revenue increases. You got the guy to move off 0; I think I'd take the deal as it was. Doesn't seem like good negotiating to me.

This was a chance for the republicans to do something that would truly benefit the country, and claim victory for doing it. Take what you can get, claim victory for shifting the focus of the political debate from giving away money to fiscal discipline, and live to fight another day to win the rest of the battle. The left has been smart enough to do that for decades. The right never has, and this is one more instance of it.

The real question to me is whether there was an actual agreement on $800 billion and Obama then went back on that deal. Boehner says that's what happened, Obama seems to suggest that it didn't. One of them must be lying. If this had all been on CSPAN or another network, we'd know the answer. Of course, then neither one of them could lie.

(07-25-2011 10:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The real question to me is whether there was an actual agreement on $800 billion and Obama then went back on that deal. Boehner says that's what happened, Obama seems to suggest that it didn't. One of them must be lying. If this had all been on CSPAN or another network, we'd know the answer. Of course, then neither one of them could lie.

The thing that gets me is that the President acknowledged in his angry presser on Friday that Boehner had been willing to go to $800 bil, but that he wanted $1.2 tril. Yet, when Boehner came out and discussed it later, then the press had some balls and asked how he could jeopardize the deal over basically $40 bil/year. Why wasn't the President asked that? How could he jeopardize it over that much?

(07-25-2011 10:22 AM)d1owls4life Wrote:  

(07-25-2011 10:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The real question to me is whether there was an actual agreement on $800 billion and Obama then went back on that deal. Boehner says that's what happened, Obama seems to suggest that it didn't. One of them must be lying. If this had all been on CSPAN or another network, we'd know the answer. Of course, then neither one of them could lie.

The thing that gets me is that the President acknowledged in his angry presser on Friday that Boehner had been willing to go to $800 bil, but that he wanted $1.2 tril. Yet, when Boehner came out and discussed it later, then the press had some balls and asked how he could jeopardize the deal over basically $40 bil/year. Why wasn't the President asked that? How could he jeopardize it over that much?

I don't think we'll ever know what truly transpired....but by most accounts: (1) they had tentatively agreed to the $800B revenue increase amount last Sunday, but (2) the White House asked Boehner on Tuesday-- after the Gang of Six released their plan-- whether they could work in another $400B, but to get back to him if they couldn't...and (3) Boehner never got back to him, and didn't return his phone calls on Friday. If everything Boehner is saying was true, and this was only about Obama movig the goalposts, why the heck did he never get back to the President before going public with his walking away-- 72 hours after they had last corresponded with the President's request for $400B in addional revenues?

I don’t want to go too far down the road of endless point and sub-point debates, but let’s look at it from a rational political self interest view.

Sure, if you guys want to get pedantic, I’ll admit that the concession to no concession ratio is not 100% to 0%. But I don’t think any detached observer would argue that the primary obstacle here isn’t House Republicans.

Look at the rational self-interest incentives. Obama makes liberals mad by compromising. He can use it to get “centrist” and “pragmatic” cred with swing voters and the media, i.e. it *helps* him politically. Boehner makes new Tea Party members mad by compromising. He risks getting ousted as Speaker. Or he manages to hang on to power and the reps who supported the compromise get primaried by the Tea Party. Take our own ideological preferences out of it and that alone tells you the amount of compromise is going to be radically different between the two groups.

I also think the starting point here matters. How many times did Congress raise the debt ceiling for Bush? Or Reagan? (Yes, some Dems voted no in symbolic votes, including Obama, just as R’s have done the same in the past.) The House Republicans have effectively created a hostage situation – all their leverage comes from the fact that we don’t really know if they are actually willing to cause a default. I’m not sure Boehner knows either.

And as an aside, C-Span? I suspect Boehner, McConnell, and Cantor would refuse to show up if it was going to be on C-Span. Or they would and no actual negotiations would take place. (Though I’d love to see video of one of Cantor’s reported temper tantrums.)

$400B seems like a small amount to be the tripping point, but it remains that so far it is. One side has said we HAVE to have it, the other side has said NO WAY. It seems to be be more symbolic than anything of real consequence. Obama has to show he raised taxes on the rich. Fine with me - half those guys are Democrats anyway, and none of them are me. I do think it will have more of a negative effect than than a positive on the economy and the nation, but the difference is not that big that it should be the last roadblock. Problem is, we have 435 congressmen, 33 Senators, and 1 President running in 2012, and most of them are thinking election. The problem they are trying to solve is how to handle this situation AND get re-elected. That is why the insistance on extending it past the election, IMO. If we were just extending it for 6-8 months, maybe people wouldn't be acting like the whole problem has to be solved in one swell foop.

This is just my impression, but I think Obama is shouting 'I won't" while Boehner is shouting "I can't". No doubt the 50 or so Republicans who will not vote to extend no matter what hamstrings him a lot.

Statesmanship seems to be totally absent. And I mean totally.


http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/07/...t-in-2006/

(07-25-2011 10:56 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  But I don’t think any detached observer would argue that the primary obstacle here isn’t House Republicans.

Your partisanship is showing here. I don't see how any of us can know enough about what went on behind closed doors to be able to state with any certainty what the primary obstacle is or is not.

I can think of several other things that could be the primary obstacle.

If I were making decisions for the republicans, I would jump on a 3:1 ratio of cuts to revenues, with the increase in revenues being accomplished through lower and flatter tax rates applied to a broader base (a la Bowles-Simpson), possibly including a consumption tax (a la Rivlin-Domenici).

Are the cuts allegedly offered by Obama real or illusory? Without details, I don't know that and neither do you. And he has a history of playing games with the numbers to get his way, so it's certainly not unreasonable to conclude that he may have done so again.

If Obama agreed to go forward based on $800 billion in additional revenues, and then changed his tune later, that's a pretty egregious breach of good faith. That would blow up any sensitive negotiations that I've ever participated in, and I've participated in a bunch. In Obama's favor, if that happened, do we know what precipitated it? If the republicans moved the goal posts first (and do we know that they did not? how so if we do?), then the blame goes on them.

The only way we could truly know is if the negotiations were on CSPAN. They should have been. If that were the process, then whatever resulted would at least be known, even if it weren't good.

Both sides are playing chicken. They both know that they'll get something done at the witching hour, and that even if they don't then all the worst case scenarios won't happen. But they can't control everything, and they just might end up being wrong.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59262.html

I thought this analysis from last week set out pettiness on both sides pretty well.

As a note, CSPAN would never work, because no one is going to say in public what they'll really doing. The same thing gets played internationally at the UN, or at WIPO. You can try to hold Obama up as being naive for suggesting it, but it never would and never will happen anyways.

(07-25-2011 01:34 PM)jwn Wrote:  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59262.html
I thought this analysis from last week set out pettiness on both sides pretty well.
As a note, CSPAN would never work, because no one is going to say in public what they'll really doing. The same thing gets played internationally at the UN, or at WIPO. You can try to hold Obama up as being naive for suggesting it, but it never would and never will happen anyways.

I agree with the referenced analysis. Pretty much what I've been saying all along.

OO hit on a good point (he beat me to it) that I just got back to add to my response to Walt (and he can ascribe some intransigence to them) - there are about 50 to 60 Republicans in the House (by most estimates) that will probably never vote for an increase in the debt limit. So Obama's gotta deliver those votes, too, in any deal that is made. I say Obama, because I'm not sure where Pelosi and her leadership really stand on this matter. They'll probably vote for it in the end, but part of me wonders.

And I wonder how those Republicans must feel to be soulmates with Obama, who voted against raising the debt limit when he was in the Senate.