Winners and losers
by digby
On CNN just a few minutes ago:
Gloria Borger: it looks like the Republicans are getting an awful lot of what they wanted
Wolf Blitzer: The Senate Republicans are going to be on board. Harry Reid’s going to have a lot of Republican support in the Senate.
The problem’s going to be in the House of Representatives where there’s going to be a lot of opposition. There were more than 20 House Rep that voted against the Speaker John Boehner last week. And there are going to be a lot more Republicans voting against any deal this time.
But here is the key difference. Most of the Democrats will vote in favor of what the President supports.
Borger: So the question is going to be what’s the balance? What does the balance have to be between Democrats and Republicans?
Blitzer: Boehner does have 40 moderate Republicans. And it’s interesting. He was meeting with that, what is it called “first Tuesday” group yesterday, the moderate centrists Republicans in the House of Representatives, they will be on board with Mitch McConnell and the president of the United States. But a lot of conservative Republicans won’t.
And normally, the Speaker doesn’t like to have a vote unless he or she is guaranteed more than a majority of his or her own caucus. 50% percent. He might not get it because he’s going to have more than enough Democrats to get this passed.
Borger: And that’s what gives Nancy Pelosi a little bargaining power as the Wall Street Journal pointed out this week, the tea party Republicans are actually giving Nancy pelosit more leverage in cutting a deal because they need her votes now.
Blitzer: They’ll get a lot of Democratic votes to support it. If the president of the United States — he is not only the commander in chief but he’s also the leader of the Democratic Party — if he comes out on television sometime today or tomorrow or whatever and says “this is a good deal, it’s not perfect but it averts default,economic catastrophe for the country, all that entails,” he’ll get a lot of Democrats.
Borger later said that the GOP Senate hawks were likely to complain about ever having to cut defense spending in any way and that the House Republicans will have a good cry over failing to get their balanced budget amendment signed sealed and delivered in time for labor day, so it’s not as if the GOP is getting a good deal.
In the final analysis it’s the way things have to be:
“When you look at the overall picture, we’re starting to put together you could say, ok, the president gets his deal into 2013, which is what he wanted. The House gets promises of substantial budget cuts and Mitch McConnell gets his commission or committee which he wants to absolutely enforce those budget cuts.
Kind of left out of this are the base of the Democratic Party, they’re not going to be happy about budget cuts to programs like Medicare for example. And what about conservative Republicans who don’t want to put defense in this mix even if they get a promise of no revenues?
So you’re right, there’s something for everyone to hate in all this but in the end that’s the only way to get something like this done.
So the President is happy, the spending cutters are happy, the entitlement slashers are happy.The anti-tax folks are happy, but they might gripe if defense is cut at all at some point in the future. And the Democratic base can go fuck itself.
That’s certainly a deal the Village can get behind.
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