GOP Plays the Politics of Default/Defeat

     As we've seen there is a good deal of consternation out of liberals right now who fear the President won't be able to hold onto his resolve to refuse to negotiate over the debt ceiling.

  http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/01/liberal-anxiety-about-debt-ceiling.html

   It's not just that many think the President is a bad negotiator who's been roiled too many times in the past to trust him not to cave this time-though this narrative is certainly wrong to the extent it thinks he caved in fiscal fight.

  Some believe that the narrative of the GOP and the media is too strong and he'll be forced to negotiate.  This morning Boehner said that too many Americans are out of work-impossible to deny-and therefore we need to play debt ceiling chicken-an absurd idea. Republican Senator John Cornyn today actually spoke of the idea that we may need a "small government shutdown" to get our house in order.

  "In an op-ed published Thursday in the Houston Chronicle, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) suggested that a partial shutdown of the federal government may be necessary in the coming months "in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain."

The biggest fiscal problem in Washington is excessive spending, not insufficient taxation. Tax cuts didn't cause this problem, so tax increases won't solve it. If we don't reduce spending and reform our three biggest entitlement programs - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - then we will strangle economic growth, destroy jobs and reduce our standard of living. With the national debt above $16 trillion, and with more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities hanging over us, our toughest fiscal decisions cannot be postponed any longer.
Republicans are more determined than ever to implement the spending cuts and structural entitlement reforms that are needed to secure the long-term fiscal integrity of our country.
The coming deadlines will be the next flashpoints in our ongoing fight to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain. President Obama needs to take note of this reality and put forward a plan to avoid it immediately.

  "Read the entire piece here."

   h ttp://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/sen-cornyn-it-may-be-necessary-to-partially?ref=fpa

   So he's actually evoking the Newt Gingrich Option. This is why I don't worry as much as many others do. Does anyone remember what a fiasco the Gingrich Option was: for Gingrich? Evidently the GOP doesn't.

   The debt ceiling too was a disaster for the GOP brand. I argue that that was the start of their long road towards disaster on November 6. If the GOP thinks that it will be able to secure what it failed to win in the election it has another thing coming.

   The politics of default are the politics of defeat. Despite all the worry, the President seems to know how to deal with this:

   "The consequences of failing to extend the country’s borrowing limit are catastrophic, the president said just after the House vote on Tuesday, and he simply won’t negotiate over it."

   "Obama’s success rests on a strategy that served him during both his 2012 campaign and the high-stakes fiscal cliff talks: define his opponents early and drive up public opinion in his favor."

    "He will cast Republicans as reckless as they pursue steep cuts to popular entitlement programs in exchange for a debt limit increase. White House officials don’t view the sell as a difficult lift because, as they see it, Republicans are threatening to topple the world economy to slice benefits for elderly Medicare recipients — not exactly a winning message, Obama aides snicker."

   "The president is likely to follow the playbook of the fiscal cliff fight and almost every other major policy battle over the past 18 months, initiating a campaign to persuade voters and mobilizing small businesses, labor unions, corporate America and Wall Street to exert pressure on lawmakers."


  Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obamas-debt-ceiling-gambit-85755.html#ixzz2H26ggISP

   Sure there are a lot of naysayers-but many of them also thought he was doomed November 6. The President just needs to use his bully pulpit as he has been doing.