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Not surprisingly, the Republicans are going to call Obama’s bluff by pushing for a short term debt ceiling extension. From Bloomberg:
House Speaker John Boehner plans to press ahead with a shorter-term increase in the U.S. debt limit than President Barack Obama has requested, he told lawmakers today, defying a veto threat and signaling continued stalemate in the U.S. Congress as time runs short for a deal.
[...]
The comments indicated that Boehner plans to force action on his plan to provide only a temporary borrowing boost of about $1 trillion accompanied by spending cuts of at least as much, tying the remainder of the debt-ceiling increase Obama has requested to further cuts in the future. The White House says Obama would veto such a measure.
As I said at the time Obama’s veto threat of a short term debt increase has a serious credibility problem. Obama can’t legitimately take both the position that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be a devastating catastrophe, and also that he would let this disaster befall America simply because the Republican offer didn’t help him enough politically for his 2012 campaign.
I’ve seen little reason why the Republicans won’t want to call Obama’s bluff on this. Only three things could likely happen:
- Most likely Obama will go back on his veto threat. In that case Republicans will look like clear winners and be in even better shape for future negotiations.
- If Obama stops it, because he doesn’t think anything really bad will happen on August 3rd, he will look like a liar who was playing Chicken Little.
- Finally, if Obama does veto it and the economy tanks, the GOP will have a strong case to make blaming Obama.
None of the three outcomes would be a political loss for the Republicans and the most likely result is a big political win for them, one that makes Obama look very weak. From a political perspective this short term extension, by far, seems like the Republicans’ best path forward, and for weeks now, the most logical action for them to take.
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How about O unilaterally raises the debt ceiling using the 14th and the manufactured crisis is averted? Simple solution to a fabricated problem.
Would the Senate pass a short term increase? Why would they put Obama in that position?
Have “jello for knees” Reid tell Boehner that a short term rise in the debt ceiling coupled with cuts in spending is DOA in the Senate. Tell Boehner if he wants a short term raise, he should be willing to do just that and immediately come to the bargaining table and be serious about this.
And I thought that the old game of “kick the can” went away with the invention of the television.
Whatever comes out of the house has to be passed by the Senate before it can go to Obama’s desk; so how exactly are the Republicans going to call Obama’s bluff? Now if Harry Reid and democrats in the Senate vote for it, then you might be right.
maybe this is Act 5 in the Kabuki/ Circus Clown Car Demolition Derby. (even i’m not sure if this is still staged or the Peter Principle -folks will rise according to their level of incompetence- in action).
Repubs say hell, no! to the 2.7 trillion cut package (with no tax increases) and offer their 1 Trillion package. Obama then counters with 3-4 Trillion in cuts with no tax increases, gutting Medicare and SS in the process, AND offers to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Doesn’t really matter if the Senate pass it our not. The GOP can claim they offered a way to increase the debt limit and Obama told the Senate to kill it.
Boehner just beat Obama at political chess
If Obama can’t beat Boehner at a game of politcal chess, could he beat?
Bachmann
Palin
Perry
Romney
Paul
Pawlenty “Obama probably is as dumb as the entire GOP field”
see McConnell and Boehner won the WH for the GOP last week!
once Obama said the following magic words, “I Obama would have cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, game over”
see GOP politcal players know, every Dem now has to answer question from Baby Boomers, about why they told them to vote for OBAMA over Hillary?
Obama plan to rob Grand Ma and Grand Pa is going to end some other Dem careers, because they have got to answer the question above, why did Dems beg Baby Boomers to vote for OBAMA? good luck Dems
Boehner and McConnell are now fucking around with Dem Senators who have to make a decision do they follow OBAMA over the cliff, or do they run for the hills.
Bye Bye Ben Nelson, Obama just ended your political career.
this is clearly a case of shock docrine gone wild for the WH.
x2
And they would be right. The president should have been much more proactive and accommodating through out considering it is congress that controls the purse strings. The scolding from the press room has been completely counterproductive.
Depending on who the repub’s pick to run, the money changers are going to make sure the economy STAYS tanked into the election. There isn’t a shred of anything that would indicate unemployment will by reversed in any appreciable way in time for the election. This ‘debate’ had been the plan all along. This was the summer of healthcare debate ’11, another 4 months consumed with making a pinata out of the presidency and no action on jobs. Just another shiny object for the republican msm to gnaw on.
This country is pathetic.
You got my vote. And he would look like the adult (which he craves) ignoring the screaming 2 year-old on the floor of the candy store.
FU DC: WE didn’t break it and we AREN’T going to pay for it.
At some point, the 14th Amendment solution may have to be implemented. But, that point has not been reached.
The problem with the 14th Amendment gambit can be summed up in this 3
word question:”And, then what?”
Confirmation bias is now running at a fever pitch across the political blogosphere. It seems there is too much heat and not near enough light.
Obama used to play poker with lobbyists in Springfield Illinois’s state Capital when he was a state Rep he is to use to players throwing the game and giving him cash as they get their bills passed *cough* no quid pro quo of course (wink).
Obama thinks he is a good poker player. So does the GOP for that matter what we are seeing is two bad poker players facing off the outcome of the game is unpredictable because higher stakes are forcing both sides to take stands when they both would rather compromise.
Good players act logically Obama is used to folding every hand/surrendering until he has such a good hand he can’t lose. The lobbyists would notice he was upping the ante and not fold because they wanted to give him cash.
The GOP bets heavy and when they lose they double down on their bets again no lobbyists they play cards with wants them to lose.
Now Obama has to to fight because the GOP won’t even let him surrender. Obama has yet to notice the GOP won’t ever let him win.
The GOP thinks Obama will back down again but a careful player like Obama will never bet everything on one hand its not in his nature.
To defeat Obama let him think he is winning and give him a death of a thousand cuts.
To defeat the GOP let them think they are winning and then encourage them to bet big on losing hands like cutting SS, medicare, Iraq Afghan Wars, Anti Union bills, GOP economic ideas etc.
What we see here are 2 losers fighting to win a pot of IOU’s not cash.
Cutting SS and Medicare will cost both parties next election.
The debt limit “crisis” is just another version of the Monica Lewinsky “crisis.” Both were manufactured by extremists to weaken an elected president and, as such, are a threat to national security. While Clinton was distracted by Lewinskygate, Al Queda was carefully planning 9-11 as well as striking the USS Cole with impunity. After 10 years, Obama finally deals with Bin Laden and do the Republicans rejoice? Hardly. Instead, they attempt to cripple the president who did what their boy Bush failed to do.
Without strong presidential direction, Bin Laden would never have been found. And now in the summer of 2011 the president’s attention is distracted continually by the bogus debate – while who knows what new threats are being plotted against the US?
The only effective responses to such assaults are a bald assertion of presidential power. Clinton should simply have refused to cooperate in any way with the Ken Starr investigations and very possibly 9-11 would have been averted. Obama should have announced months ago that he would raise the debt limit on his own authority and refuse to discuss the situation, so that he could concentrate on protecting the nation.
Sure, the Supreme Court could try to overrule a president, but recent decades have shown that a claim of national security can trump such constitutional niceties as Congressional power to declare war or even the Court’s traditional power to check the other branches.
Hey obama, how’s that bipartisan thing working out for you?
Boehner has to get this through the House first. I’m not certain he can.
How about option #4: Veto a short term extension (that would only give us Fabricated Crisis II and another hostage note from Boehner in six months) and THEN invoke the 14th Amendment prohibition on defaulting on our debt.
Indeed, but that wouldn’t allow him to go all Blue Dog with a chainsaw on what’s left of the Democratic Party platform, not to mention the American middle class.
Bipartisanship: AKA Grover Norquist’s date rape. And I can guarantee that Grover fantasizes himself as the rapist, not the victim.
The Obama “grand plan” is what will eventually be passed, except without the tax increases. There is no conflict here except for the Kabuki theater described above.
There is no Al Qaeda. Bin Laden was part of the CIA off the Shelf, Self Sustaining jihadist army. Al Qaeda and The War On terror and Shock Doctrine were manufactured by neo-con extremists to destroy our Democracy. Obama maintains the Phony Terror Narrative, with False Flag Ops such as Underwear Bomber.
Bin Laden was not lost. He lived for five years next to a Pakistan Military/ISI Academy. Bin Laden was planning terror ops with ISI during this time, perhaps Mumbai.
I think we are due for another false flag op, besides the recent ISI bombings in Mumbai. That will bring all Americans together again.
And that is why a simple solution will not made.
Obama could have worked on this after 2008, but instead he wanted to spend over a year figuring how best to further enrich corporate healthcare lobbyists. Since healthcare corporate lobbyists were Job #1 for Obama, that means either this really isn’t such a big deal afterall or Obama mis-prioritized (or some combination of the two).
An imperial President claiming “national security” is part of the problem in DC, not part of the solution.