The real battle is not about the fiscal cliff/bunny slope. Taxes are going to go up if there is no deal and Republicans will pay the price for a middle class tax increase. (I hope any passing of a middle class tax cut in January is accompanied by a debt limit increase to pay for it.) The real struggle we face, the defining battle of President Obama's second term, is whether we will normalize economic terrorism by rewarding Republicans for taking the debt ceiling hostage.
Last week President Obama told business leaders that he would not play the debt ceiling game with Republicans:
President Obama said Wednesday that he would not let Republicans use the nation’s debt ceiling as a negotiating point in efforts to keep automatic spending cuts and tax increases from taking effect next month.
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“The thinking is the Republicans will have more leverage because there will be another vote on the debt ceiling, and we will try to extract more concessions with a stronger hand on the debt ceiling,” Obama told members of the Business Roundtable. “That is a bad strategy for America, it’s a bad strategy for your businesses, and it is not a game that I will play.”
WaPo
Recently Senator McConnell and Senator Graham, among others, promised to use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to demand draconian cuts in social welfare programs such as Medicare or Medicaid (or even Social Security). But the Republicans are a minority in the Senate and have a 17 vote majority in the House next year. They cannot achieve their hideous policies through the normal political process, which involves the Senate and the President's signing of a bill.
So they will take a hostage: the American economy. They will put a gun to the hostage's head and threaten to destroy our economy unless they are given what they could not achieve in the elections.
If the Republicans can extort the government to impose their policies by putting a gun to the head of our nation, over and over again, then our nation is lost. Destroying our democracy through economic terrorism is a price that cannot be paid.
Today many Democrats are coming together behind President Obama's vow not to negotiate with these hostage-takers.
"I don’t think the country will stand for it and I think Democrats will make it clear that you cannot threaten the economy of the United States for your political purposes,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said in response to a question from TPM on Wednesday.
Rank and file Democrats are starting to back him up.
Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) is circulating among colleagues a letter to President Obama, to affirm their support for his no-hostage strategy — and beyond that for him using extraordinary means to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt obligations.
“We fully support your view that Congress should not ‘play this game,’” the letter reads. “Threatening default on our nation’s debt is an economic weapon of mass destruction that will have immediate and catastrophic consequences for the economy as well as America’s standing in the world. In the event the Speaker follows through on his reckless threat, we would support your use of any authority available to you, including the 14th amendment, to preserve America’s full faith and credit and prevent further damage to our economy.”
Welch’s has just begun circulating his letter, and has thus far gathered a dozen signatures.
snip
Conversations with top Democrats and aides all back up the idea the party will not accede to any GOP debt limit demands if current budget negotiations fall apart.
TPM
Whether the 14th Amendment is used or we go through cuts while there is no debt ceiling (avoiding formal default by paying bondholders), we must fight for America.
That is the end game: standing up to Republican extortion and ending this practice before it is normalized.