Grown ups in charge
by digby
As the debt doomsday of August 2 draws closer, what sort of end-game can we imagine?
The worst scenario would be for an outbreak of common sense and self-interest to overtake the extremism of the House Republican caucus. If the Republicans were to accept Obama’s proffered deal, they would weaken Social Security and Medicare — and put the Democrats’ fingerprints on the deed — depriving Democrats of their traditional defense of America’s best loved social programs. They would also get a ten-year deficit-reduction agreement that is mostly program cuts. And they would get an austerity package that guarantees high unemployment as Obama heads into a difficult re-election. And a Democratic president is offering this deal!
The Republicans would also get to savor the spectacle of a badly divided Democratic Party, as the White House twists arms of unwilling House and Senate Democrats to vote for a right-wing package.
It’s quite a drama. Who will save us from a perverse approach to deficit reduction that is bad economics and worse politics — the unreality of the Republicans, or the principled resistance of rank and file Democrats?
Obama and his advisers, weirdly, believe that his stance as “the only grownup in the room” who forces his own party to abandon its core principles for the sake of an austerity program will somehow win the gratitude of voters struggling with declining incomes and rising joblessness.
The unemployment may be stuck near ten percent, but good old Obama brokered a deal to balance the budget in 2021. So re-elect this man.
On which planet is this?
It would seem to be planet Earth, having something of a hissy fit.
He’s rooting for a clean McConnell,as I am, but all reporting indicates that it’s been dirtied up substantially to make it “palatable” to House Republicans and a disgusting sell-out for Democrats. I believe that defines bipartisan victory in the Village.
Kuttner agitates for the Democratic activist base to save Obama from himself. But I just don’t think that has much salience. After all, the polls show that the public blames Republicans for the impasse and his early fundraising shows that threats by a small number of small donors to withhold donations probably won’t make a difference. At this point we’re forced to rely on GOP intransigence (and then last minute sanity) to stop the worst from happening. I don’t think progressives are particularly relevant at the moment to any of this.It’s like Iraq — we just have to watch it play out.
By the way — does anyone think that Karl Rove will be so hamstrung by a deal that he can’t run any more of these ads in 2012?
From his point of view, it doesn’t matter if a tea partier takes out a Republican in a primary or not — he’s still going to run these ads against Democrats.
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