He can sense it. Despite his tone deafness to moderates and anyone concerned about fiscal sanity the last two plus years, the president realizes that the tides are pushing in the direction of tackling the debt. Why else would he be on board with what he surely considers a ridiculous notion of fiscal restraint other than one word: re-election.
As Charles Krauthammer notes, the president who asks 'if not now, when?' missed when three times in the last half a year. (Check It out here, it's a good read);
The pure politics of re-election holds some seemingly simple calculus for the president.
Go bigger on debt reduction than the Republicans and include some stuff you really really want in exchange for some things you can mitigate. Tax increases for Medicare adjustments. Future ones. Ones that you can reverse after you get re-elected.
The rationale for doing that is simple. The Republicans accept it and you get to claim to be above the rest of partisan Washington. You get to portray yourself as savior. You get a debt ceiling increase. You get to claim the mantle of both liberal icon and fiscal saint thereby locking in both moderates and the left.
And if the deal falters? You still get to portray yourself as the great compromiser, the one with the grand plan. And you get to (try to) paint the GOP as the villains. You can claim you are still the adult in the room. You can say 'look, I really tried but the GOP just won't compromise. We need more Democrats in Washington to balance this obstinacy with reason'.
Pure politics. Polls indicate few will buy it but it may be their belief it will work. And in 2012 right now it looks like every vote will count.
As for the GOP counter - Krauthammer nails it - call his bluff. Hold out for cuts. In fact I think going really, really big is even better. Cut $20 trillion over the next 10 years in discretionary spending alone. Go impossibly high on that and add only small amounts in non-discretionary spending for now, or ignore it altogether. Throw in a ridiculously high tax increase - a tax on green energy only or that plus Soros specifically. Throw the NO back to O. See how it fits on him. He can't claim the fierce urgency of now and then back down when someone agrees with the severity he claims.
Then give no quarter when he backs down. You never get any, so why would you give him any?
As his party couldn't even be bothered to present a budget for over the last two years, politics is definitely not hat this is about. Every thing this man and his cronies do are predicated on two things.consolidating their power with a "we don't give a damn about any law as we are above it attitude" and their steadfast desire to turn us into a Third World Soviet Style Socialist state. This President doesn't give one damn about this country and he sure as hell should not be trying to "lead" now when he is in fact nothing but a follower of a failed dictatorial agenda!
ReplyDeleteConsolidating power is pure politics, just not good for the country, especially when it comes at the expense of sound decisioning.
ReplyDeleteYou so nailed the process. This is posturing for position, and the GOP either can't figure that out, or hasn't a clue as to how to respond.
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt. Now if only someone in a position to do something about it would listen, or just figure it out on their own.
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