On the one hand, he was pretty categorical about not going down the road any more govt shutdowns or games of debt ceiling chicken, yesterday, speaking in front of wealthy Republican donors like the Chamber of Commerce:
"Mitch McConnell isn’t going to have another government shutdown on his watch. The Kentucky Republican stood up over the weekend and said he wanted to address the “elephant in the room” at a fundraising retreat in Sea Island, Ga. Speaking before roughly 300 K Streetersand big donors, McConnell said Republicans will not come close to defaulting on the nation’s debts or shutting down the government early next year when stop-gap government funding and the debt ceiling are slated to be voted on again."
"He’s in fighting mode,” said one attendee of McConnell. “He didn’t get into specifics about what they are doing and how they are going to do it, but McConnell and (Texas Sen. John) Cornyn were particularly forceful.”
"Back in 2011, the Kentucky Republican floated the idea as a "Plan B" if all else failed. It would have lifted the debt ceiling in three stages through the end of 2012, each time giving Republicans an opportunity to score political points without genuinely threatening default -- which is how the debt ceiling has traditionally been used by the party out of power."
"Mitch McConnell isn’t going to have another government shutdown on his watch. The Kentucky Republican stood up over the weekend and said he wanted to address the “elephant in the room” at a fundraising retreat in Sea Island, Ga. Speaking before roughly 300 K Streetersand big donors, McConnell said Republicans will not come close to defaulting on the nation’s debts or shutting down the government early next year when stop-gap government funding and the debt ceiling are slated to be voted on again."
"His remarks echoed similar comments he made following the shutdown that it was “not conservative policy” and that he always believed “this strategy could not and would not work.”
"He’s in fighting mode,” said one attendee of McConnell. “He didn’t get into specifics about what they are doing and how they are going to do it, but McConnell and (Texas Sen. John) Cornyn were particularly forceful.”
So no more debt ceiling chicken right? Right. Except, he's calling a Democratic plan to permanently 'de-weaponize' the debt ceiling 'outrageous.'
"Here's how the bill would work: The president would be able to unilaterally lift the debt ceiling when necessary, and Congress would be able to vote to "disapprove" of it. If the motion to disapprove passes, the president could veto it, and Congress would need to muster up a two-thirds majority to override the veto. In short, it would de-weaponize the debt ceiling."
So he is contradiciting himself. After all, if he truly has ruled out debt ceiling chicken why oppose de-weaponizing it? Actually, he's not just contradicting himself once but twice as this Democratic plan is actually borrowed from McConnell himself.
"The Republican leader's staunch rejection reveals that the GOP isn't ready to give up the threat of default in future standoffs, despite the economic damage caused by the repeated standoffs since 2011, and despite winning no substantive concessions from Democrats this month or in January, when they last voted to extend the debt ceiling."
"Back in 2011, the Kentucky Republican floated the idea as a "Plan B" if all else failed. It would have lifted the debt ceiling in three stages through the end of 2012, each time giving Republicans an opportunity to score political points without genuinely threatening default -- which is how the debt ceiling has traditionally been used by the party out of power."
If McConnell truly doesn't intend to get anywhere close to another threat of default then where is the problem? This would relegate the debt ceiling to what it was in the past-basically a symbolic sop to beat the opposition's head about to score political points-but without ever really threatening default. In truth the real answer is to simply end the debt ceiling, period. Failing this does McConnell have any good reason to oppose his own plan other than because he wants to maintain some semblance of a threat?
Yet this isn't the first time that the GOP has contradicted itself. Take all the furor over the ACA website. It really shouldn't be any surprise that a major technological rollout like this has had some glitches-ok, a whole lot of glitches. Joe Manchin pointed this out the other day when Bill O'Reilly tried to get him to trash Obamacare-Manchin pointed out that when he was Governor a new state medicaid plan also had many glitches but in time he was able to get them fixed
Manchin argues for everyone to work together on the rollout but that's just it, the GOP doesn't want it to work and are enjoying the problems. It's been pointed out that while the tech glitches are par for the course and to be expected, if there are deeper problems it might be because it is after all a Republican plan that insisted on keeping the private insurers involved.
Krugman points out that despite all the hubbub it will get worked out in teh end whether or not the November 31 deadline is met or not. Again,not surprising. The GOP wants to demonize and this means they need it all to be blamed on one person who can be the lightning rod-in Benghazi it was Susan Rice, in IRS-gate it was Lois Lerner, with Obamacare they've settled on Kathleen Sebilius.
"The good news about HealthCare.gov, the portal to Obamacare’s health exchange, is that the administration is no longer minimizing its problems. That’s the first step toward fixing the mess — and it will get fixed, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the new promise of a smoothly functioning system by the end of November will be met. We know, after all, that Obamacare is workable, since many states that chose to run their own exchanges are doing quite well."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/krugman-the-big-kludge.html
However, the GOP being the party with no ironymeter doesn't see the irony here.
"But while we wait for the geeks to do their stuff, let’s ask a related question: Why did this thing have to be so complicated in the first place?"
"The good news about HealthCare.gov, the portal to Obamacare’s health exchange, is that the administration is no longer minimizing its problems. That’s the first step toward fixing the mess — and it will get fixed, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the new promise of a smoothly functioning system by the end of November will be met. We know, after all, that Obamacare is workable, since many states that chose to run their own exchanges are doing quite well."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/krugman-the-big-kludge.html
However, the GOP being the party with no ironymeter doesn't see the irony here.
"But while we wait for the geeks to do their stuff, let’s ask a related question: Why did this thing have to be so complicated in the first place?"
"It’s true that the Affordable Care Act isn’t as complex as opponents make it out to be. Basically, it requires that insurance companies offer the same policies to everyone; it requires that each individual then buy one of these policies (the individual mandate); and it offers subsidies, depending on income, to keep insurance affordable."
"Still, there’s a lot for people to go through. Not only do they have to choose insurers and plans, they have to submit a lot of personal information so the government can determine the size of their subsidies. And the software has to integrate all this information, getting it to all the relevant parties — which isn’t happening yet on the federal site."
"Imagine, now, a much simpler system in which the government just pays your major medical expenses. In this hypothetical system you wouldn’t have to shop for insurance, nor would you have to provide lots of personal details. The government would be your insurer, and you’d be covered automatically by virtue of being an American."
"Of course, we don’t have to imagine such a system, because it already exists. It’s called Medicare, it covers all Americans 65 and older, and it’s enormously popular. So why didn’t we just extend that system to cover everyone?"
"The proximate answer was politics: Medicare for all just wasn’t going to happen, given both the power of the insurance industry and the reluctance of workers who currently have good insurance through their employers to trade that insurance for something new. Given these political realities, the Affordable Care Act was probably all we could get — and make no mistake, it will vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans."
"Still, the fact remains that Obamacare is an immense kludge — a clumsy, ugly structure that more or less deals with a problem, but in an inefficient way."
As Mike Konczal points out, ACA is basically what Paul Ryan wants to do with Medicare.
"Some of the more cartoony conservatives argue that this is a failure of liberalism because it is a failure of government planning, evidently confusing the concept of economic “central planning” with “the government makes a plan to do something.”
"However, the smarter conservatives who are thinking several moves ahead (e.g. Ross Douthat) understand that this failed rollout is a significant problem for conservatives. Because if all the problems are driven by means-testing, state-level decisions and privatization of social insurance, the fact that the coreconservative plan for social insurance is focused like a laser beam on means-testing, block-granting and privatization is a rather large problem. As Ezra Klein notes, “Paul Ryan's health-care plan -- and his Medicare plan -- would also require the government to run online insurance marketplaces.” Additionally, the Medicaid expansion is working well where it is being implemented, and the ACA is perhaps even bending the cost curve of Medicare, the two paths forward that conservatives don’t want to take."
Though it's easy to forget, ACA actually goes back to Nixon.
Douthat really doesn't belong in today's Republican party because the defining requirement to get into the party is to never look beyond your nose or count above three. The idea that there is any considerations but the most immediate agenda is just not even guessed at in today's GOP. Douthat sounds more like a Whig-and the Democratic party is the real Whig party of today.
No comments:
Post a Comment