The only acceptable outcome
Greg Sargent warns Democrats to be wary:
The reporting today suggests Republicans will continue to insist Dems enter into formal talks on spending and debt as a precondition to lifting the debt limit. On the surface, that seems like standard Washington posturing. Republicans want to be able to say they won something — we forced Democrats to come to the table to deal! — in exchange for a debt limit hike, which they are defining (falsely) as a big concession. But Republicans are privately confiding that a lot more is at stake than merely “saving face.”
And he quotes the
Washington Examiner's
David Drucker:
For House Republicans, the fight over the debt ceiling isn’t just about fiscal reform. The battle that spawned a government shutdown is also very much about preserving the GOP majority’s relevance in future policy debates.
At issue isn’t whether House Republicans should accept a bad deal to raise the federal borrowing limit and ensure the U.S. does not default on its $16.7 trillion debt. Republicans are concerned that the refusal of President Obama and Senate Democrats to negotiate those issues with Republicans would establish a precedent making it impossible to haggle over future debt limit increases or to use them as leverage in other policy negotiations.
That has only reaffirmed to House Republican leaders — who wanted to avoid a government shutdown — that they have no choice but to stand their ground on the debt ceiling. Surrounded by a hostile White House and Senate, and with few legislative avenues beyond borrowing and spending bills to impose their agenda, Republicans said capitulating to Obama would cede to Democrats the only institutional authority Republicans possess.
For Republicans, simply agreeing to raise the debt limit, without getting anything in return, represents a surrender of their ability to use future debt limit deadlines as leverage in policy disputes. This gets at precisely the crux of the disagreement between the two parties.
And Sargent points out that this gets to the heart of the entire argument. For both sides, this is about much more than Obamacare or entitlement cuts, it's about the nature of governance. If the Democrats give anything at all, it will ensure that the Republican politics of extortion continues, and that Republicans will continue to threaten to shut down the government and blow up the economy every time they don't get their way. Which will be often, given that the electorate keeps voting to prevent them from getting their way. Even just an agreement to talk won't really appease the Republicans, because when talks inevitably lead to disagreements, and to the Republicans once again not getting their way on policies the voters have rejected, they'll just throw more tantrums. Because Republicans don't want to talk or negotiate, they want their way. Period. And will stop at nothing to try to get their way.
(More beneath the fold)
Sargent:
Democrats believe standard policy negotiations should proceed outside a context in which the threat of harm to the country — whether through default or a continued government shutdown — gives one side unilateral leverage. Republicans want to retain that leverage; indeed, they see it as crucial to the House’s “institutional authority,” at least while they are in control of it. But even if you accept this definition of the House’s “institutional authority,” Democrats believe that what’s at stake here is governing norms, and that if they aren’t restored, this cycle will repeat itself, making future default and widespread economic destruction all but assured.
This is about process, not policy. It is about the failure of Republican ideology. It is about political anachronisms trying to change or break the system as a last ditch effort to prevent their political extinction.
Sargent:
But Dems need to be very cognizant of the fact that Republicans are fully intent on holding on to the debt ceiling as leverage to extort concessions in the future. If they agree to anything that actually cedes something real in exchange for a debt limit hike — such as real talks under threat conditions — they will have merely postponed the inevitable need to win the larger argument that has paralyzed the system.
The Democrats must break the Republican will to play political brinksmanship. The Republican tantrums will grow louder and even more desperate, but they must not be in any way appeased. The Republicans must not only lose, they must know they have lost. They must know that any future attempts at such political tactics not only won't work, but will succeed in causing them more pain. Much more pain. Republicans may not be smart enough to understand what's happening, but they do have a basic animal instinct to avoid pain.