Posted on 12/21/2012 8:37:09 AM PST by Qbert
President Barack Obama dispatched Mitt Romney a little more than a month ago but now faces an unpredictable new threat: a deeply divided House GOP that doesn’t even seem capable of bargaining with him.
Obama had hoped the election would unclog the works in Washington. His aides often speculated that he’d be freer to negotiate because he didn’t have to run again — and Republicans didn’t have to run against him.
But Thursday’s revolt was a grim reminder of how closely Obama’s future is tethered to that of his political rivals.
If House Speaker John Boehner can’t muscle his own bill through the House, his power to persuade his colleagues to accept a deal with the White House appears greatly diminished. And that means it might be tough for Obama to forge any agreement with House Republicans to avert the fiscal cliff this year — or to push through his second-term agenda in the years to come.
The path forward looked unclear even to senior administration officials late Thursday.
Aides had thought the House wrangling would stretch past midnight, so many had left the White House early in the evening — only to see Boehner pull the bill from floor at 8 p.m., much sooner than expected. They took it as a sign that Boehner wasn’t even close.
Obama press secretary Jay Carney released a purposefully restrained statement — a shift after days of senior administration officials accusing Boehner of strategic incompetence and political cowardice. The president will work with Congress, Carney said, to find a bipartisan solution.
But by the time Carney responded, Boehner had already signaled that he had no intention of returning to the bargaining table with Obama. After his own strategy backfired, Boehner said in a statement that Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) needed to come up with a solution — not exactly the message that the White House was hoping to hear.
Now, negotiations move onto unusual turf.
In the normal choreography of such deal-making, Boehner would have been able to pass his bill and likely come back to the negotiating table wielding a new GOP bottom line: no tax hike on anyone making less than $1 million. Obama is seeking tax hikes on families $400,000 and up, so some split-the-difference number — $600,000, maybe $750,000 — might have been attainable.
But with Boehner unable even to get a “millionaires’ tax” through his irascible caucus, it’s less clear than ever where that common ground might be.
Even if Boehner and Obama can reach a compromise, Obama will need to decide whether no deal at all is better than the type of deal that might make it through the House — something with less tax revenue and more spending cuts than Obama believes he should have to accept. For example, if Obama is going to raise the income threshold, he would want more in return for such a concession, and there’s no really no way he could wring out more from Boehner.
The White House’s best hope is that Boehner takes a drastically different course and breaks with his own allies. He could decide to negotiate the best bipartisan package possible and put it on the floor with unanimous Democratic support and the backing of Republicans who want to avoid the cliff.
But there’s little expectation that he’ll go that route and weaken his already shaky hold on the speakership. Boehner would flout the “majority of the majority” policy, which was instituted a decade ago by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill). It means that leaders do not put a bill on the floor unless it has the support of a majority of the majority.
“If Boehner keeps insisting on majority of the majority, we go over the cliff, since it’s now clear nothing but a straight-up tea party bill can pass the house under those conditions,” a senior Democratic Senate aide said.
The collapse of Boehner’s Plan B was not really good news for Obama, even though Democrats took delight in it. Democrats believe — and polls back this up — that Republicans will get blamed if the U.S. goes over the cliff. Boehner’s miscalculation is likely to harden public opinion against the GOP.
But the White House has to be worried that at some point, the public questions will turn to Obama’s stewardship of the process, and that’s where Boehner’s weakness is troublesome.
Even though administration officials say the president is willing to go over the cliff, their preference, by far, is a sweeping compromise that lifts the economy, notches another major win for Obama’s legacy and allows him to start his second term with a clean slate.
Instead, they may need to settle for a smaller deal under consideration by Senate leaders — an extension of tax breaks on income below $250,000 and unemployment insurance, along with a fix for both the alternative minimum tax, which hits upper middle-income families, and the annual cut in reimbursement rates for Medicare providers. This package would not address the dramatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in the new year.
Or Obama does nothing and waits until a market shock or voter outrage forces both parties back to the table.
The problem, as Obama himself conceded, is that the GOP members who are causing him the most grief are utterly immune to the mandate he thinks he earned on Nov. 6. Their districts, many of them in the South, are gerrymandered to be as conservative as possible, and they are far more afraid of a tea party challenge from the right than any price they would pay with the center for bucking a national trend.
At a White House news conference on Wednesday, a visibly frustrated Obama made an explicit, if futile, plea for his congressional opponents to take him out of the equation in negotiations over the fiscal cliff.
“It is very hard for them to say yes to me,” the president said, referring to the staunch opposition of the party’s right wing to tax increases — an intransigence vividly illustrated by Boehner’s failed attempt to pass the millionaires tax Thursday.
“At some point, they’ve got to take me out of it and think about their voters, and think about what’s best for the country,” he continued. “And if they do that — if they’re not worried about who’s winning and who’s losing, did they score a point on the President, did they extract that last little concession, did they force him to do something he really doesn’t want to do just for the heck of it, and they focus on actually what’s good for the country.”
Glenn Thrush contributed to this report.
Sorry but 100x0 is still zero.
I think your point is my multiplier was too small.
First these lame duck House Rs are very frustrated that not only did they accomplish (repeal) nothing the past session, except 33 symbolic repeals of O care , and a Budget control act with delayed budget cuts that they want to repeal, but then they lost seats too.
So Boner tries to play this trick (<$1M) on Obama to get him to appear to refuse to compromise to save Americans from tax increases, to get some general voter approval. But O wants to go off the cliff but he obviously needs convince voters that he is doing everything he can to avoid it, so it benefits him.
So first he and Reid declare the trick bill is dead, it will never get another vote. Then Obama very brilliantly praises Boner for being willing to raise taxes, even though the bill just extends lower rates.
So that's all O had to do (dog whistle) to get Rs to kill it and now after Boner actually had the vote count to pass it, many members change their minds,
After all if the bill will never be law meaning taxes will go up and Obama and Rush and Levin and Hannity (and maybe Boner himself to look compromising) are calling it a tax increase, they figure they would get blamed for 'raising taxes'.
So now the R House has a complete meltdown (from voters view),meanwhile O is on TV every day begging for a deal, and the voters see only one party who is coherent enough and willing to govern, And its over(obviously the high drama continues next two years and it will be wild) .
Obama has been masterful at this chess game and his goal is to totally annihilate congressional Republicans so he has no opposition in congress his last two years 2015 to 2016.
So then he will likely have the same margins he had in 2009 and 2010 and he can complete his mission.
And who would replace Boner now? No one will take that job knowing Pelosi will take the house the next midterm, Better leave the weak and not so bright Boner in charge to be the goat.
“It all would of worked if it wasnt for Boner...”
Now 2016 election??? Who knows?
Yep,
So in 2015 and 2016 when Pelosi takes back the House and Reid gets back his 59 or 61 Obama will finish the job,.
Obama is masterful at playing this chess game against the symbolic party.
His goal is to totally annihilate congressional Republicans so his last two years 2015 to 2016 he can finish his mission with a filibuster proof Dem congress.
*****************
And if the GOP fails to do right by America, what will it matter?
The way things are looking now, the Dems could sweep the mid-terms. They're making the Republicans look bad at every turn, even though the election was a lot closer than anyone cares to mention.
If the GOP doesn't take a new approach -- like maybe doing the right thing instead of sucking up to their mortal enemies -- then perhaps the mid-terms will be a bloodbath.M
Then again, I think the Conservative Revolt against Plan B was the opening shot in a very interesting and profound war against the GOP-e. Time will tell.
I see nothing coming in the GOP self destruction that makes this any less likely. Dems are united and always planning far ahead for the kill, not just interested in symbols.
And yes, I was trying to be hopeful that Boners (<$1M) trick on O would actually work. But itself it had little effect either way. It just showed the disasters to come,
I understand your thinking but the democrats taking the House in 2014 would be unprecedented.
The only President not to get spanked in his 2nd midterm was Clinton, and just as with Obama he was spanked in his first and went to rebound for reelection. So a repeat of 1998 is a very real and distressing possibility but I would remind that the rats gained 5 house seats in that election, and broke even in the Senate.
They need at least 17 House seats for a bare majority, I don’t see 17 GOP seats that I expect to even be in play, there is only 1 I’m actually concerned about at this time the one in California that is rat-leaning but had a GOP/GOP race in 2012. And that isn’t even counting the remaining NObama seats we have a good chance at taking. 2009 numbers for the democrats as you suggest is out of the question, I realize you may just be trying to make a point but I never can tell.
The Senate picture is even more favorable, instead of a bunch of rats in swing states we have a bunch in GOP states. Doesn’t mean we’ll get our 6 minimum that we need but we oughta if we don’t nominate losers like Sharron Angle and Todd Akin. Maine is the only democrat state where we have an incumbent and RINO Collins is popular. They cannot net Senate seats. I may have said that for this last election (way wrong!) but this time I mean it.
1998 and the other 2 midterms where the President’s party did well (1962, break even in House, gain in Senate, 2002, gain a few in the House and +2 to take the Senate) had 1 thing in common, high POTUS approval, we’re talking very high, about 65% for Bush and Clinton and over 70% for Kennedy. I doubt Osama can reach that mark again. And that’s to draw the midterm or slightly gain. The last time a President’s party REALLY won BIG in a midterm was 1934 during the depression the historic low point for the GOP when pretty much only Vermont was totally immune to democrat gains. Despite all the woe is us talk I see nothing to indicate anything approaching that level of distress being caused by the great debt ceiling debate of 2012-13.
Not being critical here at all, because I had to look the terms up. In your phrase, the 100x is the multiplier and the intrinsic value of 'Boehner a fighter' is the multiplicand.
Your multiplier was okay, but the multiplicand was zero. That being the case, the multiplier couldn't be large enough to increase her status as better.
0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of anything above zero, would still be better than zero.
In mathematics, even 100 trillion times zero, is no bigger than 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of zero.
This was all jocular anyway. And before long, someone will come along to explain why 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of zero is not zero, so I'll let it rest.
LOL.
Hope you're having a good Christmas season.
I think House Republicans are on purpose waiting till Bohners is re-elected to Speaker Jan 3rd before they put up for a vote the surrender bill to give O his taxes >$200K/250K. (notice that hurts married more than singles)
Then they can pass it with Dems votes and a few scared Republicans, although they (Rs) are probably all scared by now of either the primary or re-election.
So by dragging out this game it will be sure to look like O won a huge victory over them. They wont look principled, they will look like losers. They only way this hurts Dems is if it looks like the economy got worse after these taxes go up (which is why O is demanding more stimulus) and Republicans don't get the blame for blowing it up.
After they pass it there will be lots of talk about how Bohner pulled a trick on the house conservatives but the truth is that none of them want his job. They know its a loser. None will challenge him.
Obama knows exactly how to play Republicans. He purposely announced the O-care free birth control before the election to get Rs to make it an issue. He plans his battles and rhetoric by careful use of polling, and the Dems trust him and especially trust Pelosi so they fight together as a team.
Yes, I see nothing to be optimistic about.
Notice Obama is not making gun control an issue right now?
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