I'm glad that he's acting like the responsible adult. I doubt this will help him in the polls, though. He's taking a very, very hard stand (if he sticks to it), but it's not a popular one. Both sides can now blame the President for not giving them enough time when/if this falls apart, or for rushing the process, saying that if they'd had more time they could've negotiated [x thing they dislike] out of the bill.
I think he's calling the Republicans on their bluff. Republicans talk about cutting social programs, but they don't really mean it. It's political suicide. In a world where politicians only care about poll numbers, this kind of thing really resonates with me (and many others, I'm sure).
Eh, I don't know. I think the Tea Party wing is stronger than many think, and I think they're more committed to the ideals (or at leas the ideals of their very vocal Tea Party constituents) than most people think. We could see some cuts to SocSec. We need some cuts to SocSec and Medicare.
Part of the problem, I think, is that both sides are holding their fingers on the detonator of the same bomb and threatening to blow up the entire country. If that's the case, then it may be a hard sell on either side that the other guys (who were just repeating your threats) were the ones responsible. The President, however, now steps in as the third party on whom blame can be foisted. If that's intentional on his part, well, bully for him, he's acting like a statesman. But I don't know that we've had a proper statesman in office for damned near a century, so...
We need cuts on Defense, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and raising taxes at the same time. That pushes too many buttons and requires a specific bipartisan coalition that does not exist at this time when too many people are complacent that if both sides are eyeball to eyeball the other guy will blink first. Thinking Tea Party nihilists give a damn what happens to the USA as a whole is a mistake. The GOP political leadership, however, will either do what the 2% will increasingly want it to do or the GOP is dead as a political party the same way Old Labour died in Britain for a few decades.
Thinking Tea Party nihilists give a damn what happens to the USA as a whole is a mistake
Even if they did care, I don't think terribly many on the conservative side understand the impact of not raising the debt ceiling realistically. The Tea Party thinks tax cuts always raise revenue, and that even if they didn't, they should happen anyway, because taxes are way too high (despite being at or near modern lows). Those who have some clue what they're talking about (thankfully including both sides' Congressional leadership) know that the debt ceiling is a political talking point, not something that's seriously under threat. Unfortunately, they've convinced a lot of Rush Limbaugh's America that the debt ceiling is about debt, not default, and that part of the country has an inordinate amount of power in the House, especially among the Republican freshmen.
It's an unfortunate confluence of a real, critical, existential problem and the idiotic politics of populists.
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Part of the problem, I think, is that both sides are holding their fingers on the detonator of the same bomb and threatening to blow up the entire country. If that's the case, then it may be a hard sell on either side that the other guys (who were just repeating your threats) were the ones responsible. The President, however, now steps in as the third party on whom blame can be foisted. If that's intentional on his part, well, bully for him, he's acting like a statesman. But I don't know that we've had a proper statesman in office for damned near a century, so...
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Even if they did care, I don't think terribly many on the conservative side understand the impact of not raising the debt ceiling realistically. The Tea Party thinks tax cuts always raise revenue, and that even if they didn't, they should happen anyway, because taxes are way too high (despite being at or near modern lows). Those who have some clue what they're talking about (thankfully including both sides' Congressional leadership) know that the debt ceiling is a political talking point, not something that's seriously under threat. Unfortunately, they've convinced a lot of Rush Limbaugh's America that the debt ceiling is about debt, not default, and that part of the country has an inordinate amount of power in the House, especially among the Republican freshmen.
It's an unfortunate confluence of a real, critical, existential problem and the idiotic politics of populists.
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