 |
|||
|
|
|
 Something to Squawk AboutPosted on Jul 11, 2011Washington has many lazy habits, and one of the worst is a reflexive tendency to see equivalence where none exists. Hence the nonsense, being peddled by politicians and commentators who should know better, that “both sides” are equally at fault in the deadlocked talks over the debt ceiling. This is patently false. The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not. Put another way, Democrats reacted to the “grand bargain” proposed by President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner by squawking, complaining and highlighting elements they didn’t like. This is known throughout the world as the way to begin a process of negotiation. Republicans, by contrast, answered with a definitive “no” and then covered their ears. Given the looming Aug. 2 deadline for default if the debt ceiling is not raised, the proper term for this approach is blackmail. Yet the “both sides are to blame” narrative somehow gained currency after Boehner announced Saturday that House Republicans would not support any increase in revenue, period. A false equivalence was drawn between the absolute Republican rejection of “revenue-positive” tax reform and the less-than-absolute Democratic opposition to “benefit cuts” in Medicare and Social Security. Advertisement Leave aside, for the moment, the fact that in the Obama-Boehner proposal, there would be roughly three dollars’ worth of budget cuts for every dollar of new revenue. Don’t pause to ask whether it makes sense to slash government spending when the economy is still sputtering out of the worst recession in decades. Instead, focus narrowly on the politics of the deal. It is true that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi howled like a blindsided politician when she learned that entitlement programs were on the table. But her objections—and those of Democrats in general—are philosophical and tactical, not absolute. Progressives understand that Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable on their current trajectories; in the long term, both must have their revenues and costs brought into balance. Pelosi’s position is that each program should be addressed with an eye toward sustainability—not as a part of a last-minute deal for a hike in the debt ceiling that covers us for two or three years. It’s also true that Democrats believe they can win back a passel of House seats next year by highlighting the GOP plan to convert Medicare into a voucher program. They don’t want Republicans to be able to point and say, “See, the Democrats want to cut Medicare, too.” There’s nothing in these Democratic objections, however, that couldn’t be creatively finessed. You can claim you haven’t actually “cut” a benefit, for example, if what you’ve done is restrain the rate at which its cost will grow. You can offset spending with new revenue, and you can do so in a way that gives low-income taxpayers a break. Democrats left the door open and these options could have been explored. The story on the Republican side is entirely different. There are ways to finesse a “no new taxes” pledge, too. Instead of raising tax rates, you close loopholes in the name of reform; you add an enhancement here, a “user fee” there, and you can manage to get the revenue you need and still claim you haven’t voted to raise taxes. But Republicans are taking the position that not a cent of new revenue can be raised, no matter the euphemism. Some Democrats, yes, are being scratchy and cantankerous. But Republicans are refusing to negotiate at all. That’s not the same thing. I understand why President Obama, in his news conference Monday, chided “each side” for taking a “maximalist position.” For both political and practical reasons, it’s advantageous for him to be seen as an honest broker. Meanwhile, though, the clock ticks toward Aug. 2 and the possibility of a catastrophic default becomes more real. And no one should be confused about what the president confronts: On one side, grousing and grumbling. On the other, a brick wall. Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.  Previous item: Extremely Unctuous Next item: Robin Hood in Reverse New and Improved CommentsWe are launching a major overhaul of our comments section. In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread. Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts. Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with. Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page. |
Say ‘Hi-Ho!’ as They Strip-Search You
Email
Print
Share
Digg
Facebook
TwitThis
StumbleUpon
Reddit
YahooBuzz
Email
BlinkList
del.icio.us
Fark
Furl
Google
LinkedIn
Mixx
MyShare
NewsVine
Propeller
SphereIt
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Newsletter 
Become a Fan
Follow Us
Subscribe
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation
Copyright © 2012 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
By RayLan, July 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm Link to this comment
As usual the Reps are holding the poor and middle class hostage to issues of completely irrelevance - Yes I mean the debt ceiling.
Report thisFirst it’s about jobs jobs jobs.
It is economical stupidity of the most willful sort to think you dig can dig the working class out of the hole of unemployment without spending more money in the short term.
By Go Right Young Man, July 13, 2011 at 8:24 pm Link to this comment
gerard,
You, of all people. You fail to stand up to the debilitating bigotry so clearly on display here. Or do you blithely look past it?
When, gerard? When will you stand on terraferma for something real?
Report thisBy gerard, July 13, 2011 at 10:35 am Link to this comment
“Once again Mr. Robinson. Once again you show yourself to be an unrepentant, unmitigated, proud and obnoxious hate filled bigot.”
What a calm, reasoned, friendly, helpful and wise comment! Give this commenter the Truthdigger of the Week prize.
Report thisBy James Goodson, July 13, 2011 at 9:40 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
You dumb-ass politicians, right now you are very fortunate to have a job. Stop the two wars and give up your perks or risk losing out in the next election. You have demonstrated how much you care about the American People.
Report thisBy Go Right Young Man, July 12, 2011 at 5:40 pm Link to this comment
“The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not.”
-
What type of childish nonsense is this?
Once again Mr. Robinson. Once again you show yourself to be an unrepentant, unmitigated, proud and obnoxious hate filled bigot. A five year old child is less likely to whine about the bogyman as you do about human beings whom happen to think, see, and speak differently.
Remember the last budget battle? And the one before that? And before that? And before that? You write on this subject like there’s suddenly something new under the sun.
Cliche upon cliche. “Those mean (fill in the blank) won’t play nice. It’s all so unfair.’ ‘Those people…those people right there…they’re trying to starve old people and little brown babies”.
Good grief!
Report thisBy Wade D House, July 12, 2011 at 3:14 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Americans by and large seem to be ahead of the MSM on this issue. They fully understand that the Democrats and Republicans are “One Big Corporate Family”. Democrats gave us continuation of Republican War, a Republican Bank Bailout,and a Corporate Healthcare Ins. Plan, not only written by them but forces Americans to purchase Corporate Products. The Dem. Clinton Admin. also toally deregulated the Fin. Ind. gave us the most destructive finacial instrument that has ever exsisted; DERIVATIVES, which they coupled with Deregulation of the Housing Market, that led directly to the Fin. and Housing Crisis.
What did they do when they had complete control of congress and the White House, besides the above?
“Insanity” Is to continue to do the same thing the same way and expect different results.
It is articles like this, which are shot down by the vast majority of readers, that give us hope.
We are alot wiser than we use to be.
The answer is out there, it is just being hidden by the Mainstream Media. But we need to make it so big, that it can’t be Hid.
What we need is a True Democracy Party, a Direct Democracy Party or a Real Democracy Party. It doesn’t have to be ours, but it will need to be something like it.
This One Party System we have now, is Un-Democratic, to say the least.
Wade D House
Report thistruedemocracyparty.net
By Peter Knopfler, July 12, 2011 at 1:49 pm Link to this comment
Behind closed doors only ONE PARTY, no dems no repubs
Report thisJust Co-operative corporations who “F” YOU for a Buck.
Lets face it More Police all the time people arrested
for protesting the WARS. Kids fighting for adults
children pay for the parents Sins. Last Year 2010,
8000 military kids came home killed themselves, yes
after surviving the WARS = that is 18 a day!
Where is the public outrage?!?
USA SACRIFICES THEIR OWN; VETERANS HOMELESS THOUSANDS.
By ribbie149, July 12, 2011 at 7:46 am Link to this comment
Democrats compromised with the Republican’ts on the
Report thisHealthcare Bill and then not ONE of them voted for it.
That’s not going to work this time, since some kind of
legislation must be passed. They have backed
themselves into a corner from which they will find no
escape unless Democrats are stupid enough to fall for
their bluffs.
By SarcastiCanuck, July 12, 2011 at 7:35 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
You should put bars on all the windows in congress and lock the doors.Then put up a big sign that says ‘Insane Asylum’.....
Report thisBy Hulk2008, July 12, 2011 at 5:33 am Link to this comment
Last night on Fox, Hannity was bemoaning the “new” attacks from “The LEFT” on Republicans and their intransigence. Basically it was another one of these “both sides do it” bashes tilted way toward blaming Democrats.
Problem was that the only Democrat actually cited for such heinous comments was their favorite target Nancy Pelosi. The other “lefties” mentioned were David Brooks of the New York Times and Tina Brown of The Daily Beast. Those are hardly confirmed leftists by any measure. Brooks is a long-time conservative journalist and Tina Brown is at best a centrist ex-Brit.
Per Will Shakespeare, “Methinks they protest too loudly.” (sic)
Report thisBy Billy Pilgrim, July 12, 2011 at 5:25 am Link to this comment
There is no “radical left wing base of the Democratic
Party”. Anyone to the left of President Obama is a
“retard”, at least according to Rahm Emanuel.
Their are, however, liberals in the party who still
Report thisbelieve that they can negotiate with right wing
corporate whores in both parties. These fools will be
like the poker player who doesn’t realize, until it’s
much too late, that if you don’t know who the sucker is
in your card game, it’s you.
By Anarcissie, July 12, 2011 at 4:24 am Link to this comment
I don’t think the leadership of either of the major parties has much choice any more. The function of the political parties has been to sucker various segments of the population into supporting the existing system. They have been fairly successful at this. But the ruling class has failed to run the country properly. So the party leaderships have a worse and worse product to sell. In the case of the Republicans, they no longer have anything positive to offer their group of suckers, so they constructed a bogeyman in the image of the country’s bankruptcy and called it ‘The Deficit’. This bogeyman has now escaped their control and is instead controlling them. They can’t back down. The Democrats probably can’t back down, either, passive and pliant as they are.
Now, it could be the present fandango is merely an act and they’ll magically come up with some sort of compromise—but things are going to get worse whether they do or they don’t.
Report thisBy READ MY LIPS, July 12, 2011 at 4:01 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Bush 1 got rolled when he broke his pledge, he got
all of the tax increases and none of the cuts -
spending actually went up. Reagan got rolled by Tip O’neil when he was promised $3.00 in tax cuts for every $1.00 in tax increase - he got $4.00 in tax increase for evvery $1.00 in cuts.
Time to take the ax to the budget and stop paying for things like making sure asian hookers don’t abuse booze. The education department that doesn’t educate anyone, the energy department that was to get us off foreign oil in 10 years from 1980, the $65,000.00 in payments GE gets for every windmill they build weather it generates a volt of electricity or not would all be good places to start… all are epic failures
Report thisBy kerryrose, July 12, 2011 at 3:39 am Link to this comment
Yes, but.
Who the hell cares about this drama anymore. Both parties want working people to shoulder the burden no matter what ‘consensus’ is reached.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, July 12, 2011 at 2:57 am Link to this comment
The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not.
***********
There is half the problem. The other half is that Democrats have let Republicans get away with this since 1994, except for when Clinton made the Republicans shut down the government. The Democrats need to do what the Republicans have done for years: Say “No!” and let what happens, happen.
Sometimes you have to lance the boil, no matter how much it hurts and leaves you sick, or you risk killing the body. It may already be too late to lance this boil.
Report thisBy Rodney, July 12, 2011 at 2:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The Republicans have one goal. That’s to destroy Obama along with his presidency. When the people in power want to destroy their government that is exactly what you get a destroyed government. As long as Obama is president they won’t agree to anything. Even if they were for it before they were against it. These people are racists and they could care less if America goes down in flames as long as Obama is a one term president.
Report thisBy Lafayette, July 12, 2011 at 1:14 am Link to this comment
GRADE-B POLITICS
And the worst of it is that the Dems are not proposing New Taxes, as I read it, but simply closing loopholes on existing taxes.
The troglodyte Replicants are following to the letter a mindless tactical game-plan to sink Obama at the next election. They don’t want jobs created by Federal expenditures. They think that the most hurt possible in the electorate come the presidential elections will sweep a Replicant in to the Oval Office. (Congress is already theirs, despite the Dem majority in the Senate.)
They should all be put out to pasture and the party started anew. None of this present lot have the slightest concern or remorse for the persons most afflicted by their dogmatic selfishness - meaning those who have been unemployed or underemployed for the past two years.
Worse yet, America does not see through the “game” being played. Americans are still focused on personalities - a brainless Palin or Bachmann gets cheered wherever they go.
It’s as if some dimwit screenwriter in Hollywood were righting the scenario of a Grade-B political movie.
Report this