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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Now Even the House GOP's Friends Beg Them to Seek Help

     The GOP has complained about being called hostage takers. Yet they are at the point of classic hostage takers. You know, when even your friends and loved ones are becoming embarrassed by you and are desperate that you do something, anything

    Right now the House GOP is on the ledge. As usual it's some version of Stop or I get it. They never tire of this move although all the history of their hostage taking since Newt ends the same way-in abject, embarrassing failure. You think this is getting old? It's only been 18 years this year. 

    The House GOP has strapped explosives to its chest and is walking around the top floor of the high rise building screaming 'I'll do it! I will!' 

    So now their friends over at the Chamber of Commerce, the Senate Republicans, even their buddies at the Wall Street Journal editorial page are begging them to stop. Before it's too late. One way of understanding terrorism and the specific kind of terrorism of hostage taking is that it's were persons who are basically powerless try to convince themselves and the world that they are in fact omni-powerful. 

     "There’s a tendency on the right — I don’t know if it’s delusion or a subtle psychological operation — to speak as if Republicans control the House of Representatives by a wide majority, and that bills supported by 218 Republicans will be viable in the Senate and possibly signed by the president."

      http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/gop_deludes_itself_on_shutdown_threat/

     Maybe here's something to pathological overconfidence. mostly however, this delusion has not served them well. Not now, not on the fiscal cliff, not ln 2012 and not in 1995. 

      "The defunders sketch out an alternative scenario in which Mr. Obama is blamed, and they say we can't know unless Republicans try. But even they admit privately that they really won't succeed in defunding ObamaCare. The best case seems to be that if all Republicans show resolve they'll win over the public in a shutdown, and Democrats will eventually surrender, well, something."

     "If this works it would be the first time. The evidence going back to the Newt Gingrich Congress is that no party can govern from the House, and the Republican Party can't abide the outcry when flights are delayed, national parks close and direct deposits for military spouses stop. Sooner or later the GOP breaks."
    "This all-or-nothing posture also usually results in worse policy. The most recent example was the failure of Mr. Boehner's fiscal cliff "Plan B" in December 2012, which was the best the GOP could do because Mr. Obama had the whip hand of automatic tax increases. The fallback deal that was sealed in the Senate raised taxes by more and is now complicating the prospects for tax reform."
  That's also a very good point. The all-or-nothing routine does indeed usually work out in the worst policy-for the GOP. Speaking of Plan B it was the same thing Nancy Pelosi had offered back in 2011 during debt ceiling chicken 1.0.-for the Bush tax cuts to expire only on those who make at least $1 million a year 
  The WSJ admits that this could be the one thing that gives the Dems back the House in 2014. Meanwhile the Chamber of Commerce is also begging the GOP to just unstrap the explosives from the back and defuse them before its too late. 
  "The Chamber of Commerce wrote a open letter to the House, in reference to the GOP's stopgap funding bill, urging lawmakers not to risk a shutdown -- or worse, a default on the national debt when the government reaches its borrowing limit in mid-October -- warning of the economic harm that could result."
    "It is not in the best interest of the U.S. business community or the American people to risk even a brief government shutdown that might trigger disruptive consequences or raise new policy uncertainties washing over the U.S. economy," wrote R. Bruce Josten, a top lobbyist at the Chamber. "Likewise, the U.S. Chamber respectfully urges the House of Representatives to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner and thus eliminate any question of threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government."


     The problem is the L word: leverage. The GOP keeps waiting for when it kicks in. They thought they had it during the fiscal cliff. They didn't. Then it was the first debt ceiling deal. Now they think its the government Continuing Resolution (CR). If they could just accept at the present their leverage is limited they'd be much better off.  So overall this is not a brilliant strategy to delude themselves that they own all the cards. It's actually the mindset of a hostage taker who is now being accosted by the police negotiator out on the ledge. 

3 comments:

  1. Strangely enough though, I think the GOP strategy has worked beautifully.

    If you talk to most Americans they think our national debt and govt spending are out of control. They mostly have no clue about the debt ceiling other than there needs to be one. "How can you not put a limit on our national debt!!"

    The GOP is getting everything they want really. A sluggish economy, a president whos popularity is not high, nor do most people think he is the man for the job....... even though they cant agree about what exactly needs to be done.

    They all want more jobs, but less spending. More saving AND more investment spending (which of course is possible but not in the direction most people think ...... we must spend first to have something to save)

    Monetarists are all through the Fed reserve and econ departments giving advice AND most democrats agree with our debt and deficits being a problem.

    Other than being obvious dicks in many cases, and morons in other (Gohmert and Bachmann) the GOP has succeeded in framing the issues of the day, which is how one wins.

    No one want s their 401k to tank of course so they hate when debt ceiling talks make the markets antsy but most think that its the fear that govt wont get spending under control that is tanking the markets when it is in fact the opposite. Finance KNOWS if you cut govt spending when private borrowing is sluggish you get................... DEFLATION!!

    I just cant see any downside to the GOPs strategy ..... other than I hate it, but one of the hallmarks of the modern conservative is they will even do stupid things like use way more energy than necessary, or pollute somewhere if they think it pisses a liberal off. In fact pissing liberals off is the raison d'etre of most modern conservatives. Childish I know but sadly true

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  2. I don't agree that there's no downside to their strategy. I mean if the goal is to get elected then it's not been so successful. It failed in the 90s and it failed in 2012.

    Now that doesn't mean that there is no upside in their strategy at all but there is also a downside-and it's a big one: they are not winning elections other than an occaisonal route in an off election year-1994, 2010.

    You have Karl Rove and the WSJ editorial page admitting that leveraging a govt shutdown in exchange for Obama repeal is a losing strategy.

    I do agree that the electorate is schizophrenic and doesn't really understand economics and a lot of other issues. In a way there's truth in Sumner's often repeated phrase that 'There is no public opinion in econ.' I don't agree with him that the only people who matter are Neoclassical elites.

    However, you have to admit that the trouble with the average American is that their 'rationally ignorant.'

    For all this the GOP has big problems. TAhe demographic issue. is one major problem. They've won the popular vote just once in the last 5 Presidential elections.

    It's frustrating for the Dems because if you really dig deep enough Americans agree with them on most issues.

    So yes, Americans may not approve of something called 'Obamacare' but this has been par for the course for the 4 years since it was passed. They dissaprove even more of GOP tactics in trying to defund it-threatenign to shut down the government or blow up the economy.

    As far as the debt ceiling, of course, as you suggest, most people don't even know what it is. They just hear the word 'debt' and fall in line with the usual dogmatism that 'spending must be bought under control like I control my family's finances.'

    Yet they don't agree with the GOP tactics on it anyway. In 2011 they had the same confusions they have now and yet the GOP came out with a terrible black eye with how they handled it.

    As for Democrats, I don't think that all agree that the debt and deficits are a problem, you've heard a number of Dems make the case lately that the deficit is now low enough and it's time to focus on stimulating the economy.

    True, we would have been better off if there hadn't been so much deficit reduction until now. Still, they aren't running around talking about debt and deficits now.

    In truth the glass is half full and half empty. What's really a problem is how the minority in this country-in the red states-are able to again and again frustrate the will of the majority.

    This is in large part due to procedural issues-in many ways the government was structured to be ineffective and to provide minority rule-in many ways if you go back to when the Constitution was being drafted-it was meant to enable the Old Slaveholding South to dominate which it did for the first 60 years despite being in the minority.

    If we had the government that Alexander Hamilton or even in a lot of ways James Madison, we wouldn't have such a dysfunctional mess now. We have the filibuster which means that you have to have a Super Majority in the Senate to get anything done and then you have the House which should actually be Democratic but for gerrymandering.

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  3. P.S. The trouble for the GOP is that despie the counfusion of the American people they aren't really able to capitalize. Yes Americans hate Obamacare-right now, though in another 10 days the exchanges will open and then you may start to hear a different tune. Yes, in Kentucky Obama is the most unpopular person in the state. Except for Mitch McConnell.

    Even when people agree with the GOP, or think they do, they hate the GOP tactics. So I agree with the WSJ. Their strategy is anything sooner than optimum.

    "The defunders sketch out an alternative scenario in which Mr. Obama is blamed, and they say we can't know unless Republicans try. But even they admit privately that they really won't succeed in defunding ObamaCare. The best case seems to be that if all Republicans show resolve they'll win over the public in a shutdown, and Democrats will eventually surrender, well, something."

    "If this works it would be the first time. The evidence going back to the Newt Gingrich Congress is that no party can govern from the House, and the Republican Party can't abide the outcry when flights are delayed, national parks close and direct deposits for military spouses stop. Sooner or later the GOP breaks."
    "This all-or-nothing posture also usually results in worse policy. The most recent example was the failure of Mr. Boehner's fiscal cliff "Plan B" in December 2012, which was the best the GOP could do because Mr. Obama had the whip hand of automatic tax increases. The fallback deal that was sealed in the Senate raised taxes by more and is now complicating the prospects for tax reform."

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323846504579073083671216784.html?mod=trending_now_2

    P.S.S. At the end of the day it doesn't actually matter if people think Obama is the 'right man for the job', after all, they voted for him twice and have no power to turn him out of office ever again.

    If you go back to the Clinton years it was the same thing. Yes Americans disaproved of his being with Monica Lewinsky but they disapproved even more of the GOP using this as a pretext of overturning two elections.

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