POLITICAL BUZZ
By Bonnie K. Goodman
Ms. Goodman is the Editor of History Musings. She has a BA in History & Art History & a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University, and has done graduate work in history at Concordia University.
THE HEADLINES: DEBT CEILING SHOWDOWN: OBAMA VS CONGRESSIONAL LEADER
President Barack Obama sits next to House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, left, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Saturday, July 23, 2011, in Washington, as they meet to discuss the debt. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
JULY 23, 2011: OBAMA MEETS WITH CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE — NO DEAL IN SIGHT
Boehner tells GOP he plans to unveil new debt strategy within 24 hours: House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told his troops Saturday that he hopes to roll out a two-step strategy within the next 24 hours for raising the federal debt limit and restraining the national debt to avoid roiling Asian financial markets when they open Sunday, according to a participant in the conference call.
In the call with his House GOP colleagues, Boehner said he still hopes to slice as much as $4 trillion out of the federal budget over the next decade, despite the collapse of talks with President Obama on Friday over a bipartisan “grand bargain” to reduce the government’s spiraling debt…. –
- President Barack Obama’s Weekly Address: A Bipartisan Approach to Strengthening the Economy — WH, 7-23-11
- Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Delivers the Weekly Republican Address (VIDEO) — GOP, 7-23-11
“I’ve been left at the altar now a couple of times. And I think that one of the questions that the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is, Can they say yes to anything?” — President Barack Obama
“The President wanted to know that there was a plan for preventing national default. The bipartisan leadership in Congress is committed to working on new legislation that will prevent default while substantially reducing Washington spending.” — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
“Congress should refrain from playing reckless political games with our economy. Instead, it should be responsible and do its job, avoiding default and cutting the deficit.” — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
“This debate boils down to a simple choice. We can come together for the good of the country and reach a compromise or we can issue insults and demands and ultimatums at each other, withdraw to partisan corners, and achieve nothing. We know the right thing to do, and we know what the American people expect us to do.” — President Barack Obama in the July 23, 2011 Weekly Address
“Our government has gotten so big, so expensive, it’s keeping our economy from recovering as it should. If we’re going to avoid any type of default and downgrade, if we’re going to resume job creation in America, the president and his allies need to listen to the people and work with Republicans to cut up the credit cards once and for all.” — House GOP Conference Chair Jeb Hensarling
Obama/Boehner Talk Kicks Off With Light Banter: “I think everybody agrees it’s too hot to play golf today,” Obama told Boehner….
Boehner responded to the president saying, “Yeah, I took a walk there this morning.” — ABC News, 7-23-11
Giuliani: Obama Is Afraid to Lead on Budget: “If we default, 90 percent of the responsibility is on the president of the United States,” Giuliani told Sean Hannity on Fox News after a visit to New Hampshire that fueled speculation the he would seek the GOP nomination for president. “He is yet to outline a plan because he’s too darn afraid that he’s going to have to pay political [consequences]. And he’s pretending he wants to do all these big cuts; we know he doesn’t want to do cuts . . . He wants to do the minimum number of cuts and the maximum tax increases.”
“I don’t want to do this just to run, I want to do it only because I have the best chance of winning,” he said. “And if I think someone else has a better chance of winning, I don’t want to spoil their chances.”
“My objective is we cannot have President Obama after the next year,” he said. “I mean, look at what he’s put us through with this whole debt thing, and this because a president doesn’t lead. I mean, Republicans, Democrats fight with each other in the House, and the president has never outlined how he would do it . . . This is outrageous!”… – Newsmax, 7-23-11
- Obama and congressional leaders hold grim Saturday meeting on debt crisis: President Obama convened an unusual Saturday meeting with Congressional leaders on the looming government default. The session lasted less than an hour, and the atmospherics appeared grim…. – CS Monitor, 7-23-11
- Debt crisis: Deal sought to head off stock plunge: Precariously short of time, congressional leaders struggled in urgent, weekend-long talks to avert an unprecedented government default, desperate to show enough progress to head off a plunge in stock prices when Asian markets open ahead of the U.S. workweek.
President Barack Obama met Saturday with Republican and Democratic leaders — but only briefly— the day after House Speaker John Boehner abruptly broke off his own once-promising compromise talks with the White House. Staff members kept up detailed efforts.
The goal now is to produce at least a framework agreement to raise the nation’s debt limit by Monday, congressional officials said. Even that would allow scarcely enough time for the House and Senate to clear legislation in time for Obama’s signature by the Aug. 2 deadline, a week from Tuesday.
House Speaker John Boehner told rank-and-file Republicans in a conference call after Saturday’s meeting that he hoped to be able to announce a “viable framework for progress” by 4 p.m. EDT on Sunday, before the stock markets open in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, according to two participants.
Lawmakers fear a big drop in investor confidence in U.S. stocks and bonds could start in Asia and sweep toward Europe and the Americas, causing U.S. stock values to plunge on Monday…. – AP, 7-23-11 - Congress Looks For New Debt Deal To Prevent Monday Panic: Lawmakers and President Barack Obama met at the White House Saturday, once again looking to renew talks to raise the debt limit and lower the deficit after a highly public breakdown.
The tense scene in the Cabinet Room was described by the pool reporter as “a school principal’s office with a handful of sullen suspects sitting grimly downcast as the boss says: ‘OK, we’re going to sit here all day until I find out who shot that spitball.'”
But a marathon session to iron out a deal before the end of the weekend it wasn’t — lasting just 50 minutes — and all signs point to a continued stalemate after Friday’s surprising events.
An agreement that seemed within reach to Obama on Thursday was left on the table Friday by Speaker of the House John Boehner, spurring hours of recriminations over who killed the deal.
In an hastily called press conference, Obama angrily claimed he had been “left at the altar” by Boehner for the second time in as many weeks. Boehner responded, accusing Obama of demanding new taxes at the last minute and saying “the White House moved the goalposts.”
Both leaders made themselves vulnerable in the negotiations — Obama accepting cuts to entitlements that already were inflaming his base, and Boehner agreeing to $800 billion in revenue increases — and moved quickly to blame the other for failing to agree to a historic deficit reduction package.
Obama appeared to be holding out hope Friday night that his deal with Boehner could be resurrected in some form, with an administration official saying “this offer is still available.”
But according to congressional aides, Boehner insists negotiations resume anew in Congress on a plan with spending cuts and few, if any, revenue increases — and without Obama. Additionally, they are drafting the so-called “last ditch” plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit, to be taken up if all else fails….. – Business Insider, 7-23-11 - Debt crisis and market worries: Quick deficit-deal framework sought to head off stock sell-off: Precariously short of time, congressional leaders struggled in urgent, weekend-long talks to avert an unprecedented government default, desperate to show enough progress to head off a plunge in stock prices when Asian markets open ahead of the U.S. workweek. With the White House consigned to the periphery of negotiations, Republicans sought as much as $4 trillion in deficit cuts over a decade as a condition for raising the nation’s debt limit.
But after hours of staff negotiations followed by a meeting of Congress’ top four leaders, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused GOP leaders of intransigence, adding he would not accept anything less than a deal that raised the debt limit through 2012. “Their unwillingness to compromise is pushing us to the brink of a default on the full faith and credit of the United States. We have run out of time for politics. Now is the time for cooperation,” he said in a sharply worded statement.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, Michael Steel, responded mildly. “Like the President and the entire bipartisan, bicameral Congressional leadership, we continue to believe that defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States is not an option,” he said in a written statement.
Obama met earlier in the day with the Republican and Democratic leaders — but only briefly— the day after Boehner abruptly broke off his own once-promising compromise talks with the White House…. – WaPo, 7-23-11 - White House says Obama wants long-term debt solution to protect US economy: The White House says President Barack Obama won’t accept a short-term extension of the nation’s debt limit because it would do more harm than good.
Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House on Saturday for about an hour. In a written statement afterward, his spokesman said a temporary extension could hurt the U.S. credit rating and force Americans to pay higher interest rates on credit cards and other consumer debt. The White House said Congress shouldn’t be playing “reckless political games” with the economy.
Obama wants a debt-ceiling extension that will last through the end of 2012. Republicans have talked of a shorter extension…. – AP, 7-23-11 - Obama, congressional leaders gather at White House to try to save debt deal: Ahead of the Saturday talks, a House GOP aide signaled that the speaker’s most likely position would be to push for a shorter-term deal. Both sides have identified more than $1 trillion in cuts, and Boehner’s camp suggested that some of those reductions could be used to meet the Republican demand of lifting the debt ceiling by cutting more than the dollar value of that increase in borrowing authority.
The president has repeatedly objected to any short-term deal, calling it “kicking the can down the road,” because there is a likelihood that the two sides would reach the same gridlock next year once such an extension was set to expire, and he did so again on Friday. But on Saturday morning, the GOP aide said Obama was just trying to avoid dealing with the issue next year, when he will face reelection.
“Now, we do not know what size or shape a final package will take, but it would be terribly unfortunate if the president was willing to veto a debt-limit increase simply because its timing would not be ideal for his reelection campaign. “We want the most significant deficit-reduction possible, but linking the full faith and credit of the United States to presidential campaign politics is not a defensible position,” the aide added, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Boehner’s strategy…. – WaPo, 7-23-11 - Fight over raising the debt ceiling almost sure to lead to bad policy: It’s quite likely that any deal reached by lawmakers to stave off default is going to involve compromises that were unthinkable even a few short weeks ago…. – LAT, 7-23-11
- Obama Calls For Leaders To Work Together On Debt ‘Neither Party Is Blameless,’ President Says: President Barack Obama called on Democratic and Republican leaders to come together and do “the right thing” to resolve the nation’s debt crisis Saturday in his weekly address.
He warned that unless an agreement is reached to raise the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow, debt will “weaken our economy, cause higher interest rates for families, and force us to scale back things like education and Medicare.”
The president summoned congressional leaders to the White House Saturday after House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday night he was pulling out of the debt-ceiling negotiations with the Obama administration.
“Neither party is blameless,” Obama said of the nation’s debt. “Both parties have a responsibility to do something about it.” Envisioning a way forward, the president said, “We need to put aside our differences to do what’s right for the country. Everyone is going to have to be willing to compromise. Otherwise, we’ll never get anything done.” Obama advocated a “balanced approach” to cutting the deficit that “goes after waste” and “makes some serious cuts to worthy programs” that wouldn’t be made “under normal circumstances.”… – CNN, 7-23-11 - Obama’s Weekly Address: There’s Still Time to Compromise on the Deficit: In a message that may be too little too late, President Obama used his weekly address to issue an urgent plea to Congress to compromise on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the deficit.
The morning after a deal to reduce the deficit broke down, Obama outlined his case for “a balanced approach to cutting the deficit” through spending cuts and revenue increases.
“We need an approach that goes after waste in the budget and gets rid of pet projects that cost billions of dollars,” Obama said. “We need an approach that makes some serious cuts to worthy programs – cuts I wouldn’t make under normal circumstances. And we need an approach that asks everybody to do their part.”
“There will be plenty of haggling over the details in the days ahead. But this debate boils down to a simple choice,” he said. “We can come together for the good of the country and reach a compromise; we can strengthen our economy and leave for our children a more secure future.
“Or we can issue insults and demands and ultimatums at each another, withdraw to our partisan corners, and achieve nothing,” he said. “Well, we know the right thing to do. And we know what the American people expect us to do.”… – ABC News, 7-23-11 - Debt Ceiling Talks Collapse as Boehner Walks Out: ….Republicans, though, said that the White House pushed for more revenue midway through the talks. “The White House moved the goal posts,” Mr. Boehner said in a news conference.
In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Mr. Obama continued to press the idea that it was “not right to ask middle class families to pay more for college before we ask the biggest corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.” “This debate boils down to a simple choice,” the president said. We can come together for the good of the country and reach a compromise; we can strengthen our economy and leave for our children a more secure future. Or we can issue insults and demands and ultimatums at each another, withdraw to our partisan corners, and achieve nothing.”
Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, pressed the idea that the deficit and government spending need to come down to help create jobs and bolster the economy. “If we’re going to avoid any type of default and downgrade — if we’re going to resume job creation in America _ the president and his allies need to listen to the people and work with Republicans to cut up the credit cards once and for all,” Mr. Hensarling said.
This time, however, Mr. Obama had also faced a firestorm from within his party, because of the spending cuts he was considering with Mr. Boehner. NYT, 7-23-11 - What Obama said in his 30-minute primal scream at the GOP: President Obama, clearly angry, let loose on House Republicans in what was, for him, an extraordinary fit of pique Friday night after talks with Speaker John Boehner broke down…. – CS Monitor, 7-23-11
- Failure to reach a ‘grand bargain’ on debt makes 2012 harder for Obama: Sometime this spring, President Barack Obama shifted course on the budget and started pursuing a “Big Deal” to dramatically curb runaway deficits. On Friday chances for that deal disappeared, and with it perhaps his last chance to fundamentally change the course of the 2012 elections.
Even a multitrillion-dollar package of spending cuts and tax increases would not have stopped the red ink. At best, the grand bargain being sought would have shaved about $4 trillion from deficits expected to total at least $8 trillion over the next 10 years. But it could have changed the storyline of the nation’s politics, if not its government. Obama would have been able to run for a second term claiming bipartisan success at fiscal restraint, a boast he hoped would help erase or at least blur the image of him as a tax-and-spend liberal.
Instead, the apparent failure of Obama and congressional leaders to reach a big deal likely means the stage is largely set for the pivotal 2012 elections. The two major parties are unable to agree on how much government people want and who should pay for it. Voters – who went for Obama and the Democrats in 2008 and for the Republicans in 2010 – will have to decide between two rival visions of government.
For Obama, who as the incumbent will be the centerpiece of the campaign, the big deal was something he came to cherish after first ignoring it…. – McClatchy Newspapers, 7-23-11 - Deficit negotiations: Myths and realities: For the better part of 2011, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have been talking hypothetically — each from his own ideological perspective — about the potential fallout of their inability to reach a debt ceiling, deficit-cutting plan. The implications of their inability to get some deal done are about to become terrifyingly concrete — in the form of Monday’s skittish market opening and a potentially costly credit downgrade that will hike the price of everything from government borrowing to home mortgages. But that hasn’t stopped the spinning and posturing as each side seeks the most advantageous deal possible while selling the American public on the argument that it’s the other guy who is pushing the country over the abyss.
With that in mind, here’s a guide to the reality behind the spin in the debt ceiling battle:
Myth: Obama wins politically, no matter what happens…. Reality: That may have been true a week ago, but it’s less of a sure thing now.
Myth: The talks collapsed over Obama’s demand for $400 billion more in revenue over 10 years…. Reality: Boehner didn’t have the votes.
Myth: Obama could sell his end of the bargain to Democrats…. Reality: He probably could have.
Myth: The GOP owns the deficit-reduction debate…. Reality: Bye-bye high ground.
Myth: There are three branches of government…. Reality: Grover Norquist seems to have opened a fourth. And he says the McConnell-Reid compromise is the way to go, so don’t bet against everybody’s least favorite fallback. – Politico, 7-23-11 - What’s Happened to Obama?: Scarcely a week goes by without one of the big three liberal economists — Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and Joseph Stiglitz — lambasting the president. Recently New York Times columnist Krugman lamented that Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes, we can” had become “No, we won’t.”…
What happened? Frank Rich complains about Obama’s “passivity.” Others grumble the supposedly great communicator has failed to control the political narrative — as is currently the case where the discussion in Washington centers on the Republican theme, “reduce the deficit,” when it should be on “increase the number of good jobs.” Writing in the New York Review, Yale Professor David Bromwich observed, “Obama has always preferred the symbolic authority of the grand utterance to the actual authority of a directed policy… protracted moods of extreme abstraction seem to alternate with spasmodic engagement.”
Not surprisingly, there’s recently been a spate of articles “psychoanalyzing” the president. Writing in the New Yorker, George Packer observed that Obama “takes responsibility as an end in itself.” In his blog, Packer explained, “there something in Obama’s character that needs to be seen as reasonable — as the one grown-up — in the room — and that is deeper than any partisan policy views he might hold.”…. – Huff Post, 7-23-11
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