Is Either Side Winning the Debt Ceiling Debate?
In late December of 2010, President Obama secured a deal with the lame duck Congress, and in particular with the 41 GOP senators who could filibuster any Democratic proposal, to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for two more years and provide some additional stimulus in the form of a 2% payroll tax cut for a year and some additional spending on unemployment insurance. The deal quickly lifted Obama’s approval ratings in the polls. He appeared to be a strong leader who got a deal done and achieved the necessary compromises from both sides.
In reality, the deal was easy — neither side gave up anything other than its rhetoric. The GOP got the Bush tax cuts extended and some additional tax cuts, while the Democrats got some additional stimulus. This was business as usual in Washington — Democrats got more spending, Republicans got more tax cuts. In total, the deal increased the projected government deficits by $700 billion for two years, almost as much as the 2009 stimulus package.
Of course, the extension of the Bush tax cuts was “scored” as adding to the deficit by over $400 billion, though rates did not change. This is similar to when federal spending on a program that is scheduled to increase by 7% is instead “cut” back to only increase by 5%. That is scored as a spending “cut” and a reduction in the deficit since spending did not go up by as much as it was supposed to.
The current debate is over a “grand bargain” to cut future annual deficits by up to $4 trillion over the next ten years to accompany an increase in the debt ceiling to carry the government through early 2013. An alternative, in the absence of a “grand bargain,” is some shorter term smaller increase in the debt ceiling accompanied by a smaller cut in the deficit. The debate between the parties has been ugly, full of recriminations and political posturing. Both sides are dug in, because unlike in the lame duck compromise, they are being asked to give up something, which is a lot harder than getting your goodies while the other side gets theirs, too.
In addition, compromise on a “grand bargain” requires each side to give up some of their weapons for the 2012 election. Democrats lose some of the force of their “Mediscare” campaign, if they agree to sizable cuts in Medicare or adjustments to Social Security. Republicans risk the wrath of their Tea Party supporters, if they appear to agree to tax increases during a weak economic period, instead of more in spending cuts. Every poll suggests that the president, the Congress, and both Democrats and Republicans have suffered from the debate, and the lack of resolution to this point.
If Obama benefited from appearing to rise above partisanship in the lame duck debate, that has failed him now. His angry, highly charged remarks on Friday, castigating Republicans and threatening the risk of default or a cutoff of some of the 70 million federal checks mailed out each month, are not the way to remake oneself as the adult in the room, the non-partisan grownup. Sunday’s Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll shows the highest strongly net negative compared to net positive approval score for the president (44% versus 23%) than at any point since last November. The president’s approval ratings have sunk in every other poll as well, particularly in recent days.
It is unlikely that if a deal is reached, as it almost surely will be in the next day or days, the president will be able to bask in his statesmanship and see his approval ratings rebound.
The president has tried his best to spin a largely compliant media with these themes:
1. He wants a balance between new “revenues” from those who can afford to pay them, and spending cuts (draconian of course), which will wind up hurting the poor , seniors, and the middle class.
2. The GOP, on the other hand, is cold and selfish and risks the full faith and credit of the United States in pursuit of their radical agenda to harshly cut spending and protect tax breaks for the rich. They are accused of wanting to protect all the tax breaks for the corporate moguls and their jets, the oil and gas companies, and the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires. Every Obama pronouncement contains these “villainous” groups. Obama then adds that he himself is rich and can afford to pay more in taxes, showing how big a person he is. He could of course just write a check to the Treasury as others do, above and beyond what the law requires, if he feels so generous.
3. Obama wants the deficit issue solved in a big way, so he can get on to the job of “winning the future for America.” That can be done with more spending (sorry, I mean investments) on infrastructure, aid for college students, and energy independence (“creating green jobs” is no longer used, since it presumably does not test well in polls).
4. Obama could solve the problem himself if he had the power. Too bad we have a legislature and a Supreme Court to keep him from accomplishing all he wants to for America.
Both left and right have pointed to polls that appear to support their side of the argument. The president constantly refers to the fact that 80% of the population support his “balanced” approach. But the Gallup poll he refers to in making this case shows nothing of the sort. In fact, nearly five times as many of that poll’s respondents want a deficit reduction package to be all or mostly spending cuts, as opposed to those who want it to be all or mostly tax increases. The Rasmussen survey this week also indicates that there is fear that the compromise package will have too much in tax increases and too little in spending cuts.
On Friday, the president talked of the unfairness of a ratio of 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 for spending cuts to revenue increases. But the package the president was touting on Friday included just $1.65 trillion in spending cuts for $1.2 trillion in revenue increases, a ratio of barely 4 to 3.
The president and his agents (i.e., Tim Geithner on ABC) have condemned those House Republicans who have fought raising the debt ceiling. Many polls have shown that this is a widely held view, though many of the network and newspaper organizations which have conduced the polls have avoided mentioning that finding.
In fact, the president could get all of the borrowing room he needs to finance the projected deficits for the next 18 months covered without having any increase in the debt ceiling. This would involve taking internal or interagency debt (money owed by the government to itself, such as IOUs to the Social Security Trust Fund), now included in the total debt covered by the debt ceiling of just over $14 trillion, and selling these IOUs to the bond market over time. The Trust Fund is not a real fund, but the IOUs count against the debt ceiling.
While the media has tried to paint a picture of the “adult” Obama battling tax pledge zealots, the story is more complex. The president believes in more spending (investments or redistribution through entitlements, take your pick), and higher taxes to pay for it. He does not trust the results of what happens in the private market. Higher spending requires higher taxes (though he seemed comfortable with persistent high annual deficits until the GOP took the House back). Federal spending, now a quarter of GDP, is at a post World War II high, before the boomer entitlement binge and ObamaCare push it much higher. The GOP and Paul Ryan have laid out specific ways to bring both spending and taxes as a percentage of GDP back towards historical norms. That is the crux of the debate — ride the entitlement wave higher, or put on the breaks.
Obama, the Great Prevaricator
With all due deference to the Declaration of Independence and with apologies to Thomas Jefferson: When in the course of national events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a confirmed liar, a decent respect to the opinions of a nation requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
With President Obama, the causes are multitudinous. Chief among them is his unfamiliarity and contempt for truth. With Ronald Reagan, America reveled in the Great Communicator. With Barack Obama we suffer through the Great Prevaricator.
Our president has shown no regard for truth. He has amply demonstrated a calculated disrespect for the opinions of our nation and for its people and merits separation from both, in 2012 by denying him re-election or, preferably, sooner by impeachment.
This time around, it is not King George III or the British Parliament who have deceived, oppressed, and violated the rights of the governed but the leader of the former colonies, the current president of the United States of America. By incessantly lying to the public as to who he was, who he is, whom and what he represents and wants, and by manipulating public perceptions through deceptions and baldfaced lies, Obama has abdicated his right to leadership.
Politicians aren’t exactly noted for their veracity, usually opting instead for subterfuge and half-truths rather than outright and provable prevarication, but no president in modern times–including the masters of falsehoods, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Milhous Nixon–has achieved anything near Barack Hussein Obama’s depth of deception.
Johnson and Nixon never betrayed their country to the degree Obama has.
HumanEvents.com has compiled a list of the “Top 10 Obama Lies” which, as thorough as it is, may do Obama a disservice. In the interests of equity and fairness to our president, I would qualify and explain some, not all, of those lies. It should also be remembered that any number of his reputed lies were committed sans his trusty teleprompters which relieves him of full responsibility.
Human Events cited such presidential untruths as Obama’s recent mendacity regarding 80% public support for his tax scams and earlier assurances that shovels and jobs were poised and ready for his $787 billion stimulus. Generously, the latter could be attributable to extraordinary naiveté although the former was an indisputable, blatant lie.
Human Events also cites Obama’s campaign pledges and promises as lies. However, again being generous, they could almost be forgiven as excessive exaggerated campaign fluorishes. In that category would fall his various pledges not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000, to conduct his office and government with full transparency, and to limit the influence of lobbyists, all of which fell by the wayside out of economic and political expediency.
A distinct and personal Obama misrepresentation involved claims his own mother . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5080)
very well said Berlet98. I couldn’t agree with you more. he is with out a doubt the biggest liar to ever disgrace the oval office. it will be so nice to get a President in 2012,
Excellent comment, Berlet98. Thank you for referring to The Declaration of Independence. I hope that people will pull up a copy on the net, and read alllll of it. Most of us had the part about equality droned into our heads. A great truth for sure, but nevertheless attention to the beginning of the document and the rest of it is critical for us to know and understand, and probably because of what it tells us, that information has been submerged. It is amazing how those writers and signers used their knowledge and experience in life – an understanding of human nature – and put all the tools we need in that document to protect our country from the snakes that have slithered into our government. We need to listen to their words and act. Regarding the list of O’s lies, I have been unable to read any of those lists after reading the first lie. Nothing he says or does after that first one matters and it is what will ultimately get him put in the pen along with his handlers. The first lie was that he qualified to be President.
Obama’s first lie was the day he was sworn into office. Hand on the bible and all.
The truth is that liberals have finally run out of other people’s money to spend. We are now at the tipping point. The degradation of our education system in the USA and the spinning of the MSM on the truth of this debacle are conspiring to somehow “Pin” the blame on the republicans for what follows next. Really? Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their supporters have increased the deficit from $455 in 2008, to $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, and $1.6 trillion in 2011. They have increased the baseline spending from about $2 trillion in 2008 to well over $3 trillion each year and have added another long term budget buster bomb in Obama care to the other tree entitlement ponzi schemes that is social security, medicare, and medicaid which themselves are mismanaged, wracked with fraud and abuse, and incompetence.
However in the face of the above, the republicans are to blame for attempting to “tear up the credit card.” Let me say what a load of crap. This is Obama’s dream come true and he needs to stand up like a man and be responsible for the hell on earth he has built for our budget.
I’m about at the point where I don’t believe the statistics/claims of either of those for whom this is primarily about who will win the presidency in 2012.
Tell me — is there ANY person/thinktank/media whether newspaper or magazine in existence that a non-economist (but reasonably intelligent political junkie) rely on for non-ideological overview of all this I can go to?
Surely there must be some way of assessing other than just give up and let debt ceiling vote wait until after the deadline?
Go to Sen. Coburn’s site. His budget plan is there. Look at the summary and all the things he wants to cut. Inarguable stuff.
Two things come to my mind regarding this debate. Number one, since the Democrats buy votes with other peoples money, what happens when the “other people” refuse to pay? Number two, how can can one “fix” their credit rating buy borrowing money to pay the interest on their current debt, which they have no hope of paying back, especially given that the current administration is destroying the very economy that has to generate the wealth to repay the loan.
What also is annoying is that Obama acts as if the elections of 2010 had never happened!!! What does he think that mandate (and it was a huge mandate) was all about? It was about less government spending, a smaller government, and lower taxes. Yet Obama really seems to think that the 2010 election was just a “mistake,” that people now have come to their senses and that it’s business as usual with even more government spending needed. Much like a neutered dog, Obama just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that the principles that gave rise to the Tea Parties are just as strong as ever and that we really do want to see a smaller government spending much less of our hard-earned money. So if I were a Republican Congressman, I would continue talking about 2010, NOT the debate of 2011. As far as I am concerned, this argument of how to spend OUR money was already settled last year.
If Boehner hasn’t already said it he should sit down with Zero and tell him “I won – you lost!”
This president was crass enough to say that to McCain – someone should return that little ‘reminder’.
Unless Congress impeaches this meatball to forever shut him up Americans will have to endure 30-40 years of listening to another Jimmy Carter prattling on about what he’d do.
Someone spare us – please. Impeach now!
They won one half of one third of the guvmint and that is all that should be reflected in the final deal.
Libertyship, with deepest respect… you’re almost right.
Check out Michael Barone’s new piece, where he correctly points out that two elections are needed for any party to receive a real and workable mandate. The true battle that conservatives and mainstream Americans are now involved in… is not so much about the budget mess as it is about getting to and winning that critical second election. Only then can real and meaningful changes be made. And for that, we’re going to need the hearts and the minds of a large block of largely uninformed voters who will decide if Obama goes… or stays. And no one needs to be reminded what another four years of Obama would do to our futures, and that of our loved ones. Cheers.
Imagine going to your creditors and telling them that before you pay them back the $100,000 you owe them, you first need to borrow another $20,000? What would they do in the real world? How about you go to these same people and tell them you intend to initiate a plan that will involve making cuts in your budget 10 years from now? Where did this nonsense of discussing our financial situation in terms of 10 years increments come from? Ten years or long enough for the current slate of incompetent politicians to drift into obscurity. Try this in the real world and we would be given a one way ticket to debtor’s prison and would deserve it. The game playing by these people should be called out by the MSM if they had even an ounce of intelligence and respect for the truth. Here are a few questions that a businessman with financial difficulties would face from his bankers. Have you reduced staff by 25% and established a hiring freeze? Have you forced pay cuts on your employees or at least on top managers? Have you cut travel and entertainment expenses and other non-essential activities? Have you cut capial expenditures? Have you cut profit sharing and benefits expenses?
Guess what? You already know that Obama is not serious about this discussion. He has done none of the above. Washington is hiring and handing out big pay increases. Washington is traveling to seminars and having a grand old time. Wasington is just big spending business as usual. It is a big joke and it is on the US taxpayer. Well I think the people paying the bills in the country are about ready to revolt against this liberal regime and their media enablers.
Washington, is taking a chapter out of Trump’s book:
If you borrow 3 million $ from a bank and cannot pay it back, they will come after you. But, if you borrow 300 million $, what can they do?
This mentality is the current situation with our current thieves in Washington. 2010 was the beginning, 2012 will hopefully finish the removal of the old guard.
Winning?
This is not about ‘winning’ but about saving America.
Will America survive the debt ceiling debate?
Default – America loses.
Raise the debt ceiling – America loses.
The odds are 2 to 1
Not good!
This is a war – in war you don’t fight to save.
You fight to win.
Winning is what it’s all about.
I respectfully suggest you wiki King Pyrhus. Might give you some clue about “winning being the only thing”.
You could also look up Woody Hayes for another example of “winning being the only thing…”
Given that I expected no spine at all from Boehner I think he’s doing pretty darn good.
He has tried to get wobbly a couple times, and the 87 freshmen in Congress have reminded him, not so gently, “We won. And we are gonna win more.”
Whaaa? Are we seeing the light of Statesmanship in a Republican? I mean American Statesmanship, not the political kind. Sure am pleased and feel honored by Boehner’s courage and determination. Anyone would feel safer having him next to them in a battlefield. That’s where he is right now, proving his smart strategies and strengths on the Budget Battlefield. So maybe afterall, the Usurper’s promise that he would bring Change and Transparency is there now… shining in strong opposition to the communist administration. Thank You Speaker Boehner. You are proving yourself as a leader and an example to all. Praying deep prayers for your protection and continued courage. God Bless You.
The GOP is, for the most part, hanging tough, like parents of spoiled brats. There is enormous glory in that. Would you have them cave to a bunch of psychotics with the national checkbook?
Those polled, I suspect are utterly clueless of what IS happening as well as clueless about how the process works. Ask something they understand, like who won the last Reality TV round.
And the MSM is happy to feed their ‘mushrooms’. Don’t look for these happy fools to wake up. I just hope they sleep through the next national elections.
Correct. Really, as far as public perception is concerned (and the critical independent voters), I’m sorry to tell you that Obama is winning (for now). The MSM storyline is that Obama is the pragmatic,flexible “adult” coming up against “rigid, doctrinaire tea partiers in the GOP”. Apparently, insisting without any rationale at all (other than “fairness”) that there must be revenue (tax) increases as part of the solution is not doctrinaire.
We can have the fairness argument of course, but if it really is so critical to raise the debt ceiling, surely the patient should be stabilized first?
Could setting a time window for the extension that carries just past next November be any more transparently, self-servingly political? I’m not naive, but the admin are the ones claiming the sky will fall if there’s no deal by Aug. 2. If they really believe that, then I guess they think even that is less important than their re-election prospects. Sickening.
I am so sick and tired of the division – bipartisan my a**!! This isn’t about winning or losing, it isn’t about who scores. It isn’t about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about America and America is losing! Get it together people! (And by people I mean the Senate and the House.) Obama can keep threatening to veto, it just makes him look bad, and frankly who cares how bad he looks. He can’t look much worse – IMO of course.
This is for Jonathan Javitt: I wrote the headline and the article, not the subhead. In nay case, you are right.
Journalism likes to be picky about the day to day, hour to hour events. History reports in much broader strokes. If the U.S. loses its credit rating with the possibility of a default, then the current president, Obama, owns it forever.
From this Washington Post article:
Now, Mr. Boehner and the real leaders in Congress have taken back the process. He’ll write the bill and pass it along to the president, with this directive, which he reportedly said to Mr. Obama’s face in a short White House meeting Saturday: “Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign.”
FINALLY! Boehner grows a pair!
He gets up the cahones to sit this ‘Kid President’ down and tell him that bears do crap in the woods. Congress writes the laws – and on all things budgetary – Congress also writes the checks – Zero gets to sign or reject those checks. Get over yourself Zero – your time is almost up and Americans are getting all to clear a look at who and what you are and they do not like what they see.
One can only wonder if the MSM who foisted this mendacious fool upon us will step up and take Zero on and save face. It’s about the only play they have left if they don’t want to sink to as low as this president.
I really don’t care who wins the PR war – the media will ensure the left wins on that front. What I’m concerned about is a runaway, out-of-control government that threatens the freedom & financial security of every U.S. citizen – and it’s so monstrous I’m not convinced that anyone, absent a financial meltdown of catastrophic proportion, can get it under control. However, putting the brakes on the outrageous spending must be the first step, and the Republicans are at least trying to do that. Raising the debt ceiling will NOT prevent issuance of SS & military checks, despite Obama’s statements to the contrary.
Reid can’t be trusted. He will accept no real spending cuts unless it is from the military or other bone or muscle. He and his thugs will NEVER accept cuts of fat because that is where the pay-offs and bribes come from.
Well folks; some deal will get done. I say this because no one of the current participants can stand that much blood on their hands. Seems to me “O” has punted to Reid et al. to find a way out so “O” can shoot in any direction with his reelection points. But more to the point on the information about – well just about everything.
Less then 2 years ago, we conservatives (in the flush of the 2010 results) were extolling the death of the “MSM”! However lately I’ve been hearing Prager, Medved, Hewitt and others bemoaning the fact that the press is going to succeed in getting “O’s” points out there at the expense of the truth? My response is, well fellas which is it? Either the MSM with its ever-decreasing numbers is on the ropes or somehow they have been revived in some way with “Magic Electrons”?
I surmise the problem conservative talk pundits are having with the “MSM” is their (in my view) mistaken analysis of the breadth and dept of support for the democrats in those 50 Zip Codes in the top 50 TV Markets in the country. It appears if you were to look at the last year to say 15 months of polls together with the general tenor of the various essays in print media at the local and regional levels, (which I have); one might or could conclude that the country has basically got down most of the facts of what is happening to the culture vis a vei the Democrat policies of the last two plus years. “The country, including the folks on extended unemployment have figured it out! The concern I believe I hear in the voices of the conservative talk radio pundits are they not sure where their audience in “Fly Over Country” is on the issue. Will the Iowa farmers, Ohio unemployed auto workers, steel workers, southerners, the retired in the Sun Belt and the desert rats be on board for Nov. 2012?
For all the tools the media have at their disposal, Rassmussen, Gallup, quinnipiac etc. And with all the positives Brent Bozell brings to the media table weekly, Talk radio pundits are not sure they have can win the battle of ideas? Possible the specter of the 94 shutdown looms in their background? It should not! Or at least that’s how I read it.
In 94 there were not nearly the variety of outlets for information sharing there are today. Besides a robust “WEB” you have social networks and you have considerably more discussion between small groups of individuals. That is because the policies of this administration have more than any other in recent memory affected mostly negatively most everyone in the country or most everyone knows someone who has been affected in a dramatic way. Not only home foreclosures, but gas and energy, food prices, deductions for charitable giving etc. People are not only watching, they have on their own initiative informed themselves as to what, why, and how these things have happened.
Back to my question about the MSM. My reading is those folks who do not listen to Fox, Bill, Sean, Greta the WSJ, or related conservative pundits do not have cable or satellite and do listen everyday to some outlet of the MSM; well these folks have figured out by virtue of their own set of circumstances that the MSM is for one reason or another just FLAT WRONG about the current situation in the country. Although these folks listen, they have now reached a point where they will discount much of what they hear from the MSM do to their own circumstances and as I said previously have initiated informing themselves via other mechanisms on the forth coming election, for their county, state and certainly for the presidency in 2012. We will just have to wait till the MSM chickens come to their home roost, sometime around 10/Pm EST November 6 2012
“Is Either Side Winning the Debt Ceiling Debate?”
What debate? The GOP is playing chicken with the American economy. Period.