Posted on 12/04/2012 4:53:44 AM PST by Kaslin
Some commentators wonder why President Obama always engages in brinksmanship. Why can't he meet Republicans halfway, like Clinton did, they ask. Let me try to respond.
One blogger suggests that Obama prefers to play chicken, taking the nation right to the edge of a fiscal disaster because it will increase the likelihood that the GOP will cave. Perhaps, but there's more to it.
Many of us warned that Obama is not, by nature or ideology, a conciliator. He is not a centrist, and he's not someone who is interested in the other side's ideas. He knows what he wants to do, and he is hell-bent on doing it. He is not just playing hardball as a matter of strategy; he has no interest in compromise and is angling to get his way entirely. And he wants to further damage the Republican brand in the process.
The way Obama probably looks at it is that Republicans will cave and he will either get most of what he wants, or the Republicans will hold fast and he can effectively blame them for taking us over the fiscal cliff. You'll note that in none of these explanations is there a hint that Obama is motivated to do what is best for the country. He intends to act in his own best interests and those of his party, and decidedly against the interests of the GOP and, ultimately, the nation.
To better understand what we're dealing with and what the stakes are in these negotiations, let's take a look at what people mean when they say we're headed toward a fiscal cliff in January -- as distinguished from the much bigger cliff we're heading for if we don't get our deficits and debt under control very soon.
The immediate fiscal cliff includes the largest tax increase in a single year in our nation's history ($494 billion), dangerous defense cuts via sequestration, a Medicare reimbursement fiasco and an expiration of federal funding for extended unemployment benefits.
Despite these looming concerns, Obama hasn't approached these budget talks in good faith, but in a way that even former defenders recognize is designed to result in an impasse. Indeed, Obama's proposal is so manifestly unreasonable that even his own party - Democratic senators and congressmen -- has consistently rejected less extreme versions of it in its unanimous votes against his budgets.
Consider: He chose Timothy Geithner to be his lead negotiator. Geithner has repeatedly shown he is not serious about entitlement reform. He and the president have failed even to put a proposal on the table. Also, they've proposed no real short-term spending cuts, twice the level of tax increases Obama campaigned on, more stimulus spending, an intransigent demand for an economy-smothering tax rate increase on the "wealthy" as opposed to decreases in deductions, and the topper: a demand that Congress surrender to this reckless spender of a president its constitutional prerogative over spending limits.
The upshot is that Obama is demanding Republicans agree to policies that will further damage the economy and ensure the nation's financial demise even sooner than is now inevitable. Adding insult to injury, Geithner is arrogantly boasting that Republicans will cave.
Republicans are agreeing to let Obama increase taxes (by reducing deductions for upper income earners) even with the anemic economy, but are demanding from him, on behalf of the nation, serious discretionary spending cuts and major structural entitlement reform. If Republicans cave in exchange for Obama's vague, illusory, insincere promises to cut spending and reform entitlement down the road, they will be complicit in accelerating the nation's fiscal destruction.
Some painfully superficial analysts argue that Obama is right to offer an extreme position as his first volley, because that's the way negotiations work. But Obama's hardball offer is not merely a different approach to the shared goal of restoring the nation's fiscal health. It unequivocally guarantees national bankruptcy while the Republicans' proposal is designed to avert that disaster.
Obama is playing chicken, all right, but he's not driving his own car; he's driving the United States of America. People can quibble endlessly over whether he is intentionally trying to harm America. The better way to frame it is that Obama is, by his own admission, trying to fundamentally transform America.
His transforming vision means continuing to expand the welfare state, major tax hikes, increased spending and obstructing reform of our already insolvent entitlement programs, the major debt drivers that are leading us toward the real "fiscal cliff."
Obama's policies in furtherance of his vision -- as clearly laid out during the campaign and even more so during these "fiscal cliff" negotiations -- left unchecked will complete the fiscal destruction of the nation.
So if you insist, don't call it intentional destruction. Call it, euphemistically, "the intentional fundamental transformation of America that will necessarily destroy her."
Limbaugh’s thesis: either the Republicans cave or, if they stand firm, Zero gets to blame them for obstructionism, is correct.
But the key premise to that is that he gets away with blaming them. And that only works because of the compliant media which won’t critically analyze the dynamics of the standoff.
So the fundamental problem is that not enough Americans can stand back, analyze, and see through Obama’s tactics.
And that’s partly because he has the media on his side and partly because Americans have been dumbed down.
And that’s the real problem. Obama and his masters are smart enough to realize the critical mass has been reached and they can get away with this stuff, which they’d never have gotten away with a few decades ago.
No,the GOP is set up to take the blame even if they stand firm because of the media spin.
I make no brief for the eRepubs. THey disgust me.
But we have to honestly assess the situation. Obama is in a win-win situation because not enough people get their news through filters that will critically evaluate who’s doing what in this “negotiating.”
No, I think the media operatives are mostly just stupider than stupid.
But Obama and Valerie and Alexcrap know what they are doing. They are laughing at the stupidity of the MSM even as their whole strategy depends on the MSM covering (unwittingly) for them.
With some exceptions, of course. Some of the MSM operatives are outright Marxist/Socialist “transform America” ideologues.
But most are just plain stupid.
I disagree.
We have become the party of foreign stuff.
If the GOP simply stood up and constantly advocated American goods, we would become the party of American stuff.
That would win. Big.
We can disagree.
“If the GOP simply stood up”
It’s no longer simple, if it ever has been. We are fighting the Lie. Orwell. Once enough, once a majority or near majority are so taken in by the Lie that they haven’t the faintest idea they are living a lie it becomes very hard, not simple, to break through to them with the Truth.
We are stupid if we understimate the enemy. Conservatives can be stuck on stupid too.
Well I will in no way minimize the problem we face, but among them prominently this time, was the Mormon religion.
That was stupid.
Why we allowed a Mormon to buy his way to the GOP nomination, was nearly impossible to understand.
We will not have a Mormon next time. That will bring things back toward normal. But we MUST stop advocating imports.
Imports only help two Americans:
The shipper, and the checkout clerk at the store.
Otherwise it is all going overseas.
We have reached or are near the point of no return because the real power today rests with the bureaucracy. Already George W. crippled himself by not totally cleaning house in Justice and State.
Any Republican, even the most true blue conservative Republican, who might get elected in 2016 will be saddled with a Judiciary absolutely stuffed with ultra liberal judges, with a Justice department stuffed with civil-service-protected flaming liberal lawyers, a State Department stuffed with hate-American diplomats, an EPA stuffed with destroy-the-economy “experts,”
and
so
on
and
so
forth.
They can destroy any president just by quietly doing this or that that guarantees the failure of whatever reform initiatives he implements.
Even if he has a Congress that is, in theory, on his side, with a compliant media, the meme that “President So-and-So’s” entitlement reform or EPA reform or State-department reform efforts have abysmally failed. He hates the poor, he . . . . [fill in the blank].”
Perhaps if enough states band together to nullify the Feds, we have some hope. But the Feds will come after them and will not shrink from using force. It might be possible to win the media battle if it came to blows. But that’s how serious the situation is.
No White Knight presidential candidate can turn things around.
Can’t.
Won’t happen.
Not possible.
Well that is where we disagree.
I think we can turn this around big.
But we must start now, and we must support US workers. And most of all, let’s avoid any further religious adventures.
I admit I (also) fell into the Mitt bandwagon after Sarah Palin stood down.
That mistake must not be repeated.
I sure wish I could not care enough to ignore this Kabuki dance. Boehner is going to end up crying in his soup, while the rest of us get screwed. All he needs to do is vote no on tax increases. Everything else is Obama’s problem.
Who in their right mind, and with capital to invest, wants to build anything here? You don’t “bring jobs” nor do you “send jobsb”. Jobs are byproducts of building, buying, selling, investing, inventing, and more than anything the ability to make and keep earnings.
I will add that laws that require “jobs here”and only dicourageous the above. But its great for those with a union thigh mindset.
Why don’t you bring the jobs back, since you view economic reality as an “excuse”. Oh, you mean it’s not so easy?
The jobs are being done by 30 million illegal aliens. Excuse? The jobs are being done in countries with lower tax rates and non union labor. Excuse? The jobs are being killed by Obamacare. Excuse? The jobs are about to be killed more by raising taxes on job creators. Excuse? The jobs are being killed by raising capital gains taxes. Excuse? Keystone pipeline blocked. Excuse?:
Perfect. I just send it on to my e-pal list
Thanks! Will use it at our Christmas party!
you said it all with the biased idiotic MSM, but I like to change it to LSM as in LameStream Media, or SRM (State Run Media, OM (Obama Media)
I figured he would give Obama a run in his negative campaigning but he backed off on the only one who ever deserved criticism. Instead he blew his negative wad on the fellow R's and then went soft on the real opponent.
Well we’ve exported enough jobs now that Democrats won the last election.
Handily.
If you’re actually truly rich, I can see advocating shipping jobs offshore. I suppose. Though I still cannot see why you would not want Americans to do well.
If you are not actually rich, there is no reason not to support American workers.
Sure almost all people who are unemployed are Democrats.
The thing we have lost sight of recently is, not such a huge portion of WORKING people are Democrats.
The GOP used to win a significant portion of these votes.
Now a lot of those people are unemployed. Replaced by millions of factory workers in Shanghai, or Bombay.
Unemployed.
But still here. Now increasingly ... voting for Dems.
Obama has everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking the country down. Obama and Democrats know Republicans will get the blame so why not do it? These maniacs do not care about what happens to the American people--they will be just fine and to hell with everyone else. This way they think they can also destroy Republican majorities, even in the House. This is politics on the part of Dims.
Thank you.
That is the explanation. Indeed.
Romney was much tougher on the right, than on the left.
AFTER HE WON HE LOST HIS FOCUS. Until that time, he seemed right.
I appreciate that. Thanks.
:)
The fiscal cliff will fall heaviest on the poor. Higher taxes on job creators will mean fewer jobs created & more jobs lost. Geithner’s money printing is driving up prices of food, utilities, & transportation - 3 primary expenses of poor & low income people. As the economy continues to decline, & entitlement costs continue to soar as a result, soon the entitlement checks will either stop coming, or be inadequate to pay the inflated bills. With more people out of work, crime will increase, which always falls disproportionally on the poor.
This is the message the Pubs need to be sending. “The economy” is not something people worry about - higher food costs are. And people who don't pay taxes don't care about tax rates when theirs will remain zero.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.