At yesterday’s meeting in the White House, John Boehner floated a possible solution to the shutdown and debt ceiling hostage crisis: a Grand Bargain, according to Jake Sherman and Carrie Budoff Brown and Robert Costa, who adds that Boehner brought up the idea himself. Yes – the elusive Grand Bargain, like Bigfoot, has been spotted again.
... SNIP ...
So: What happens when the defunders realize the budget deal is not going to destroy Obamacare, and the anti-defunders realize it is going to include higher taxes? The answer is that John Boehner gets run out of town on a rail. There’s nothing a deal like that could include — not even a provision impeaching Obama and deporting him to Kenya — that could make it acceptable to the right-wing base.
Boehner's Next Stage of Grief: Grand Bargaining
So, there you have it. Yes, Obama wants to make some bad changes to Social Security and Medicare. But he does want a price for that from the GOP, and they simply will not pay the price.
The Republican Party truly stands for only one thing: lower taxes on the rich. That is their entire reason for existing, and the taxes on the rich included in the ACA are (IMNHO) one of the main reasons it is anathema to them. Taxing rich people to save poor people's lives, especially when many of those poor are the wrong color, is opposed to everything they stand for.
More below the Orange Squiggle of Power.
You're going to hear rumors of a Grand Bargain, and rumors about what it will entail. Until you see Paul Ryan stand up and say he's willing to see taxes on the rich raised as part of that Grand Bargain - in public, where Grover Norquist can hear him - ignore the rumors. They are just Boehner trying desperately to keep his base from throwing him overboard. Consider this quote:
"I think there's a sense that for us to do a clean CR now -- then what the hell was this about?" one Republican House member told me. "So I don't think it's going to end anytime soon."
Or this
one:
"It was very evident to everyone in the room that Cruz doesn’t have a strategy – he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was,” said one senator who attended the meeting. “I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today at lunch.
They've taken a hostage, and now feel they must get
something for the hostage. And they don't know what, but if they don't get it, they will feel disrespected. Humiliated. Powerless.
Thought number one: Good. President Obama and Senator Reid must ensure that they are utterly humiliated. That way, we can go another 17 years before these sub-cretin unpatriotic slime try this again.
Thought number two: Ted Cruz had better walk a fine line, or that anger will be turned on him rather than Obama and Reid. I think it already has begun, and the longer the shutdown continues without any sign of a clue from Cruz, the more that will continue. Unless he displays emotional intelligence rather than IQ intelligence, he's not going to be the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016, or anything close to it.
Thought number three: The GOP base has to be watching this in growing disbelief. Despite Faux Noise dubbing this a "government slimdown" and lovely photo-ops at the WWII Memorial, they must realize at some level that they aren't winning anything, and that they are powerless to stop Obamacare. It is going to be interesting to see if that redoubles their efforts for 2014, or diminishes them. If Obamacare actually works, I suspect they will be disheartened for 2014.
Conclusion: Crisis = opportunity. Continued resolve by the President and Majority Leader Reid, plus hard work by Democrats for 2014, could flip the House and return the gavel to Nancy Pelosi.
And that would be a very good thing.
Oh, and BTW - there's not going to be a Grand Bargain. I'll bet any takers recommendations for their first 10 diaries of 2014 (versus 10 recommendations for mine) that no Grand Bargain is endorsed by President Obama by the end of 2013, regardless of the febrile dreams of John Boehner, worst Speaker ever.
Edit:
Krugthulu read a different Chait article and agrees with him that we're headed for a debt default because the House GOP is truly backed into a corner. They can't back down, and Obama can't give them anything.
Edit #2: Obama asking for debt ceiling.
In their first meeting since a budget impasse shuttered many federal operations, President Obama told Republican leaders on Wednesday that he would negotiate with them only after they agreed to the funding needed to reopen the government and also to an essential increase in the nation’s debt limit, without add-ons.
He's holding firm. And they just don't know how to handle that.