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dmaestro 02-Mar-13, 13:53 |
 Waste of Time Negotiating with the GOP======================================= This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans Posted by Ezra Klein on March 2, 2013 File this under “Jonathan Chait is right.” My column this weekend is about the almost comically poor lines of communication between the White House and the Hill. The opening anecdote was drawn from a background briefing I attended with a respected Republican legislator who thought it would be a gamechanger for President Obama to say he’d be open to chained CPI — a policy that cuts Social Security benefits — as part of a budget deal. The only problem? Obama has said he’s open to chained CPI as part of a budget deal. And this isn’t one of those times where the admission was in private, and we’re going off of news reports. It’s right there on his Web site. It’s literally in bold type. But key GOP legislators have no idea Obama’s made that concession. The question my column left open was whether improving the lines of communication would actually change anything. Chait’s view is no, it wouldn’t. He begins by quoting Upton Sinclair’s famous line: “It is impossible to make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on not understanding it.” Chait continues: If Obama could get hold of Klein’s mystery legislator and inform him of his budget offer, it almost certainly wouldn’t make a difference. He would come up with something – the cuts aren’t real, or the taxes are awful, or they can’t trust Obama to carry them out, or something. What happened next on Twitter proved Chait’s point in every particular. Mike Murphy is one of the top political consultants in the Republican Party. He’s been a top strategist for Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other Republicans. He’s also, as his client list would suggest, from the party’s more pragmatic, even moderate, wing. Over the past few years, as he’s transitioned into doing more punditry, he’s emerged as an invaluable guide to what reasonable Republicans think of the rightward lurch in the GOP. On Feb. 13, Murphy wrote in Time that “six magic words can unlock the door to the votes inside the Republican fortress: Some beneficiaries pay more and chained CPI, budgetary code for slightly lowering benefit increases over time.” The only problem? Obama has said all these words, as John Harwood of the New York Times quickly pointed out: harwood tweet Murphy responded by suggesting that sure, Obama has called for more means-testing in Medicare, but he’s not put chained CPI — CCPI, if you’re hamstrung by Twitter’s 140-character limit — on the board: murphy tweet 1Obama never refused chained CPI as part of a cliff deal. In fact, he did the opposite: He endorsed it as part of a cliff deal, and he’s kept endorsing it, as his sequestration plan clearly says, since the cliff deal fell apart. This was quickly pointed out to Murphy on Twitter, at which point, he promptly proved Chait’s thesis correct: murphy2 Then Murphy retweeted this: murphy6 So let’s back up. Murphy’s initial view was that to unlock GOP votes for a budget deal, Obama just needed to endorse chained CPI and more means-testing in Medicare. Then it was pointed out that Obama has endorsed means-testing in Medicare, so Murphy wondered why he didn’t endorse chained CPI as part of a deal. Then it was pointed out that Obama did endorse chained CPI, at which point Murphy called chained CPI “a gimmick,” and said Obama had to endorse raising the Medicare age, drop his demands for more revenue as part of a deal and earn back the GOP’s trust. Recall what Chait said would happen if the Republican legislator in my column was forced to react to the fact that Obama has endorsed chained CPI: “He would come up with something – the cuts aren’t real, or the taxes are awful, or they can’t trust Obama to carry them out, or something.” Check, check, and check. Which is all to say that there’s no deal here. A few tweets later, Murphy gave his bottom-line view, which is that if Obama wants a deal, he needs to drop all of his demands and just agree to what the GOP wants to do: murphy5 Technically, Obama did move first on spending. Over the course of 2011, Obama signed into law a set of bills that cut about $1.8 trillion from discretionary spending, and that included no tax increases at all. One of those bills, the Budget Control Act, also gave us the sequester, so you could argue they included closer to $3 trillion in spending cuts — all, again, without a single tax increase. It didn’t seem to build much trust. He’s also, in this deal, “moved first” on spending. So far, the Republicans have not proposed any further tax increases, but Obama has proposed quite a few spending cuts, including means-testing in Medicare and chained-CPI. The bottom line on American budgetary politics right now is that Republicans won’t agree to further tax increases and so there’s no deal to be had. This is not a controversial perspective in D.C.: It’s what Hill Republicans have told me, it’s what the White House has told me, it what Hill Democrats have told me. The various camps disagree on whether Republicans are right to refuse a deal that includes further tax increases, but they all agree that that’s the key fact holding up a compromise to replace the sequester. But it’s unpopular for Republicans to simply say they won’t agree to any compromise and there’s no deal to be had — particularly since taxing the wealthy is more popular than cutting entitlements, and so their position is less popular than Obama’s. That’s made it important for Republicans to prove that it’s the president who is somehow holding up a deal. This had led to a lot of Republicans fanning out to explain what the president should be offering if he was serious about making a deal. Then, when it turns out that the president did offer those items, there’s more furious hand-waving about how no, actually, this is what the president needs to offer to make a deal. Then, when it turns out he’s offered most of that, too, the hand-waving stops and the truth comes out: Republicans won’t make a deal that includes further taxes, they just want to get the White House to implement their agenda in return for nothing. Luckily for them, most of the time, the conversation doesn’t get that far, and the initial comments that the president needs to “get serious” on entitlements is met with sage nods. I don’t mean to pick on Murphy, who, as I said, is an important guide to contemporary Republican politics and a force for good in his party. But his series of missives on the subject today offered an unusually clear view of where the GOP actually is in the budget debate, and why there was really no alternative to the sequester. There’s no deal even if Obama agrees to major Republican demands on entitlements. There’s no deal because Republicans don’t want to make a deal that includes taxes, no matter what they get in return for it. The interesting question is whether the possibility of a government shutdown, a debt-ceiling breach or simply the pressure of the sequester’s cuts will, in the coming months, break one side or the other. But as long as the GOP’s position is they won’t compromise, there’s not going to be a compromise. www.washingtonpost.com |
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anomalocaris 02-Mar-13, 15:24 |
THis is excatly |
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dmaestro 02-Mar-13, 15:47 |
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A president who goes to a news conference and says the fiscal problems of the country are the results of Republicans certainly will NOT heal the divide. A president who is a leader could call a meeting of key leaders and work with them, demanding give and take with equal pain/benefits, staying with them in the meetings until they are resolved. A president who is out campaigning the entire eight years can NOT heal the divide. A president who is truthful could start the healing process. A president who lies through his teeth can NOT heal the divide. (On this last, President BO has talked himself into a nasty corner... He has refused the ability to direct cuts to the lowest priorities, with the least pain. And, he has talked so long about the doomsday results of this, that now he must try to see that the doomsday results he promised do actually occur and inflict as much pain as possible) A president who does that can NOT heal the divide. |
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tat3225 02-Mar-13, 16:01 |
Every single time he publicly talks crap about the GOP and blames the GOP he looks weak and out of control. He is also saying that he uses the media to bully and manipulate, which gives leaders of other countries, in addition to all kinds of other people, pause when dealing with him. Mediating in congress means making deals. Perhaps if Obama had more experience in government, he might know this and would have developed new and more appropriate boundaries with congress now that he is the president. The GOP has every right in the f***ing world to stonewall democrats as much as they want. They have the house majority. That's how this government works, and for a reason. If democrats want something, they need to give a dog a bone. The democrats made this bed over the last four years. It's not anyone else's fault if they were too stupid to realize that being petty lying sacks of sh** would have negative consequences. |
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dmaestro 02-Mar-13, 16:50 |
Your side openly calls for even more. At this point it is about stopping you by any means necessary. When the country goes to hell we can count our winnings and see who came out better. |
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Not unlike Hugh Laurie (playing the part of an infectious disease doctor and brilliant diagnostician, Gregory House), Obama has no clue what most of what he says even means. He's just reciting the words in the script and moving about to his marks and making pre-practiced gesturing as Directed. Nor is he a 'leader'. By all accounts, his 'leadership ability' is nonexistent. He's just someone who's been groomed to be the 'front man', to play the part of president in front of the masses. Versed in the ideology for sure but behind the scenes he's not even a player. |
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Thumper It was a sad looking little kid sitting in the corner, being told after the fact that Bin Laden would soon be dead. If there was ever a doubt that he is NOT in charge, that should have been proof positive. |
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tat3225 02-Mar-13, 19:23 |
Maestro I mean, Lord of the Flies is required reading in like 5th grade or something. I had assumed that it went without saying that elections change the congressional landscape every two years. Every four years we elect a new president and no one can be the President for more than 8 years. The entire point of this system is change and shifting of power. The system itself is representative of opposing viewpoints that exist among people. You don't seem to understand that the GOP house majority is precisely that: a majority in the House of Representatives. It's of benefit for the GOP in the same way that it benefitted the democrats when they had the house majority. It seems like your grievances have more to do with type of government and government structure rather than specific issues being addressed by our current government. You never have anything specific to say and frequently say things like "gain control by any means necessary", which doesn't reflect reality and has nothing to do with what were talking about. You sound just like someone who has HH or 88 tattooed on their arm or back. |
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changeling 02-Mar-13, 23:11 |
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dmaestro 02-Mar-13, 23:20 |
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dmaestro 02-Mar-13, 23:26 |
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Change Frankly I don't put much credence that what DM says or posts is so. He spends a lot of time trying to mix half-truth with distortions and outright lies in order to further his agenda. It's always about furthering the socialist agenda. |
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changeling 03-Mar-13, 00:46 |
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tat3225 03-Mar-13, 00:58 |
It's called a carrot. Find one. Mmmkay. This is getting embarrassing for democrats. Since when is there compromise in Congress? Why would anyone in congress give a sh** about compromising for the sake of compromising? There is negotiating in congress, which is a totally different thing. I'm going to go out on a wild limb and make the crazy assumption that the GOP is using these negotiations as part of a larger strategy to pressure Obama and congressional democrats about other things. Outlandish I know. In addition, I'm going to make the even crazier assumption that the GOP is holding so firm because they can. Also, and this is really off the reservation, but perhaps the GOP knew that the democrats would respond to this by whining, blaming, and badmouthing the GOP with zero awareness for how this appears to all of the people who are moderate republicans, independents or those who are on the fence. Obama and dems in congress are not exactly cool and collected or mature. If this is a job interview for the 2016 elections and next years senate seats, the democrats aren't exactly demonstrating that they can handle stressful and complicated negotiations with confidence. |
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dmaestro 03-Mar-13, 01:08 |
Conservatives are controlled by the no tax pledge although a majority of citizens and most experts agree there is no reasonable way of getting the deficit back to the levels Clinton had and preserving social securiry and medicare without restructuring loopholes and increasing taxes paricularly on the rich. Conservative math does not add up. They are an uncompromising minority holding the rest hostage with extremist demands. They are lying that Obama has not offered significant concessions. |
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Diving into it is like bobbing for apples in a hard used toilet that hasn't been flushed. You can see a little bit of a couple of apples floating in it, but I have no interest in shoving my head in there to pull the apples out. |
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dmaestro 03-Mar-13, 01:21 |
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tat3225 03-Mar-13, 04:09 |
Are you high? Clearly you haven't read H.R. 3590. It's a package of major tax increases and restructuring. It's projected to take 200 billion dollars out of the U.S. economy by 2020 to pay down the deficit. A deficit that Obama added four trillion dollars to while also keeping fed reserve rates down at almost nothing. But hey I'm really glad we saved those auto manufacturing jobs by subsidizing them and I'm glad we bribed general motors in to shutting down chinese manufacturing operations for a period of time which......coincidentally, expired immedately after the 2012 election. Also I'm really glad that we added so much to the deficit to help a company that only has 25% of its jobs in the United States and rewarded our "generosity" by building new manufacturing plants in Brazil and Russia. But hey at least we've kept the federal reserve rates down at virtually nothing which we know is the best thing for our economy because it's precisely what Clinton did for 8 years and clearly, it brought our nation to the gates of economic heaven. Now you're criticizing the GOP for being tough on tax increases? Obama raised federal income taxes by 2% this year for basically everyone. God forbid the GOP be overly focused on and concerned about taxes considering that the next seven years is bringing waves of the aformentioned obamacare deficit cutting taxes that are predicted to result in 30 million lost jobs and a ripple effect on the economy that will be a disaster. CLEARLY, the GOP is irresponsible and merely trying to BE DIFFICULT by being concerned about such things. By the way, I thought that you guys wanted to help the economy and create jobs? How's that going? Also, what happened to reducing our dependence on foreign oil? How come the Keystone pipeline isn't finished by now? Why isn't there new drilling in Canada? How come there is successful drilling and pumping in north dakota that democrats have taken steps to ignore? Is it because it's in a red state? How come since Obama has taken office, Russia has turned into an energy monster while Obama has done nothing? In addition, why is it that China made agreements with Russia last week to build a direct pipeline from Sibera in to China? Normally Russia is considered the most unreliable loose cannon out there, and Putin is engaged in a very public battle with Barack Obama right now that people are paying attention to. China just picked sides. Which will influence the behavior of other countries as well. How come other countries are signing new trade deals and doing interesting and exciting things when it comes to energy? But Barack Obama is not. Despite having four entire years to do so and the GOP begging him and other democrats for things you ignored or refused to give. How come Obama has ignored terrorist attacks in libya and the algerian hostage situation in which American hostages were killed? He did nothing. I'm noticing a pattern. Yet, Obama is supposedly responsible for sending a seal team- one which specifically specializes in covert and highly classified operations- in to Islamabad on two loud helicopters to kill osama bin laden in an operation that is the exact opposite of covert and highly classified. Curiously, there is an entire counter terrorism unit in the CIA and homeland security who dedicate time and money to bringing in terrorists alive. If we went around killing every terrorist or jihadist we found there would be no need for black sites or guantanamo bay. Explain to me why the CIA would go to lengths to NOT kill terrorists, but we killed bin laden after supposedly locating him for the first time in a decade? I also can't make sense out of the decision to kill bin laden, but not via a drone strike or sniper because we needed to collect intelligence from his house. Why would you kill a terrorist before looking at the intelligence you find in his house? But we're all supposed to believe that CIA counter terrorism was fine with dropping in and killing bin laden after he'd been on the run for over a decade and no one has had a chance to interrogate him for 9/11 or ask him a single question about it. Ever. Right. In addition to sending an entire seal team into a place where if captured, they would be sold for lots of money to al-qaeda or hezbollah or the like. And oh by the way Islamabad is hundreds of miles from American military bases and we have no infrastructure in Pakistan to reasonably track down and find pow's if something went wrong. It's safe to assume this because if we had any kind of such infrastructure we wouldn't need to send in a seal team in the first place. So it makes a whole crap ton of sense that it was worth risking the lives of an entire seal team and destroying an expensive helicopter just to kill a god damn dirtbag terrorist who wasn't even valuable enough to capture alive and who's body we immediately dumped into the indian ocean. Obama carried out what is best described as a hit on Osama, and he basically did the same thing with Qaddafi in Libya. Allowing for the muslim brotherhood to take over. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the muslim brotherhood has received no response from the US government for attacking our consulate in libya and killing Americans. Obama also encouraged the instability in the Egyptian government, did nothing for the algerian hostages and coincidentally Syria is now in the middle of a civil war where the muslim brotherhood is probably going to be taking control of the country. I'm sure it's all a strange series of coincidences, all of which just happen to benefit the muslim brotherhood. I can't help but see the irony in your very public attack on the GOP for blocking productivity right now, yet your party hasn't accomplished anything of real value despite having the ability to do anything you want for two solid years. The GOP has tried to do all of the things your party has claimed to be invested in yet you have shut down all of it. Congressional GOP members were willing to reduce their salaries or pay twice the income tax rate if democrats would approve the keystone pipeline. You didn't. You've raised taxes, increased healthcare costs, given Russia incentive to plot against us, booted the russian government out of US financial systems, frozen assets of all Russian politicians, passed sweeping new EPA regulations, forced layoffs, essentially took away FSA accounts which, as though this could not get any worse for you, hurts lower income families with special needs children the most..........I mean......are we in the Soviet Union? Because American democrats are looking very much like Soviets who genuinely thought that Stalin was doing great and progressive things. |
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tat3225 03-Mar-13, 04:42 |
MORE Obviously this nation was lost before the Violence Against Women Act. Bravo Joe Biden. Also I don't know what I'd do without Joe Biden's commitment to instructing women on how to properly protect ourselves from home invasions. I definitely went out yesterday and bought myself a double barreled shotgun. Thankfully I also have a balcony from which to fire my warning shots from. Otherwise I'd be toast I'm sure. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state definitely helped the state of women in the world. Her accomplishments in this job that she was clearly qualified for are truly monumental. It's not like jihadists who beat the sh** out of women spread like wildfire in North africa as the result of hillary's decision making or anything. Sonja Sotomayor also helps the sorry state of women in this world. It would be really tragic if a woman was appointed to the supreme court specifically because she was hispanic and liberal but ended up being ridiculously biased in addition to being less qualified than other judges who could have been appointed instead. Finally THANK GOD that the democrats have been looking out for my uterus. It's good to know that when I get pregnant through no fault or action of my own, of course, I have the option to just run down the street and take care of it. I can't believe how those crazy tea partiers don't respect my god given right to get knocked up whenever I please without accountability or judgement and kill my infant as long as it doesn't look like a person yet. Man, I'd really be lost without the Democrats looking out for me. I'm so grateful. |
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Worthy reply....the Spin stops here... Very impressive reply. Direct, well organized, full of interesting examples and good food for thought..... Disappointing though....is the clarity of your response as it compares to the messages I hear from the GOP. One of the most talked about major disappointments of our recent election was the lack of cohesive messaging from the GOP. "Get the message out!" was a rallying cry from conservatives. Here, you have great talking points and apparently have done your homework. Not me, the H.R. 3590 is almost 2100 pages long and contains terms requiring thick dictionaries. The summary of the bill is 24 pages long and small print! Would you agree? The talking points...not the bill. Maybe both? Nice reply, hope to hear more from you! |
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dmaestro 03-Mar-13, 08:09 |
The country has been decaying since the 1970s. This is a rare period in US history where the grand conservative realignment under one party has created something not seen since reconstruction, an extreme polarization and unwillingness for the parties to work together on common ground. I do not expect a resolution without immense damage. Historically your ideas have not worked and I see no evidence they will now given the shift of power to Asia. What we are seeing is the failures of the American system in an era where long range actions are needed yet we lack the capacity to end the stalemate. Obama is NOT the cause of the divide. Scapegoats are the symptom of a society in decline. |
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dm He may not be the only cause but he has only exasperated the problem. Time after time he has held news conferences, or called "bipartisan" meetings that turn out to be his photo-ops. or he has even used the State of the Union and Inauguration speeches to bad-mouth Republicans, chastise the Supreme Court, embarrass individual legislators, promote racial divide, and foster class envy and division. He was touted as being the first post racial president. He is not. He has been a divider-in-chief and now that "he has more freedom" (as he says to Putin in Russia), he has "more flexibility" to do/say what he wants. The President has a huge ability to shape politics and public attitudes. The divisions we have today are a direct result of the efforts of this president. His mind-numb surrogates follow and build on his examples. (You are living proof of that). |
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tat3225 03-Mar-13, 11:00 |
chess4him |
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dmaestro 03-Mar-13, 11:13 |
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The Spin Stops Here... Especially the talking points. What difference might it have made in the election had Mitt Romney been able to quickly list the challenges you mentioned among other many other points pertinent at that time of the campaign? also serious about not reading that lengthy health care bill....I suspect it is not easy to find all the issues with it. |
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tat3225 04-Mar-13, 20:47 |
chess4him I am quite biased as I am an enormous Mitt Romney fan. I think Romney is fantastic. It is unfortunate that he was so easily blasted by both democrats and libertarians in such a way that he was painted as flip flopping or not being clear about his goals. Which is ironic considering that Mitt Romney had the most solid background out of all of the candidates. Mitt Romney is perhaps more clear about his goals than most people on the planet. He has a very long list of accomplishments behind him which clearly demonstrate that he finishes what he starts and stands by his word. He also did an excellent job in Massachusetts of guiding liberals into reality when it comes to what is realistic and what is not when it comes to healthcare, higher ed and so on. He was able to do this, I believe, because he is able to actually explain the logic and reasoning behind the business of healthcare. The majority of politicians do not have any experience in anything other than politics or law. I can't think of one president that had an MBA and did what Mitt Romney did. Incidentally Romney does have a JD from Harvard, in addition to his MBA. But he didn't practice law or immediately go into politics. Truly, Mitt Romney is an outstanding person and I was devistated when he did not win. In part because he actually did reform healthcare and do so many of the things that Obama has talked about but hasn't done. It was maddening that democrats didnt see this primarily because Obama knew that Romney was such a threat and launched a smear campaign to use romney's wealth and background against him. Romney, I think, Is actually quite representative of most republicans. He was ripped in the media as being some kind of heartless business man who wants to help corporations. Yet I found Romney to be concerned about public policy because he wanted to prevent corporations and trade deals or whatever from taking advantage of the US government and from damaging the US economy. While also protecting people from legitimately unethical corporate greed. He understood that health insurance companies had grown to be too large and were absolutely doing unethical things. His way of dealing with this involved using federal funds to subsidize smaller insurance companies to create an element of competition among 5 or 6 or more different insurance companies in Massachusetts. And there is actually competition. The site www.masshealthconnector.com is a government site and is Mitt Romney's creation. Everyone in Massachusetts can buy health insurance at this site choosing from a bunch of different plans at different levels. In addition, Massachusetts subsidizes health care for anyone who cannot afford it. This is kind of government involvement is absolutely a republican solution for something like healthcare. Republicans are not anti-government. We are anti-government when it comes to using government funds for corrupt things like funding companies destined to fail as a personal favor. Or by packing on the purchase of new vehicles for senators to a hurricane relief package. Republicans are NOT against higher taxes for the wealthy. In fact it was republicans who wanted the democrats to raise the tax increase threshold from 250k to 450k. It is republicans who have a problem with Obama's totally unrelated healthcare tax increases which he slid into the healthcare bill. We also have a problem with his increase on income tax by 2% for the middle class and essentially the VERY people he lied to and elected him. What democrats created is an unorganized healthcare plan that includes all kinds of things beyond the scope of healthcare and sweeping tax increases that are unnecessary and essentially turn the federal government into precisely what the democrats claimed was the reason for health care reform in the first place. Anyway the bottom line is that Obama could have beat anybody that ran against him. His supporters could watch Obama punch a baby and beat a baby seal with an axe and still vote for him. Obama could walk into the home of his supporters, steal from them, and they would smile and ask him if he wants some cookies for the road or something. I mean, the man criticized Romney for having offshore bank accounts when Obama himself has accounts in the Cayman islands. But Obama supporters don't believe these things or care about these things. People listened to Obama give his same solar, wind and biodiesel statement in 2012, after he'd already said it in 2008 and then wasted like 100 million dollars on failed investments and contributed to California's energy problems because the solar farms they built....shocker....suck and don't provide enough power. Yet no one called him on it. They stood and clapped and nodded and cheered and were like "thats right!! Yes!!" It's impossible to compete with someone when the issues, background, character and integrity are not factors in the election. |
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anomalocaris 04-Mar-13, 20:51 |
To think |
