The US House of Surreality
by digby
This Republican budget clusterf*%$# is getting more surreal by the day:
The House approved legislation on Friday to keep the government open past Sept. 30, but also to eliminate funding for "Obamacare."
The vote marked an opening gambit by the GOP just 10 days before the deadline at which the government will run out of money, causing a myriad of federal services to cease. The provision gutting health care reform was intended to mollify conservatives who have vowed not to fund the government unless the landmark law is eradicated.
Ok, so that's just posturing, right? Well, sort of. Ezra lines out the next steps:
1) The action moves to the Senate, and reporters stop reporting that Boehner doesn't have a shadow of control over his Republican members;
2) Sen. Ted Cruz tries and fails to defund Obamacare in the Senate's continuing resolution;
3) The Democrat-led Senate sends the House a continuing resolution that doesn't defund Obamacare;
4) Boehner shrugs, says he tried, and persuades his members to let him bring the Senate's bill to the floor;
5) The House passes the Senate's measure, President Obama signs it, and everyone moves onto the next crisis.
Ok, crisis averted, everybody's happy. Not quite:
The problem comes in No. 4. Boehner isn't going to simply shrug, say he tried, and bring the Senate bill to the floor. He'll shrug, say he tried, and tell his members that they should let him bring the Senate bill to the floor. He'll say it's because they need to save their fire for the debt ceiling fight, where they can force the White House to delay Obamacare for a year by threatening to trigger a global financial crisis. In fact, this is already the message he's delivering to his members.[my emphasis -- d]
There's been a lot of talk -- much of it among Republicans -- about how irresponsible Ted Cruz is being in his fight to defund Obamacare or shut the government down trying. But Boehner and the rest of the House GOP leadership is being much more irresponsible in their promises to delay Obamacare or cause a global financial crisis while trying. And the way they're going to get past Cruz's irresponsible threats is to double down on their own, even more irresponsible, threats.
The lunacy of delaying Obamacare by a year is hard to overstate. States that are coming on line are all set to go starting in October. That's a couple of weeks from now. It's insane to believe they can stop it (obviously the White House will never sign on this) and even crazier to think they should stop it.
But this raises the question of what might happen if they succeed in train-wrecking the debt ceiling anyway. Obviously, there is no chance this Obamacare defunding will happen. It cannot. So, assuming we are on the verge of a global economic crisis and the Republicans are holding fast on the debt ceiling, what do you suppose the administration, being responsible as it is, will offer the Republicans to end the siege?
Can you see them offering up all the deficit reduction and "entitlement" reforms without their requirement for (temporary) tax hikes? I can. Indeed, I could even see them agreeing to some tax cuts. I just heard Debbie Wasserman-Schultz say on Andrea Mitchell that she's more than willing to go the extra mile:
We've all got to set rigid ideology aside and sit down and find common ground because we've got to make sure that we can focus on continuing to get our economy to turn around. I know, look I'm the chair of the DNC, I know it can't be my way or the highway. I'm willing to put my vote on the line and go back to my constituents and explain why I didn't do it exactly the way they wanted me to. We've got to make sure that in the congress and put a majority of members, not Republicans, but members, on the board so we can continue to get our economy turned around and get a budget that breaks from the rigid adherence to dogma and ideology.
That could be just political rhetoric to contrast the loony GOP with the Democrats. But it could also signal a willingness to deal away some sacred cows. We don't know if the Republicans will accept anything but Obamacare defunding or delay, but if they can get more cuts without any tax hikes, especially ones that will make Democrats scream, they might just accept it as a consolation prize. It sure sounds like Wasserman-Schultz will be happy to consider anything they have in mind.
Like I said, this could be rhetorical. The Democrats think it works in their favor to sound as if they are the grown-ups. And if it weren't for the fact that the president and the leadership have repeatedly offered up these cuts to vital programs I'd probably just shrug and call it kabuki. But they have offered those cuts and, therefore, nobody in the Village will even see it as news if the GOP accepts it.
What is new in all this is that the GOP has come up with a new demand, which cannot be met. And everyone's run out of ideas for realistic delaying tactics. So, in order to avert a crisis, the Republicans have to get something besides Obamacare defunding. If they don't completely cave, I suspect the most likely casualty will be the president's demand for phony corporate tax hikes in exchange for "entitlement" cuts. After all, if there's one thing the Republicans hate even more than Obamacare, it's taxes.
And really, what would it cost the president, in his mind, to do it? He's on record wanting the Chained-CPI on the merits. A few more cuts to Medicare fit in with the larger health care reforms. He's overtly proud of his record on deficit reduction and implies in his speeches and interviews that it's been good for the economy. The only reason they've been insisting on the rich and corporations kicking in some chump change is to appease liberals by pretending it's somehow "balanced" among all the relevant interests. (As if a few extra bucks from the wealthy is in any way comparable to cuts in the meager social security benefit.) They obviously know that any tax hikes are temporary and will be reversed the minute the Republicans gain enough power to get it done. So what would he really lose by being the grown-up in the room and facing down the GOP's irrational demand to defund or delay Obamacare but being a big enough man to drop the demand for more revenue. They could always just say they agree to sit down and hash out "tax reform" later. (Max Baucus is already consulting with business on how to finesse it.)
I really hope I'm wrong. The Tea Party has prevented Boehner from taking yes for an answer up to now, so maybe they'll continue their streak of stupidity. But if they push all the way to a debt ceiling crisis and the Democrats take tax hikes off the table in exchange for taking Obamacare defunding off the table, it could be harder for them to justify.
Still, one would never grow broke betting on the idiocy of the far right.
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