The Tea Party is back in business! (1 Viewer)

[humpback]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

So you think that I should ignore the Tea Party's culpability for this mess, and that instead I should blame both sides equally, because if enough people do, that will pressure Obama and the Dems to budge?

The problem with this, beyond the fact that I DO hold the Republicans responsible for this, is that I don't want Obama to budge. President Obama has made the argument that if he gives in to the Republican demands, it will create a situation in which the shutdown and debt ceiling are always used in the future to extract partisan demands by both sides. He argues that the lesson of 2011 is that this sort of crisis should never happen again. After some consideration, I agree with this stance.

The Republicans need to agree to Obama's latest offer to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which they can THEN negotiate. That's the only way this crisis gets solved, IMO.

What do you call the last time they raised the debt ceiling? And the time before that? And...?

 

[jon_mx]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

 

[TheIronSheik]

This thread really makes me wonder if monarchy wasnt so bad after all.

Depends on which monarch you end up with. Our brand of Democracy pretty much guarantees mediocrity in government at this point. With Monarchy you could get horrible, could get great, could also get mediocre - put your money down and ride the snake. Anyway, not to worry, we're either heading into straight Plutocracy (Monarchy's tricky cousin) or a patch of anarchy in the near future.

Maybe a monarchy we could vote for then.

We could call that a republic! No that's already been taken. Caliphate? Nope, Feudal because the count votes?

I'm running out of ideas here...

The Democratic Kingdom of the Republic of America.

Go all Africa naming convention on them.

 

[timschochet]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

So you think that I should ignore the Tea Party's culpability for this mess, and that instead I should blame both sides equally, because if enough people do, that will pressure Obama and the Dems to budge?

The problem with this, beyond the fact that I DO hold the Republicans responsible for this, is that I don't want Obama to budge. President Obama has made the argument that if he gives in to the Republican demands, it will create a situation in which the shutdown and debt ceiling are always used in the future to extract partisan demands by both sides. He argues that the lesson of 2011 is that this sort of crisis should never happen again. After some consideration, I agree with this stance.

The Republicans need to agree to Obama's latest offer to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which they can THEN negotiate. That's the only way this crisis gets solved, IMO.

What do you call the last time they raised the debt ceiling? And the time before that? And...?

The last time they raised the debt ceiling, the Republicans successfully forced Obama into making concessions, which led to the disastrous sequester cuts. Obama never should have negotiated, because it created a terrible precedent. He is attempting to rectify that now, and I hope he can. We'll see.

Prior to that, neither side ever attempted to use the debt ceiling to gain any substantive policy changes. There were some minor things added, but nothing like 2011 or this time around. This new strategy is courtesy of the Tea Party.

 

[timschochet]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Both political parties believe that what is good for their party is good for the country.

I don't want to defend politics- it can be very ugly and corrupt and everything the Commish wrote about it is largely true- at times. That's the way it's always been. But I'll still take self-serving politicians over true believers any day of the week. It's the populist movements, with their simplistic answers to complex questions, which usually lead to our biggest problems.

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. ...Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here'. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and Grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

- Senator Obama, March 2006

That's SENATOR Obama. His stance has changed dramatically now that HE is the leader.

Damn! I've never seen that quote before!

A response where you don't reference the Tea Party!

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Boy are people confused.

--In 2011 the two sides were negotiating over the budget and failed to come to an agreement on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases that would address the long-term budget situation. Specifically Democrats offered a mix, while Republicans insisted on 100% cuts.

--In resonse to the impasse the two sides created a 'sequester' budget that was designed to be so ridiculously bad that it would force them to reach a better deal.

--However, the two sides failed to come to an agreement and the sequester cuts kicked in this year. The CBO estimates that amount of spending cuts in the sequester bill between 2013-2021 are between $1.0 and $1.1 trillion. Those cuts are only to 'discretionary' programs -- split into Defense and everything else. Non-discretionary spending, including the entitlement programs, is not addressed by the sequester.

--Following Obama's reelection the Democrats forced through a tax increase on families earning $250k. Over nine years (the same 2013-2021 time frame covered by the sequester cuts) that tax increase will result in roughly $396 billion of additional revenue. ($440 billion over 10 years is the total I found.)

--As a result spending cuts comprise roughly 73% of the budget balancing done so far, while additional revenues make up about 27%. I'm estimating here based on the numbers I could find. It's possible they're not exact.

--As part of the negotiations on a budget to replace the sequester, Obama has offered to make changes to entitlement programs (again, those programs are non-discretionary and so not included in the sequester), but has insisted that any such changes will be offset by additional revenues. The formulation "additional revenues" allows for the money to be raised by closing loopholes -- not just an increase in the tax rates. Republicans have so far refused that offer and insisted that there will be no new revenues in any deal.

--As a result of this ongoing impasse nothing has happened in terms of a budget that would replace the sequester and the sequester budget will be in effect again for 2014 unless something changes.

--With that as background the Senate passed it's own budget for 2014 and so did the House. The two budgets are dramatically different -- as you'd expect with Congress divided. There is nothing unusual about that. It's happened many times.

--The normal process for reconciling differences in bills passed by the House and the Senate is for both bodies to appoint people to a joint conference between the two bodies and empower them to negotiate a final bill. The Senate appointed these conferees as did House Democrats, but House Republicans refused to do so -- explicitly because they did not intend to compromise and were, somewhat unexpectedly, willing to continue with the sequester.

--As a result, nothing happened with regard to the 2014 budget from March through September. During this time House Republicans were open about their intention to shut down government and use the debt ceiling to gain leverage, extract concessions on the budget and defund Obamacare.

--All year Obama has said that budget negotiations would not happen while government was shut down or if the debt limit was not raised. He sees it as blackmail, and believes that doing so would set a terrible precedent for all Presidents going forward.

--Without a budget in place funding for the government stopped on October 1st. Typically a continuing resolution is passed to allow the functioning of government to continue while the budget is hashed out. However Republicans refuse to allow a vote on a continuing resolution in the House unless it also includes a partial defunding or partial repeal of Obamacare.

--Almost no one believes that approach will yield any actual results, and it's probably best seen as another symbolic act -- similar to the 40-some votes the House has taken to repeal Obamacare. For his part Obama has been clear that he has no intention of giving away any part of his signature acheivement.

--There is no disagreement about the level of funding for a continuing resoution. The House and Senate numbers are identical (I believe they're based on the sequester agreement).

--Were a clean resolution to come up for a vote in the House it's almost certain that enough Republicans would defect to pass the bill and fund government. The same is true for the debt limit vote. However, John Boehner, as Speaker of the House, refuses to allow either bill to be voted on.

--No one knows for sure when the debt limit will be breached, but estimates are that it will happen on October 17th. We actually reached the limit in May, but the Treasury Dept has been using reserves and accounting tricks since then to avoid a default.

--No one knows what will happen in the event of a technical default, or even which step in the default process would trigger whatever negative consequences might occur. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that the consequences would be negative, and increasingly so over time.

--It's the gap between a technical default (presumably on the 17th) and the US actually missing an interest payment that's largely providing the uncertainty. As unlikely as it is, a missed interest payment would trigger legal clauses in mountains of debt and would cause immediate economic mayhem worldwide. No serious person disputes this.

My opinion is that this entire 'crisis' is all a show, and is best understood as an effort for each side to improve its negotiating position when we finally get back to working on a long-term budget to replace the sequester (which you can see from the top of this post is what started this mess).

Republicans are hoping that Obama's refusal to give ground on Obamacare in the shutdown/debt limit will result in him being forced to accept additional spending cuts to entitlements without new tax revenues.

Democrats (including me) believe they have the upper hand here and that Republicans will be forced to surrender on both the continuing resolution and the debt limit -- and that surrendering will undermine both their unity and their bargaining strength.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

JoJo's polling, from Newt's article, is dated anyhow. Yesterday evening I linked a more recent poll- 70% of the public, including the majority of independents, blame this mess on Republicans. The "equal blame" argument isn't flying with the public.

Dated how, it's from 10/7/13?!? You are telling me the respondents pulled a 180 in 2 days? Shut up.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/cnn-shutdown-poll-plenty-of-blame-to-go-around/

NOTE: Newt isn't the one that originally said the public are angry at Democrats.

Not surprisingly, huge majorities of Democrats are angry at the Republicans, and huge majorities of Republicans are angry at Obama and Democrats. Independents are equally angry at all sides, with 59% of Independents very or somewhat angry at the Democrats, six in 10 angry at the GOP, and 58% angry at Obama.

 

[Aerial Assault]

Boy are people confused.

--In 2011 the two sides were negotiating over the budget and failed to come to an agreement on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases that would address the long-term budget situation. Specifically Democrats offered a mix, while Republicans insisted on 100% cuts.

--In resonse to the impasse the two sides created a 'sequester' budget that was designed to be so ridiculously bad that it would force them to reach a better deal.

--However, the two sides failed to come to an agreement and the sequester cuts kicked in this year. The CBO estimates that amount of spending cuts in the sequester bill between 2013-2021 are between $1.0 and $1.1 trillion. Those cuts are only to 'discretionary' programs -- split into Defense and everything else. Non-discretionary spending, including the entitlement programs, is not addressed by the sequester.

--Following Obama's reelection the Democrats forced through a tax increase on families earning $250k. Over nine years (the same 2013-2021 time frame covered by the sequester cuts) that tax increase will result in roughly $396 billion of additional revenue. ($440 billion over 10 years is the total I found.)

--As a result spending cuts comprise roughly 73% of the budget balancing done so far, while additional revenues make up about 27%. I'm estimating here based on the numbers I could find. It's possible they're not exact.

--As part of the negotiations on a budget to replace the sequester, Obama has offered to make changes to entitlement programs (again, those programs are non-discretionary and so not included in the sequester), but has insisted that any such changes will be balanced against addtional revenues. The formulation "additional revenues" allows for the money to be raised by closing loopholes -- not just an increase in the tax rates. Republicans have so far refused that offer and insisted that there will be no new revenues in any deal.

--As a result of this ongoing impasse nothing has happened in terms of a budget that would replace the sequester and the sequester budget will be in effect again for 2014 unless something changes.

--With that as background the Senate passed it's own budget for 2014 and so did the House. The two budgets are dramatically different -- as you'd expect with Congress divided. There is nothing unusual about that. It's happened many times.

--The normal process for reconciling differences in bills passed by the House and the Senate is for both bodies to appoint people to a joint conference between the two bodies and empower them to negotiate a final bill. The Senate appointed these conferees as did House Democrats, but House Republicans refused to do so -- explicitly because they did not intend to compromise and were, somewhat unexpectedly, willing to continue with the sequester.

--As a result, nothing happened with regard to the 2014 budget from March through September. During this time House Republicans were open about their intention to shut down government and use the debt ceiling to gain leverage to extract concessions on the budget and to defund Obamacare.

--All year Obama has said that budget negotiations would not happen while government was shut down or if the debt limit was not raised. He sees it as blackmail, and believes that doing so would set a terrible precedent for all Presidents going forward.

--Without a budget in place funding for the government stopped on October 1st. Typically a continuing resolution is passed to allow the functioning of government to continue while the budget is hashed out. However Republicans refuse to allow a vote on a continuing resoluntion in the House unless it also includes a partial defunding or partial repeal of Obamacare.

--Almost no one believes that approach will yield any actual results, and it's probably best seen as another symbolic action similar to the 40-some votes the House has taken to repeal Obamacare. For his part Obama has been clear that he has no intention of giving away any part of his signature acheivement.

--There is no disagreement about the level of funding for a continuing resoution. The House and Senate numbers are identical (I believe they're based on the sequester agreement).

--Were a clean resolution to come up for a vote in the House it's almost certain that enough Republicans would defect to pass the bill and fund government. The same is true for the debt limit vote. However, John Boehner, as Speaker of the House, refuses to allow either bill to be voted on.

--No one knows for sure when the debt limit will be breached, but estimates are that it will happen on October 17th. We actually reached the limit in May, but the Treasury Dept has been using up reserves and accounting tricks since then to avoid a default.

--No one knows what will happen in the event of a technical default, or even which step in the default process would trigger whatever negative consequences might occur. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that the consequences would be negative, and increasingly so over time.

--It's the gap between a technical default (presumably on the 17th) and the US actually missing an interest payment that's largely providing the uncertainty. As unlikely as it is, a missed interest payment would trigger legal clauses in mountains of debt worldwide and would cause immediate economic mayhem worldwide. No serious person disputes this.

My opinion is that this entire 'crisis' is all a show, and is best understood as an effort for each side to improve it's negotiating position when we finally get back to working on a long-term budget to replace the sequester (which you can see from the top of this post is what started this mess).

Republicans are hoping that Obama's refusal to give ground on Obamacare in the shutdown/debt limit will result in him being forced to accept additional spending cuts to entitlements without new tax revenues.

Democrats (including me) believe they have the upper hand here and that Republicans will be forced to surrender on both the continuing resolution and the debt limit -- and that surrendering will undermine both their unity and their bargaining strength

.

Fantastic post. Required reading for the mouth-breathers in here, who should all respon point-by-point.

 

[CBusAlex]

Each side has to give something, no matter how small.

What, exactly, has the GOP given so far?

 

[humpback]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

So you think that I should ignore the Tea Party's culpability for this mess, and that instead I should blame both sides equally, because if enough people do, that will pressure Obama and the Dems to budge?

The problem with this, beyond the fact that I DO hold the Republicans responsible for this, is that I don't want Obama to budge. President Obama has made the argument that if he gives in to the Republican demands, it will create a situation in which the shutdown and debt ceiling are always used in the future to extract partisan demands by both sides. He argues that the lesson of 2011 is that this sort of crisis should never happen again. After some consideration, I agree with this stance.

The Republicans need to agree to Obama's latest offer to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which they can THEN negotiate. That's the only way this crisis gets solved, IMO.

What do you call the last time they raised the debt ceiling? And the time before that? And...?

The last time they raised the debt ceiling, the Republicans successfully forced Obama into making concessions, which led to the disastrous sequester cuts. Obama never should have negotiated, because it created a terrible precedent. He is attempting to rectify that now, and I hope he can. We'll see.

Prior to that, neither side ever attempted to use the debt ceiling to gain any substantive policy changes. There were some minor things added, but nothing like 2011 or this time around. This new strategy is courtesy of the Tea Party.

Didn't they "raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which then can THEN negotiate"?

 

[The Commish]

Again, I disagree. Certainly Boehner and many Democrats are looking at everything from a standpoint of election- that's politics, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

I knew you'd be able to come through. I knew that at some point you'd find a way. Good job!!!

This pretty much sums up why we are in this position as a country. If you can't see how looking at things from a political standpoint isn't absolutely killing this country, you're a lost cause and just dust in the wind....holy hell.

The phrase "not necessarily" is not exactly an endorsement.

Overall though, I have to take issue with your blanket statement that it's "absolutely killing this country." I certainly have no love for the "political standpoint." But I also realize that the Tea Party, whom I believe are the ones to blame for this current crisis, are NOT political. They are true believers.

What distinction are you attempting to make here? They are on record saying "we can't back down. we need something out of this. we don't know what we want".....how the is that NOT the VERY definition of political in this case??

 

[The Commish]

Again, I disagree. Certainly Boehner and many Democrats are looking at everything from a standpoint of election- that's politics, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

I knew you'd be able to come through. I knew that at some point you'd find a way. Good job!!!

This pretty much sums up why we are in this position as a country. If you can't see how looking at things from a political standpoint isn't absolutely killing this country, you're a lost cause and just dust in the wind....holy hell.

And you are so ignorant to not see that is exactly what I have been saying from day one of this thread.

You probably confused him with your constant bagging on the Dems during the election cycle without a mention of GOP leadership. If I'm being honest, this is the first time ever I've seen you on the "both sides are terrible" side of things. When did that change?

 

[Scoresman]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Except in this case what's good for the country is for Obama NOT to budge. If he caves, it sets a precedent that any party in the future can avoid proper democratic process and shutdown the government in a similar fashion if they didn't get their way on a bill that has already been passed into law.

 

[The Commish]

Boy are people confused.

--In 2011 the two sides were negotiating over the budget and failed to come to an agreement on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases that would address the long-term budget situation. Specifically Democrats offered a mix, while Republicans insisted on 100% cuts.

--In resonse to the impasse the two sides created a 'sequester' budget that was designed to be so ridiculously bad that it would force them to reach a better deal.

--However, the two sides failed to come to an agreement and the sequester cuts kicked in this year. The CBO estimates that amount of spending cuts in the sequester bill between 2013-2021 are between $1.0 and $1.1 trillion. Those cuts are only to 'discretionary' programs -- split into Defense and everything else. Non-discretionary spending, including the entitlement programs, is not addressed by the sequester.

--Following Obama's reelection the Democrats forced through a tax increase on families earning $250k. Over nine years (the same 2013-2021 time frame covered by the sequester cuts) that tax increase will result in roughly $396 billion of additional revenue. ($440 billion over 10 years is the total I found.)

--As a result spending cuts comprise roughly 73% of the budget balancing done so far, while additional revenues make up about 27%. I'm estimating here based on the numbers I could find. It's possible they're not exact.

--As part of the negotiations on a budget to replace the sequester, Obama has offered to make changes to entitlement programs (again, those programs are non-discretionary and so not included in the sequester), but has insisted that any such changes will be offset by additional revenues. The formulation "additional revenues" allows for the money to be raised by closing loopholes -- not just an increase in the tax rates. Republicans have so far refused that offer and insisted that there will be no new revenues in any deal.

--As a result of this ongoing impasse nothing has happened in terms of a budget that would replace the sequester and the sequester budget will be in effect again for 2014 unless something changes.

--With that as background the Senate passed it's own budget for 2014 and so did the House. The two budgets are dramatically different -- as you'd expect with Congress divided. There is nothing unusual about that. It's happened many times.

--The normal process for reconciling differences in bills passed by the House and the Senate is for both bodies to appoint people to a joint conference between the two bodies and empower them to negotiate a final bill. The Senate appointed these conferees as did House Democrats, but House Republicans refused to do so -- explicitly because they did not intend to compromise and were, somewhat unexpectedly, willing to continue with the sequester.

--As a result, nothing happened with regard to the 2014 budget from March through September. During this time House Republicans were open about their intention to shut down government and use the debt ceiling to gain leverage, extract concessions on the budget and defund Obamacare.

--All year Obama has said that budget negotiations would not happen while government was shut down or if the debt limit was not raised. He sees it as blackmail, and believes that doing so would set a terrible precedent for all Presidents going forward.

--Without a budget in place funding for the government stopped on October 1st. Typically a continuing resolution is passed to allow the functioning of government to continue while the budget is hashed out. However Republicans refuse to allow a vote on a continuing resolution in the House unless it also includes a partial defunding or partial repeal of Obamacare.

--Almost no one believes that approach will yield any actual results, and it's probably best seen as another symbolic act -- similar to the 40-some votes the House has taken to repeal Obamacare. For his part Obama has been clear that he has no intention of giving away any part of his signature acheivement.

--There is no disagreement about the level of funding for a continuing resoution. The House and Senate numbers are identical (I believe they're based on the sequester agreement).

--Were a clean resolution to come up for a vote in the House it's almost certain that enough Republicans would defect to pass the bill and fund government. The same is true for the debt limit vote. However, John Boehner, as Speaker of the House, refuses to allow either bill to be voted on.

--No one knows for sure when the debt limit will be breached, but estimates are that it will happen on October 17th. We actually reached the limit in May, but the Treasury Dept has been using reserves and accounting tricks since then to avoid a default.

--No one knows what will happen in the event of a technical default, or even which step in the default process would trigger whatever negative consequences might occur. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that the consequences would be negative, and increasingly so over time.

--It's the gap between a technical default (presumably on the 17th) and the US actually missing an interest payment that's largely providing the uncertainty. As unlikely as it is, a missed interest payment would trigger legal clauses in mountains of debt and would cause immediate economic mayhem worldwide. No serious person disputes this.

My opinion is that this entire 'crisis' is all a show, and is best understood as an effort for each side to improve its negotiating position when we finally get back to working on a long-term budget to replace the sequester (which you can see from the top of this post is what started this mess).

Republicans are hoping that Obama's refusal to give ground on Obamacare in the shutdown/debt limit will result in him being forced to accept additional spending cuts to entitlements without new tax revenues.

Democrats (including me) believe they have the upper hand here and that Republicans will be forced to surrender on both the continuing resolution and the debt limit -- and that surrendering will undermine both their unity and their bargaining strength.

Awesome...it's a shame most won't read it.

 

[The Commish]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Except in this case what's good for the country is for Obama NOT to budge. If he caves, it sets a precedent that any party in the future can avoid proper democratic process and shutdown the government in a similar fashion if they didn't get their way on a bill that has already been passed into law.

He hasn't "caved" and part of the government's been shut down already. Not sure his "caving" is required. Defunding has always been there...this isn't new. It's just that some have chosen to go scorched earth and use it as the unintended weapon it is. We heard rumblings about this years ago with comments like "it may be law, but we can simply not fund it". That's true of anything...if they wanted to hold any of the other entitlement programs hostage they could. Most understand it's dumb to go that path.

 

[glock]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Except in this case what's good for the country is for Obama NOT to budge. If he caves, it sets a precedent that any party in the future can avoid proper democratic process and shutdown the government in a similar fashion if they didn't get their way on a bill that has already been passed into law.

This. (similarly, this.)

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Each side has to give something, no matter how small.

What, exactly, has the GOP given so far?

To be fair, they conceded defeat on the tax increase after the election. The calculation was that the increase had been part of the 2012 elections and Obama's win made it inevitable. Republicans also believed that giving ground on that increase would help prevent additional increases later.

The argument now is over additional taxes for additional cuts, specifically to entitlement programs.

 

[Slapdash]

Boy are people confused.

--In 2011 the two sides were negotiating over the budget and failed to come to an agreement on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases that would address the long-term budget situation. Specifically Democrats offered a mix, while Republicans insisted on 100% cuts.

--In resonse to the impasse the two sides created a 'sequester' budget that was designed to be so ridiculously bad that it would force them to reach a better deal.

--However, the two sides failed to come to an agreement and the sequester cuts kicked in this year. The CBO estimates that amount of spending cuts in the sequester bill between 2013-2021 are between $1.0 and $1.1 trillion. Those cuts are only to 'discretionary' programs -- split into Defense and everything else. Non-discretionary spending, including the entitlement programs, is not addressed by the sequester.

--Following Obama's reelection the Democrats forced through a tax increase on families earning $250k. Over nine years (the same 2013-2021 time frame covered by the sequester cuts) that tax increase will result in roughly $396 billion of additional revenue. ($440 billion over 10 years is the total I found.)

--As a result spending cuts comprise roughly 73% of the budget balancing done so far, while additional revenues make up about 27%. I'm estimating here based on the numbers I could find. It's possible they're not exact.

--As part of the negotiations on a budget to replace the sequester, Obama has offered to make changes to entitlement programs (again, those programs are non-discretionary and so not included in the sequester), but has insisted that any such changes will be offset by additional revenues. The formulation "additional revenues" allows for the money to be raised by closing loopholes -- not just an increase in the tax rates. Republicans have so far refused that offer and insisted that there will be no new revenues in any deal.

--As a result of this ongoing impasse nothing has happened in terms of a budget that would replace the sequester and the sequester budget will be in effect again for 2014 unless something changes.

--With that as background the Senate passed it's own budget for 2014 and so did the House. The two budgets are dramatically different -- as you'd expect with Congress divided. There is nothing unusual about that. It's happened many times.

--The normal process for reconciling differences in bills passed by the House and the Senate is for both bodies to appoint people to a joint conference between the two bodies and empower them to negotiate a final bill. The Senate appointed these conferees as did House Democrats, but House Republicans refused to do so -- explicitly because they did not intend to compromise and were, somewhat unexpectedly, willing to continue with the sequester.

--As a result, nothing happened with regard to the 2014 budget from March through September. During this time House Republicans were open about their intention to shut down government and use the debt ceiling to gain leverage, extract concessions on the budget and defund Obamacare.

--All year Obama has said that budget negotiations would not happen while government was shut down or if the debt limit was not raised. He sees it as blackmail, and believes that doing so would set a terrible precedent for all Presidents going forward.

--Without a budget in place funding for the government stopped on October 1st. Typically a continuing resolution is passed to allow the functioning of government to continue while the budget is hashed out. However Republicans refuse to allow a vote on a continuing resolution in the House unless it also includes a partial defunding or partial repeal of Obamacare.

--Almost no one believes that approach will yield any actual results, and it's probably best seen as another symbolic act -- similar to the 40-some votes the House has taken to repeal Obamacare. For his part Obama has been clear that he has no intention of giving away any part of his signature acheivement.

--There is no disagreement about the level of funding for a continuing resoution. The House and Senate numbers are identical (I believe they're based on the sequester agreement).

--Were a clean resolution to come up for a vote in the House it's almost certain that enough Republicans would defect to pass the bill and fund government. The same is true for the debt limit vote. However, John Boehner, as Speaker of the House, refuses to allow either bill to be voted on.

--No one knows for sure when the debt limit will be breached, but estimates are that it will happen on October 17th. We actually reached the limit in May, but the Treasury Dept has been using reserves and accounting tricks since then to avoid a default.

--No one knows what will happen in the event of a technical default, or even which step in the default process would trigger whatever negative consequences might occur. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that the consequences would be negative, and increasingly so over time.

--It's the gap between a technical default (presumably on the 17th) and the US actually missing an interest payment that's largely providing the uncertainty. As unlikely as it is, a missed interest payment would trigger legal clauses in mountains of debt and would cause immediate economic mayhem worldwide. No serious person disputes this.

My opinion is that this entire 'crisis' is all a show, and is best understood as an effort for each side to improve its negotiating position when we finally get back to working on a long-term budget to replace the sequester (which you can see from the top of this post is what started this mess).

Republicans are hoping that Obama's refusal to give ground on Obamacare in the shutdown/debt limit will result in him being forced to accept additional spending cuts to entitlements without new tax revenues.

Democrats (including me) believe they have the upper hand here and that Republicans will be forced to surrender on both the continuing resolution and the debt limit -- and that surrendering will undermine both their unity and their bargaining strength.

 

[Slapdash]

Each side has to give something, no matter how small.

What, exactly, has the GOP given so far?

To be fair, they conceded defeat on the tax increase after the election. The calculation was that the increase had been part of the 2012 elections and Obama's win made it inevitable. Republicans also believed that giving ground on that increase would help prevent additional increases later.

The argument now is over additional taxes for additional cuts, specifically to entitlement programs.

Still pissed that we are calling permanently extending the vast majority of the Bush Tax Cuts a "tax increase". Those cuts blew a hole in the budget which will always be with us. It is inevitable that entitlements will be slashed to pay for it. Starving the beast is bipartisan.

 

[Statorama]

So in a nutshell wdcrob's yawner was that D's continue to pound the table to raise taxes and R's continue to pound the table for spending cuts with no tax increases.

Welcome to like forever dude

 

[timschochet]

1. wdcrop, great post!

2. commish, I think we're talking about two different things. Let's table it for now, as it's not really that pertinent to the central issue.

3. wdcrop, I'm not sure that you can call what happened in January a "cave" by Republicans. After all, weren't ALL of the Bush tax cuts supposed to expire? The Republicans managed to prevent this and only a portion of them were raised. And the Dems had to make concessions in other areas just to get this much. But the Tea Party were outraged that taxes went up at all, and somehow this outrage has been translated into 10 months later a "surrender" by Republicans.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Each side has to give something, no matter how small.

What, exactly, has the GOP given so far?

To be fair, they conceded defeat on the tax increase after the election. The calculation was that the increase had been part of the 2012 elections and Obama's win made it inevitable. Republicans also believed that giving ground on that increase would help prevent additional increases later.

The argument now is over additional taxes for additional cuts, specifically to entitlement programs.

Still pissed that we are calling permanently extending the vast majority of the Bush Tax Cuts a "tax increase". Those cuts blew a hole in the budget which will always be with us. It is inevitable that entitlements will be slashed to pay for it. Starving the beast is bipartisan.

I agree with the effect of the Bush tax cuts, but I don't think that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for the middle class was ever an option while extending them for everyone was a possibility. So the net effect vs realistic scenarios is a tax increase.

 

[RCon]

3. wdcrop, I'm not sure that you can call what happened in January a "cave" by Republicans. After all, weren't ALL of the Bush tax cuts supposed to expire? The Republicans managed to prevent this and only a portion of them were raised. And the Dems had to make concessions in other areas just to get this much. But the Tea Party were outraged that taxes went up at all, and somehow this outrage has been translated into 10 months later a "surrender" by Republicans.

Wait, what? Dems wanted all cuts except the highest earners to be extended. GOP wanted all cuts to be extended. How is what happened anything other than a full concession by the GOP? What concessions did the Dems make at that time in return?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

So in a nutshell wdcrob's yawner was that D's continue to pound the table to raise taxes and cut spending and R's continue to pound the table for spending cuts with no tax increases.

FYP. Obama has made specific offers to reform entitlements.

If you haven't heard of them, no surprise. Boehner apparently didn't tell his caucus either judging from their reaction when reporters asked about it.

 

[jon_mx]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Both political parties believe that what is good for their party is good for the country.

I don't want to defend politics- it can be very ugly and corrupt and everything the Commish wrote about it is largely true- at times. That's the way it's always been. But I'll still take self-serving politicians over true believers any day of the week. It's the populist movements, with their simplistic answers to complex questions, which usually lead to our biggest problems.

BS....neither side thinks this shutdown is good. They are both staying in this fight for purely partisan political reasons hoping to win points in the polls and nothing else. And your elitist holier than thou attitude bites too. The best solutions are usually the simplists ones. These are not complex issues. We are spending a ton more than we take in. We have to take in more and spend less. It does not get much simplier than that. Worrying about all the neuances of Obamacare or particular Defense spending or whatever else is making everyone blind of what the big picture is. Those are problems for subject experts, not Congress. Leadership solves the big issues and leaves all the complex questions to people who know.

 

[jon_mx]

Again, I disagree. Certainly Boehner and many Democrats are looking at everything from a standpoint of election- that's politics, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

I knew you'd be able to come through. I knew that at some point you'd find a way. Good job!!!

This pretty much sums up why we are in this position as a country. If you can't see how looking at things from a political standpoint isn't absolutely killing this country, you're a lost cause and just dust in the wind....holy hell.

And you are so ignorant to not see that is exactly what I have been saying from day one of this thread.

You probably confused him with your constant bagging on the Dems during the election cycle without a mention of GOP leadership. If I'm being honest, this is the first time ever I've seen you on the "both sides are terrible" side of things. When did that change?

I have never been high on the GOP for anything. The Dems just usually suck a lot more.

 

[timschochet]

3. wdcrop, I'm not sure that you can call what happened in January a "cave" by Republicans. After all, weren't ALL of the Bush tax cuts supposed to expire? The Republicans managed to prevent this and only a portion of them were raised. And the Dems had to make concessions in other areas just to get this much. But the Tea Party were outraged that taxes went up at all, and somehow this outrage has been translated into 10 months later a "surrender" by Republicans.

Wait, what? Dems wanted all cuts except the highest earners to be extended. GOP wanted all cuts to be extended. How is what happened anything other than a full concession by the GOP? What concessions did the Dems make at that time in return?

It was a compromise. The Dems wanted it to be on people earning $250,000 or more. The Republicans moved that to $400,000. Both sides made concessions. Now it's seen as a cave, but it shouldn't be.

 

[Gr00vus]

Boy are people confused.

--In 2011 the two sides were negotiating over the budget and failed to come to an agreement on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases that would address the long-term budget situation. Specifically Democrats offered a mix, while Republicans insisted on 100% cuts.

--In resonse to the impasse the two sides created a 'sequester' budget that was designed to be so ridiculously bad that it would force them to reach a better deal.

--However, the two sides failed to come to an agreement and the sequester cuts kicked in this year. The CBO estimates that amount of spending cuts in the sequester bill between 2013-2021 are between $1.0 and $1.1 trillion. Those cuts are only to 'discretionary' programs -- split into Defense and everything else. Non-discretionary spending, including the entitlement programs, is not addressed by the sequester.

--Following Obama's reelection the Democrats forced through a tax increase on families earning $250k. Over nine years (the same 2013-2021 time frame covered by the sequester cuts) that tax increase will result in roughly $396 billion of additional revenue. ($440 billion over 10 years is the total I found.)

--As a result spending cuts comprise roughly 73% of the budget balancing done so far, while additional revenues make up about 27%. I'm estimating here based on the numbers I could find. It's possible they're not exact.

--As part of the negotiations on a budget to replace the sequester, Obama has offered to make changes to entitlement programs (again, those programs are non-discretionary and so not included in the sequester), but has insisted that any such changes will be offset by additional revenues. The formulation "additional revenues" allows for the money to be raised by closing loopholes -- not just an increase in the tax rates. Republicans have so far refused that offer and insisted that there will be no new revenues in any deal.

--As a result of this ongoing impasse nothing has happened in terms of a budget that would replace the sequester and the sequester budget will be in effect again for 2014 unless something changes.

--With that as background the Senate passed it's own budget for 2014 and so did the House. The two budgets are dramatically different -- as you'd expect with Congress divided. There is nothing unusual about that. It's happened many times.

--The normal process for reconciling differences in bills passed by the House and the Senate is for both bodies to appoint people to a joint conference between the two bodies and empower them to negotiate a final bill. The Senate appointed these conferees as did House Democrats, but House Republicans refused to do so -- explicitly because they did not intend to compromise and were, somewhat unexpectedly, willing to continue with the sequester.

--As a result, nothing happened with regard to the 2014 budget from March through September. During this time House Republicans were open about their intention to shut down government and use the debt ceiling to gain leverage, extract concessions on the budget and defund Obamacare.

--All year Obama has said that budget negotiations would not happen while government was shut down or if the debt limit was not raised. He sees it as blackmail, and believes that doing so would set a terrible precedent for all Presidents going forward.

--Without a budget in place funding for the government stopped on October 1st. Typically a continuing resolution is passed to allow the functioning of government to continue while the budget is hashed out. However Republicans refuse to allow a vote on a continuing resolution in the House unless it also includes a partial defunding or partial repeal of Obamacare.

--Almost no one believes that approach will yield any actual results, and it's probably best seen as another symbolic act -- similar to the 40-some votes the House has taken to repeal Obamacare. For his part Obama has been clear that he has no intention of giving away any part of his signature acheivement.

--There is no disagreement about the level of funding for a continuing resoution. The House and Senate numbers are identical (I believe they're based on the sequester agreement).

--Were a clean resolution to come up for a vote in the House it's almost certain that enough Republicans would defect to pass the bill and fund government. The same is true for the debt limit vote. However, John Boehner, as Speaker of the House, refuses to allow either bill to be voted on.

--No one knows for sure when the debt limit will be breached, but estimates are that it will happen on October 17th. We actually reached the limit in May, but the Treasury Dept has been using reserves and accounting tricks since then to avoid a default.

--No one knows what will happen in the event of a technical default, or even which step in the default process would trigger whatever negative consequences might occur. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that the consequences would be negative, and increasingly so over time.

--It's the gap between a technical default (presumably on the 17th) and the US actually missing an interest payment that's largely providing the uncertainty. As unlikely as it is, a missed interest payment would trigger legal clauses in mountains of debt and would cause immediate economic mayhem worldwide. No serious person disputes this.

My opinion is that this entire 'crisis' is all a show, and is best understood as an effort for each side to improve its negotiating position when we finally get back to working on a long-term budget to replace the sequester (which you can see from the top of this post is what started this mess).

Republicans are hoping that Obama's refusal to give ground on Obamacare in the shutdown/debt limit will result in him being forced to accept additional spending cuts to entitlements without new tax revenues.

Democrats (including me) believe they have the upper hand here and that Republicans will be forced to surrender on both the continuing resolution and the debt limit -- and that surrendering will undermine both their unity and their bargaining strength.

bookmark

 

[timschochet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/heritage-debt-ceiling_n_4070242.html

WASHINGTON -- A crack appeared Wednesday morning in the conservatives' united front against President Barack Obama in the budget-and-borrowing crisis of 2013.

Michael Needham, CEO of the powerful group Heritage Action, said that he opposed conditioning a crucial vote to increase the government's borrowing authority on the group's main goal: defunding Obamacare.

Under questioning at a breakfast with reporters, hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Needham, a product of the Stanford Business School, conceded that failure to raise the debt ceiling would indeed disrupt the global economy.

"I'm sure the markets will react negatively," he said, even if, as he suggested was possible, the Treasury could "prioritize" interest payments to foreign bondholders.

Rather than try to hold the debt ceiling vote hostage to the defunding of Obamacare, he said, the better "tactical" course for Heritage and other key foes of the administration is to continue to focus on annual spending -- and on allowing the full opening of government only if Obamacare is dismantled.

"No, we should raise the debt limit," he said, though he added that he would oppose an increase that extends until after the 2014 election, which is Obama's preferred outcome.

But with regards to the government shutdown, Needham insisted that his group would continue to oppose any continuing resolution -- no matter how short in duration -- that did not defund the health care law.

"My tactic is to focus on the CR," he said.

Matt Kibbe, the president and CEO of the influential conservative group FreedomWorks, also said in a Wednesday interview with The Huffington Post that the debt ceiling should be raised in order to keep the Obamacare fight focused on the continuing resolution.

"This is an emerging set of opinions that looks to be where everybody's gravitating to," he said.

Heritage Action, funded by small donors, corporate allies and wealthy individuals Needham refused to name -- other than the Koch Brothers, who he said had given $500,000 -- has become a powerhouse in a new generation of conservative groups.

It operates on a model developed by Evangelical activists, producing informative -- and politically inflammatory -- "scorecards" that rate lawmakers' ideological purity based on their many votes.

The group organized a series of public events and town halls this summer to oppose Obamacare, which the group regards as the next nose under the camel's tent of a bankrupt entitlement state.

Needham thinks that Social Security needs "fundamental" change and that other entitlement programs are unfairly burdening Millennials.

But he indicated at the Wednesday breakfast that his disdain for Obamacare did not extend to the debt ceiling vote.

That could give Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) at least a smidgen of room to maneuver if and when they decide to strike an overall deal: the White House could get a "clean" debt ceiling vote (though of short duration) and the GOP could get a concession or two on the continuing resolution to fund the government's annual spending.

 

[timschochet]

So if I'm reading that correctly, the new conservative strategy might be to simply raise the debt ceiling, taking it off the table, but keeping the shutdown in place in order to try and force a defunding of Obamacare. Interesting.

 

[sporthenry]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Huh? As long as nobody points any fingers or people point fingers at everyone, it ensures nothing gets done. What incentive would either have if none of them were held accountable for anything? If you don't hold the GOP accountable here, then next time, that gives the Dems the right to shut the government down and we have to blame everyone. See how that works?

This whole vote 'em all out is part of the problem. We allow this petulant behavior and hold nobody responsible. Kind of like when the whole class gets punished for the 1 kid acting up. Well if there are no consequences for that 1 kid, then why expect his behavior to change?

 

[dparker713]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Why do you not think that the GOP signing a CR at the levels they requested is a possible outcome?

 

[Scoresman]

So the New York Times article detailing the plan to defund the affordable care act has exploded across media now. It seems Republicans have been caught with their pants around their ankles wanking into a glory hole in the shape of the Koch brothers lizard-lipped mouths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmGqCOwy2U

Everyone here needs to read this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[timschochet]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Huh? As long as nobody points any fingers or people point fingers at everyone, it ensures nothing gets done. What incentive would either have if none of them were held accountable for anything? If you don't hold the GOP accountable here, then next time, that gives the Dems the right to shut the government down and we have to blame everyone. See how that works?

This whole vote 'em all out is part of the problem. We allow this petulant behavior and hold nobody responsible. Kind of like when the whole class gets punished for the 1 kid acting up. Well if there are no consequences for that 1 kid, then why expect his behavior to change?

Your point is well taken, obviously. But jon's motivation behind his remarks is that he does not want to see conservatives blamed for anything. By blaming both sides, he can avoid this. The next time jon mx criticizes conservatism in any manner, without stipulation that the other side is just as guilty or more guilty, will be the first time.

 

[dparker713]

You guys are taking this thing WAY too seriously

Despite whatever bull#### Fox is spewing, there is no such thing as an ordered default. Ripping $80 billion per month out of the economy overnight would have disastrous impact regardless of the effect on our borrowing power and interest rates. You just aren't taking this seriously enough.

 

[dparker713]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

So you think that I should ignore the Tea Party's culpability for this mess, and that instead I should blame both sides equally, because if enough people do, that will pressure Obama and the Dems to budge?

The problem with this, beyond the fact that I DO hold the Republicans responsible for this, is that I don't want Obama to budge. President Obama has made the argument that if he gives in to the Republican demands, it will create a situation in which the shutdown and debt ceiling are always used in the future to extract partisan demands by both sides. He argues that the lesson of 2011 is that this sort of crisis should never happen again. After some consideration, I agree with this stance.

The Republicans need to agree to Obama's latest offer to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which they can THEN negotiate. That's the only way this crisis gets solved, IMO.

That is not how any crisis is ever resolved. Each side has to give something, no matter how small. See Cuban Missile Crisis. Either my way or the highway is a position of failure. All people have pride and Obama is being a jackass for not throwing out some bread crum so that everyone can save face. Complete lack of leadership whether you are willing to admit it or not.

What exactly does Obama get? He's not getting his funding levels. Both sides claim to want to re-open the government and avoid default. So what exactly would Obama be getting? What breadcrumb?

 

[timschochet]

Damn, John Podhoretz ripping his fellow conservatives- "Suicide of the Right":

http://nypost.com/2013/10/08/suicide-of-the-right/

Every piece of evidence we have so far on the government shutdown shows the public is blaming Republicans most of all for the standoff. On Monday, an ABC poll showed 71 percent fault the GOP; 61 percent fault Congressional Democrats; 51 percent fault President Obama.

Yes, Democrats look bad. Yes, Obama is probably doing himself no favors by saying he won’t negotiate when the public wants politicians in Washington to work together.

But Republicans look considerably worse. And for the Right, the Republican Party is the only game in town.

This is what my fellow conservatives who are acting as the enablers for irresponsible GOP politicians seem not to understand. They like this fight, because they think they’re helping to hold the line on ObamaCare and government spending. They think that they’re supported by a vast silent majority of Americans who dislike what they dislike and want what they want.

I dislike what they dislike. I want what they want. But I fear they are very, very wrong about the existence of this silent majority, and that their misperception is leading them to do significant damage to the already damaged Republican “brand.” (Forgive me for making use of that horribly overused term, but it’s the only one that fits.)

The belief that the public is with them is based on two data points: First, twice as many people say they’re conservative as say they are liberal. And second, ObamaCare is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the American people.

Both are true.

But it has been true for more than 20 years that Americans are twice as likely to call themselves conservative — and in that time Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of six national elections. The statistic tells us little about how Americans vote or what they vote for.

And it is true that, according to Real Clear Politics, Americans disapprove of ObamaCare, 51 percent to 40 percent. It is unpopular. But it is not wildly, devastatingly unpopular — though given the fact that it is now rolling out and appears to be as incompetently executed as it was badly conceived, it may yet become so.

If ObamaCare had been as unpopular as conservatives believed, their plan for the shutdown — that there would be a public uprising to force Democratic senators in close races in 2014 to defund it — would’ve worked. It didn’t. Not a single senator budged.

Their tactic failed, and now what they are left with is House Speaker John Boehner basically begging the president of the United States to negotiate with him.

One thing we know for sure is that it’s not an equal fight, this fight between a man who received 65 million votes nationwide and a man who received 246,000 votes in one congressional district in Ohio.

Meanwhile, Boehner is basically the face of the US Congress in the eyes of the public. John Boehner is also the effective head of the Republican Party. And the US Congress is viewed favorably by . . . 11 percent of Americans.

Eleven percent.

When I interact with these conservatives, they say they don’t care about the GOP; what they care about are conservative ideas.

They’re right not to assign special glory or power to a political organization and to hold ideas above party. But here’s the condundrum: There is only one electoral vehicle for conservative ideas in the United States — the Republican Party.

It’s one thing to refuse to waste your time buffing and polishing the vehicle so that it looks nice and pretty; that’s what political hacks do, and ideologues have every right to disdain such frippery.

But if, in the guise of making the vehicle function better, you muck up the engine, smash the windshield, put the wrong tires on it and pour antifreeze in the gas tank, you are impeding its forward movement. You’re ruining it, not repairing it.

It may not have been a very good vehicle in the first place, and you may think it couldn’t drive worse, but oh man, could it ever. And it’s the only one you’ve got.

 

[Slapdash]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

So you think that I should ignore the Tea Party's culpability for this mess, and that instead I should blame both sides equally, because if enough people do, that will pressure Obama and the Dems to budge?

The problem with this, beyond the fact that I DO hold the Republicans responsible for this, is that I don't want Obama to budge. President Obama has made the argument that if he gives in to the Republican demands, it will create a situation in which the shutdown and debt ceiling are always used in the future to extract partisan demands by both sides. He argues that the lesson of 2011 is that this sort of crisis should never happen again. After some consideration, I agree with this stance.

The Republicans need to agree to Obama's latest offer to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for a short period of time during which they can THEN negotiate. That's the only way this crisis gets solved, IMO.

That is not how any crisis is ever resolved. Each side has to give something, no matter how small. See Cuban Missile Crisis. Either my way or the highway is a position of failure. All people have pride and Obama is being a jackass for not throwing out some bread crum so that everyone can save face. Complete lack of leadership whether you are willing to admit it or not.

What exactly does Obama get? He's not getting his funding levels. Both sides claim to want to re-open the government and avoid default. So what exactly would Obama be getting? What breadcrumb?

Evidently the Tea Party thinks just passing a CR is a huge concession to Obama.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Can somebody tell ol' John Podhoretz to zip it for another ten days or so?

 

[dparker713]

JoJo's polling, from Newt's article, is dated anyhow. Yesterday evening I linked a more recent poll- 70% of the public, including the majority of independents, blame this mess on Republicans. The "equal blame" argument isn't flying with the public.

Dated how, it's from 10/7/13?!? You are telling me the respondents pulled a 180 in 2 days? Shut up.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/cnn-shutdown-poll-plenty-of-blame-to-go-around/

NOTE: Newt isn't the one that originally said the public are angry at Democrats.

Not surprisingly, huge majorities of Democrats are angry at the Republicans, and huge majorities of Republicans are angry at Obama and Democrats. Independents are equally angry at all sides, with 59% of Independents very or somewhat angry at the Democrats, six in 10 angry at the GOP, and 58% angry at Obama.

You do realize that Newt claimed there was a trend and only cited 1 relevant poll, right?

 

[RCon]

3. wdcrop, I'm not sure that you can call what happened in January a "cave" by Republicans. After all, weren't ALL of the Bush tax cuts supposed to expire? The Republicans managed to prevent this and only a portion of them were raised. And the Dems had to make concessions in other areas just to get this much. But the Tea Party were outraged that taxes went up at all, and somehow this outrage has been translated into 10 months later a "surrender" by Republicans.

Wait, what? Dems wanted all cuts except the highest earners to be extended. GOP wanted all cuts to be extended. How is what happened anything other than a full concession by the GOP? What concessions did the Dems make at that time in return?

It was a compromise. The Dems wanted it to be on people earning $250,000 or more. The Republicans moved that to $400,000. Both sides made concessions. Now it's seen as a cave, but it shouldn't be.

I'd judge that 95% cave, 5% compromise.

 

[jon_mx]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Huh? As long as nobody points any fingers or people point fingers at everyone, it ensures nothing gets done. What incentive would either have if none of them were held accountable for anything? If you don't hold the GOP accountable here, then next time, that gives the Dems the right to shut the government down and we have to blame everyone. See how that works?

This whole vote 'em all out is part of the problem. We allow this petulant behavior and hold nobody responsible. Kind of like when the whole class gets punished for the 1 kid acting up. Well if there are no consequences for that 1 kid, then why expect his behavior to change?

Your point is well taken, obviously. But jon's motivation behind his remarks is that he does not want to see conservatives blamed for anything. By blaming both sides, he can avoid this. The next time jon mx criticizes conservatism in any manner, without stipulation that the other side is just as guilty or more guilty, will be the first time.

GTFO Tim....i have said Time after Time after Time after Time after Time both sides are to blame. Both sides have to sit down and come to some agreement. YOU are the one taking the position that Democrats are faultless.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

And Tim, there is a huge difference between playing poltics to advance what is good for the country, and playing politics to advance what is good for my party. Both sides here only care about their party. And they is why they both suck and both are to blame.

Except in this case what's good for the country is for Obama NOT to budge. If he caves, it sets a precedent that any party in the future can avoid proper democratic process and shutdown the government in a similar fashion if they didn't get their way on a bill that has already been passed into law.

You forgot the footnote:

A bill that has changed since it left the House before becoming law.

 

[Scoresman]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Huh? As long as nobody points any fingers or people point fingers at everyone, it ensures nothing gets done. What incentive would either have if none of them were held accountable for anything? If you don't hold the GOP accountable here, then next time, that gives the Dems the right to shut the government down and we have to blame everyone. See how that works?

This whole vote 'em all out is part of the problem. We allow this petulant behavior and hold nobody responsible. Kind of like when the whole class gets punished for the 1 kid acting up. Well if there are no consequences for that 1 kid, then why expect his behavior to change?

Your point is well taken, obviously. But jon's motivation behind his remarks is that he does not want to see conservatives blamed for anything. By blaming both sides, he can avoid this. The next time jon mx criticizes conservatism in any manner, without stipulation that the other side is just as guilty or more guilty, will be the first time.

GTFO Tim....i have said Time after Time after Time after Time after Time both sides are to blame. Both sides have to sit down and come to some agreement. YOU are the one taking the position that Democrats are faultless.

Can you please address the point that if Obama caves then it sets a precedent for future Congresses, regardless of which party has majority, to avoid proper government channels and hold the government hostage until they get what they want?

 

[jon_mx]

If he caves, it sets a precedent that any party in the future can avoid proper democratic process and shutdown the government in a similar fashion if they didn't get their way on a bill that has already been passed into law.

There is no such thing as proper democratic process. It is all bs spin. Each side uses every tool they can get away with and always will. Obama is not standing for any principle. He is standing to try to crush the GOP.

ETA: Clinton and Newt eventually came to an agreement in an exact same situation, and our democratic process did not come to an end....

In fact, it was one of the most productive agreements in the last 40 years which came out of it.

 

[jon_mx]

As long as the public takes sides in this, nothing will get done. As long as there are enough Tim-types who blame the GOP 100% for this, Obama and the Dems will not budge and we will be at a stand still. I will continue holding my 'extremist' position of holding all parties responsible for this mess. These children need to get together in the same room and find some common ground somewhere to get this thing done. There is nothing hard about it. There are a million possible solutions. Find one and stop playing the blame game.

Huh? As long as nobody points any fingers or people point fingers at everyone, it ensures nothing gets done. What incentive would either have if none of them were held accountable for anything? If you don't hold the GOP accountable here, then next time, that gives the Dems the right to shut the government down and we have to blame everyone. See how that works?

This whole vote 'em all out is part of the problem. We allow this petulant behavior and hold nobody responsible. Kind of like when the whole class gets punished for the 1 kid acting up. Well if there are no consequences for that 1 kid, then why expect his behavior to change?

Your point is well taken, obviously. But jon's motivation behind his remarks is that he does not want to see conservatives blamed for anything. By blaming both sides, he can avoid this. The next time jon mx criticizes conservatism in any manner, without stipulation that the other side is just as guilty or more guilty, will be the first time.

GTFO Tim....i have said Time after Time after Time after Time after Time both sides are to blame. Both sides have to sit down and come to some agreement. YOU are the one taking the position that Democrats are faultless.

Can you please address the point that if Obama caves then it sets a precedent for future Congresses, regardless of which party has majority, to avoid proper government channels and hold the government hostage until they get what they want?

Just did.

 

[TheIronSheik]

No Deadliest Catch possibly because of shutdown?!? Now I'm pissed.

A spokesperson for Discovery said he did not know if production would be hindered by the shutdown.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

JoJo's polling, from Newt's article, is dated anyhow. Yesterday evening I linked a more recent poll- 70% of the public, including the majority of independents, blame this mess on Republicans. The "equal blame" argument isn't flying with the public.

Dated how, it's from 10/7/13?!? You are telling me the respondents pulled a 180 in 2 days? Shut up.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/cnn-shutdown-poll-plenty-of-blame-to-go-around/

NOTE: Newt isn't the one that originally said the public are angry at Democrats.

Not surprisingly, huge majorities of Democrats are angry at the Republicans, and huge majorities of Republicans are angry at Obama and Democrats. Independents are equally angry at all sides, with 59% of Independents very or somewhat angry at the Democrats, six in 10 angry at the GOP, and 58% angry at Obama.

You do realize that Newt claimed there was a trend and only cited 1 relevant poll, right?

You know it helps to make your point if you can quote what you are talking about. I just searched the article, no mention of trend, nope.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

No Deadliest Catch possibly because of shutdown?!? Now I'm pissed.

A spokesperson for Discovery said he did not know if production would be hindered by the shutdown.

Did Obama shutdown the Pacific Ocean this time?