Posted on 12/04/2012 8:11:26 AM PST by IbJensen
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."
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I think the Republicans should simply walk away and let him own this disaster-they are gonna be blamed anyway! Even if a 'deal' is struck, this nation is sliding down the tubes. Civil strife and violence to emasculate this behemouth of an evil govenment will come soon enough regardless of what the DamnocRATs and RepublicRATs do!
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.
Republican cave prep
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2965359/posts
He doesn't posses any basic and profound political savvy and does not trust to the little that he does possess.
To avoid being made to appear so utterly untutored and to avoid the appearance of having made a mistake in judgment... he forces the issue and takes his chances....
AFTER ALL, how much of a actual gamble is it for “O”? With the MSM by now criminally complicit and with a public long since conditioned to accept his every word and deed with a total, childish lack of doubt-what could go wrong??
Aren't there a million ways to spin mistakes and crimes to advantage...?
For God’s sake prepare Articles of Impeachment. There are certainly enough charges. Put the Kenyan on the defensive for a couple of years. I know it will never pass the Senate trial but get his a$$ onto something other that screwing with the country’s future. Right now he’s running free with the idea in his head that he is all but a dictator for life.
<< 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. >>
This is exactly the position that the Republicans should always operate from instead of always sacrificing integrity in the name of bipartisanship (i.e., conceding to the enemy).
Let’s just say it, the real reason Obama wants to go over the fiscal cliff is because he hates the white man. He wants to punish those who “didn’t build that” and who do not like him, who disagree with his world-view and who did not vote for him.
Plain and simple, it is a race thing.
Once we get to that point, once we realize that anything he does is motivated by a deep seated animosity toward those he perceives have unfairly benefited by putting down those of color, then we can see where this leads. The Bamster just does not care, he would rather put everyone through really tough times to make his point.
This was all so apparent in early 2008 when we watched those videos of Pastor J Wright and Bam etal sat there and took it all in. Now we get to live it.
He is not going to compromise, not at all.
schu
Only if you're a drooling moron.
Anyone with the common sense God gave a turnip realizes The Won was raised from his mother's knee to loathe freedom and Western Civilization in general and to loathe the United States in particular.
Until now, he has blamed Republicans for everything wrong. When we collapse economically, he’ll go bigger, he’ll blame CAPITALISM. “Never let a crisis go to waste”.
If I were to attempt to destroy the U.S. economy and form of governance, I would start by attacking the energy industry and by doing so, increase the price of eveything from heating and cooling to food. Making shortages a quick reality and causing civil unrest. Then presto, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
The Fiscal cliff could also make for a shortage of money and jobs. Creating even more civil unrest.
They also left the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives-- the same Republicans who just removed actual conservatives from all of the financial committees.
It's time to be honest about the GOP's malfeasance, too.
I think the only way you see civil strife is if the well drys up the the free money/benefits quit coming. This gov’t is far too frightened of the Urban population to let that happen.
Liberalism is based on hatred of God.
Tagline material.
So, they won’t cut off the freeloaders...
but hyperinflation could be a de facto cutoff.
Or, simply no stuff to buy on the shelves.
There aren’t too many Americans who see this worthless psycopath for what he is: a destroyer!
A lot of us here saw that 4 years ago and have become even more convinced every day. Meanwhile, the lying MSM is covering up for the POS every inch of the way hiding the truth from anyone that will not search it out.
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