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The United States government has a general policy against paying ransom for a hostage. This is not because paying ransoms is an ineffective policy. Most hostage takers would be happy to return the hostage for money, so as a short-term solution, it does work. The problem is, long term, paying ransom just encourages many more hostages to be taken. Not only have President Obama and Congressional Democrats fed this self-perpetuating pattern, they don’t even bother to disarm the hostage takers.
The hostage-taking by Republicans started early in the administration and has only grown progressively worse because Obama has always been prepared to pay the ransom. During the stimulus fight, when Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) made the ridiculous demand that exactly $100 billion be removed from the stimulus, instead of letting the hostage die Obama, paid their ransom.
When Scott Brown (R-MA) demanded Democrats remove a $20 billion bank fee from the financial reform bill, instead of letting Brown kill the hostage, Democrats again paid the ransom.
Jim Bunning (R-KY) was allowed to hold an extension of unemployment benefits hostage until Democrats paid the ransom of offset cuts in spending.
As I write, some Republicans are still holding the defense authorization bill hostage unless the DADT repeal is removed. They are now not only holding extension of the middle class tax cuts hostage, demanding the ransom of also extending the tax cuts on the rich, but they have threatened to hold every other bill in the Senate hostage, as well. With all signs their play on the Bush tax cuts will succeed, they are already planning to hold a fix to the SGR (Medicare sustainable growth rate, or “doctor fix”) hostage until prevention programs in the hew health care law are defunded.
Not surprisingly, basic game theory is proven right again. The more Obama and the Democrats folded to these Senate Republican tactics, the more boldly and frequently Republicans used them.
Don’t let the hostage die if you can easily disarm the hostage taker
In theory, I agree with Paul Krugman when he writes that if need be, Obama should let the Senate Republicans metaphorically kill their hostage in the Bush tax cut fight to put a stop to this escalating behavior. But the reality of the past two years is far more absurd.
The Senate Republicans in this metaphor don’t even have a real gun. They are only holding a water pistols on their hostage. The Republican minority can only hold legislation hostage for their extreme demands by abusing the filibuster, but there is in fact nothing stopping a majority of the Senate Democrats from using the nuclear option to kill the filibuster at any moment. With the filibuster gone, they could pass all these bills without paying any ransom. Republicans may be taking hostages, but its the Democrats fault for letting the Republicans walk the Senate floor with a loaded procedural weapons.
Before ever considering letting a hostage die, you always try to disarm the hostage taker, something Obama and the Senate Democrats refuse to do.
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BHO has just offered to help the Republicans defund SocSec/Medicare at quick time via a 2% ‘temporary’ tax holiday of the so called payroll tax. This is the tax that funds SS/Mc. This has been a wild crazy dream of the Republicans for decades, and here comes BHO and hands it to them.
No fix for the 15% cut in doc. comp. coming along for Medicare folks. The real death panel reveals itself.
BHO has basically handed the Republicans everything they want, plus another tax cut that will quickly destroy SocSec, and not fix of Medicare all for 13 months UB extension, something nearly all Americans backed.
I’m beginning to hope the Republics DO impeach him.
During the stimulus fight, when Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) made the ridiculous demand that exactly $100 billion be removed from the stimulus, instead of letting the hostage die Obama, paid their ransom.
And cost the economy 500K jobs.
You forgot John Kyl holding the New START treaty hostage until he got $85 billion over 5 years to refurbish the remaining 3500 warheads. We already have an adequate nuclear modernization program. Do the math: $24.3 million per warhead essentially wasted to buy one Senator’s vote.
I started trying to list all the ransom taking but the post quickly became way too long.
I think Obama is positioning himself for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Why not? First black president and the first president to switch parties. Now that’s a legacy to be proud of.
Social Security should be funded out of general revenue anyway, besides the payroll tax cut was Obama’s one chance to fill the output gap before his re-election campaign. Go all in the 15.3 FICA points (12.4 SS, 2.9 Medicare) and it’d pump $900 billion a year into the economy.
But I take your point, since Obama is ready to cut Social Security anyway, he and the Republicans will just use this as a way to “prove” its running out of money.
And no doc fix for Medicare is just cruel. The GOP is still punishing the AMA for endorsing Obamacare. The AMA screwed up by not insisting that a permanent doc fix be included in HCR before final passage. It could have easily be added to the reconciliation bill, its what? $15 billion a year, you could raise that increasing alcohol and tobacco sin taxes. Instead the GOP has a tool to punish the AMA in such a way that they can blame Obamacare and the “death panels” for screwing over every medical practice in the country (and along the way, booby trapping the one part of the healthcare system that actually works, Medicare).
Good comments. It’s so ‘them’.
People should also keep in mind that one of the “concessions” Obama got was a temporary reduction in payroll taxes. That’s another name for payments to fund Social Security and a sure way to make that program more vulnerable and less solvent would be to make those the reduction permanent.
Right you are. The full horror of the mistake is just becoming apparent. Perhaps this disaster will finally rip the morphine drip from the arm of the American people. Maybe.
Plus, Pres. Gump has now put the cong. Dems in the position of opposing UI $$ extension if they oppose any of these Republican wet dreams that BHO has made come true.
Stupid is as stupid does.