Earlier today, President Obama took to the White House briefing room to announce that a deal had been struck between Democrats and Republicans. The president clearly stated that not everyone got what they wanted, but it is a deal that will be best for the country. As always, he added his standard platitudes about the wealthy paying more, and corporations have to “…pay their fair share.”
The president spoke as if the deal was done. Nothing could be further from the truth. While House Republicans and Senate Democrats have come to an “agreement,” the bill has not been voted on in the Senate, or in the House. As of the time Obama spoke on Sunday evening, only highlights had been distributed to the rank and file in the House and Senate.
The president jumped the gun, and on purpose. By speaking in the White House briefing room, he made the attempt to set the nation’s expectations. If you were a layman just watching TV, you left Obama’s statement saying to yourself, “OK…done deal. Good. Finally.”
It is an obvious ploy, designed to put massive pressure on House Republicans to pass the legislation. We will now see how Speaker John Boehner responds to this pressure. A long look has to be taken at the “triggers,” which include major cuts to defense, as opposed to across the board cuts. Further, the deal raises the debt limit by $2.4 trillion, a number that might be more than most House members can accept.
House Democrats also have issue with this “compromise.” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the head of the Progressive Caucus, has stated that the 70+ members of the caucus will not support this bill, as it does not include tax increases.
While the president may be positioning House Republicans for a fall, it is the president who has put himself out on a limb. If this deal doesn’t go through, many will wonder how he got it so wrong, how he misread his own party, and if there is time enough before 2012 to mount a primary challenge against him.
Obama should have done what other Presidents have done in the past. Waited til the thing passed in both houses of Congress and then held a big celebration moment in the East Room. Then make some BS statement about compromise. That is what adult politicians do.
Unfortunately for Obama and especially for us, he is a man-child. A narcissistic fool who must immediately try to grab credit for something that can still blow up in his face.
November 2012 can’t come soon enough.
He doesn’t care about the so-called default deadline. He just wants it done so he can go to his birthday party.
I hope he’ll let us eat cake.
The “defense cuts” apparently were defined broadly enough to include Homeland Security and foreign aid. If we’re lucky, maybe this means the end of the TSA.
Based on this administrations track record they will increase funding to the TSA and cut back on Special Forces units, Veterans Health Care, and Military readiness.
If the deal put before the House allows modification, the House Republicans should increase the necessary cuts to $5 trillon for a $2.4 trillion increase, change the triggers to across the board cuts of at least 15% and send it back to the Senate. If it does not allow modification, reject it on the grounds that $1 trillion is inadequate to save the U.S. credit rating.
The general perception by more and more of the public is that Obama was never a serious player in the debt ceiling negotiations. But that’s par for the course – Obama’s never been a seriously player in any contentious negotiations. His style has always been to let others (usually within his own party, as with ObamaCare®) do the grunt work, and when everything’s over he takes the victory lap to the adulation of the crowds.
That’s what you’re seeing here, albeit in a sped-up process. Since people in the middle and even on the left are actually paying attention now to the presidents modus operandi and realizing how lacking in leadership Obama’s been in this kerfuffle, he’s got to get back out in front somehow and try to act like he was the prime mover in all this. So it’s no surprise he’d be the first to rush out to make an announcement of a deal, since that allows he and his handlers to be at the head of the line at setting up the spin for Monday morning’s papers and TV newscasts.
With a #1 preference of shut ‘er down, I can buy into a #2 preference of a pre-Thanksgiving BS committee who will fail to pass anything resulting in automatic cuts to both the DoD and Medicare. The RINOs who get financial support from DoD contractors are horrified. Some of us tea partiers consider this a feature. The cuts in Medicare are pure Heaven.
The House Republicans should slip in a poison pill that would force all the Democrats to vote against it. Oh, I don’t know…something like the repeal of Obamacare in 6 months to kill excessive spending. Or the defunding of the NEA, USDA, or selling off the Post Office.
Basically anything that would make Obama look like a bigger dumbass than he already looks like, if that is possible.
SCORCHED EARTH PEOPLE!!!!
Good idea! And it should be passed before anyone (that is, any Dems) can read it.
We shouldn’t be too hard on him, after all, now that he’s a lame duck president.
Do not make the mistake of thinking Obama is dumb. He got what he wanted (if the deal goes through). All he has ever wanted was for the debt ceiling raised past the election. All other points he has been flexible on and that should have been the ONE thing not given. Reagan had a new debt ceiling every 6 months or so. From where I sit the Democrats lost, The Republicans had a tie and Obama won by a TKO.
I agree. OweBama was dead set against any short-term deal and he’s getting his way. We are helping him get re-elected and then the spending-mad first two years of his Presidency will look like a mild prelude. It is frightening and infuriating.
I do find it interesting that so many house republicans are so stupid.
they need to stop this bill, yet I doubt they wil since the democrats will vote for it. it gives them huge spending …exactly what the republicans claimed they would not allow.
time to vote all those RINOs out ..and dump boehner from the speaker ship he is dismal.
obama has out maneuvered the republicans at every turn. he has gotten everything he has asked for.
if this passes the house (and I don’t see how it wont)the american people are truly screwed. this spending is a tax increase. it has to be paid back.
those in congress who voted for the boehner bill are dishonest to the voters who elected them.
Well you can say one thing about the Democrats; their consistent liars
They sign legislation into law WITHOUT READING it
They vote down legislation WITHOUT READING it
They announce wars that aren’t wars
They announce deals that are’nt deals
This as life in the land of the Progressives and Liberals
Since Obama spends so much time playing golf instead of truly tending to the country’s needs, this is just par for the course!
“Mission Accomplished”
“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”
He’s thief, a criminal, a thug who threatened to stop Social Security and military paychecks checks if he didn’t get what he wanted. Very cheeky for President Harrison Bounel, aka J. Biatt, aka Barry Soetoro aka Barack Obama who cannot post his birth certificate without making changes in the dates and place of birth, who has two Social Security numbers and several aliases awarded $2 billion dollars in reparations to black farmers when the complainants rose from 2,000 to 60,000 at the encouragement of community leaders after the case was settled. The original black farmers said the extra 58,000 were recruited by churches and black ocommunity organizations to apply without documentation. Witnesses said these so called farmers lived in the projects of D.C. and never saw a farm in their lives. There was no government oversight and the money flew out into the hands of needy greedy.
Hell is too good for this thieving s.o.b. whose wife needs 40 assistants to get her out of bed to chow down a 1700 calorie barbecue snack at some Shake Shack. When asked by a reporter if she was violating her own dictums, she said, “Everything in moderation. It’s about moderation.” That was her response!!!!!!!! When stuffs her face she calls it moderation. When anyone else does it, she calls it racism and a threat to national security. This is what we, the people put in the White House.
This is going to be another ignored commission recommendation, then the fear mongering of the triggers, then the vote to suspend the triggers to prevent the destruction of the world as we know it. end result, increase the debt limit 2.5 Trillion, keep spending as usual, worry about the next debt ceiling in 2013 if not sooner depending on how fast they spend it.
We’ve seen this scenario played out too many times in the past.