Herding Sacred Cows
by digby
Kevin asks and answers the 2 trillion dollar question:
Why isn't Obama making it clear that Social Security checks will dry up if Republicans refuse to do a deal? Because that would put pressure on Republicans to simply cave in and raise the debt ceiling. But that isn't what Obama wants. He wants a deal.
As he says, everything becomes much more understandable if you realize that Obama never wanted a clean debt ceiling bill --- if he had, he would have fought for one. What he wanted was the pressure of pending default to allegedly make "both sides give up their sacred cows." It would appear from the proposals that have been floated that he is less concerned with the GOP's herd than the Democrats'. This makes sense since he evidently sees this debt ceiling as a way to enact the Deficit Commission framework which called for many more liberal cows to be slaughtered. Kevin explores the various reasons why he would want to do that, but I don't think he's been all that inscrutable about it.
January 2009:
Obama regularly offers three telltale notions that will define his presidency -- if events allow him to define it himself: "sacrifice," "grand bargain" and "sustainability."
To listen to Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag is to hear a tale of long-term fiscal woe. The government may have to spend and cut taxes in a big way now, but in the long run, the federal budget is unsustainable.
That's where sacrifice kicks in. There will be signs of it in Obama's first budget, in his efforts to contain health-care costs and, down the road, in his call for entitlement reform and limits on carbon emissions. His camp is selling the idea that if he wants authority for new initiatives and new spending, Obama will have to prove his willingness to cut some programs and reform others.
The "grand bargain" they are talking about is a mix and match of boldness and prudence. It involves expansive government where necessary, balanced by tough management, unpopular cuts -- and, yes, eventually some tax increases. Everyone, they say, will have to give up something.
Only such a balance, they argue, will win broad support for what Obama wants to do, and thus make his reforms "sustainable," the other magic word -- meaning that even Republicans, when they eventually get back to power, will choose not to reverse them.
It is riotously ambitious. But it's worth remembering that in November, Americans elected a man who counts "audacity" as one of his favorite words.
It's not like he's ever hidden his agenda. I just don't know that the agenda makes a lot of sense at a time of protracted high unemployment and an anemic economy. But nothing seems to deter him from his plans. They haven't deviated an inch, even the catch-phrases are the same.
But as Kevin says, right now none of that matters:
Just do this: whenever you think Obama has done something dumb or weakminded or inexplicable, remind yourself that he doesn't necessarily have the same goals as you. He sincerely wants a deal that involves concessions from both sides, and once you understand that his actions will suddenly seem a lot less dumb.
Update: On CBS earlier the interviewer prodded the President about this and he said he "couldn't guarantee" that the Social Security checks would go out if the debt ceiling isn't raised. So that's good.
Update II: Jonathan Cohn comes to the same conclusion. So does Taibbi.
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