JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 15, 2011
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Never saw this one coming:
President Barack Obama says the nation's debt limit won't be raised without a compromise on spending cuts. But he said some questions about where the government trims its operations will have to be left for after the 2012 presidential election.
It's worth repeating this: the deficit for this year got larger because of policies demanded by Republicans. Obama wanted to cut taxes this year, but Republicans wanted to cut them even more, so Obama gave in. As a result, the deficit is higher. Now Republicans get to use this result to push policy even further in their direction and blame Obama for it. He could have negotiated a raise in the debt ceiling as the price for the debt-increasing tax cuts, but he didn't do even that.
11 comments
By negotiating with himself, will he get the independent vote?
- Nusholtz
April 15, 2011 at 4:12pm
Could someone please explain the logic of this White House? This is the kind of stuff that drives some of us crazy and why we complain.
- tmmats
April 15, 2011 at 4:29pm
I agree with your analysis here, Jonathan. Barack Obama has mainly done very well, but he has made some serious errors, and this is one of them.
- liberalref
April 15, 2011 at 4:41pm
wait, I didn't think the ceiling would last until 2012, I thought it was supposed to crack this year?
- GSpinks
April 15, 2011 at 4:43pm
What tmmats said.
- Sophia
April 15, 2011 at 5:40pm
The AP report does not include a quote from Obama, so it's unclear what he said in the interview. He may have said that the Republicans have to compromise by unlinking spending cuts from raising the debt limit.
- rayward
April 15, 2011 at 5:41pm
The stunning reality is that this process has been playing like a broken record for 40 years. Cut taxes, increase deficit, complain about deficit, raise taxes?, no -- accuse Democrats of tax and spend and threatening to raise taxes on middle class, then cut taxes for rich, begin again. Someone needs to stand up and say we need a marginal rate of 99% on top income earners. We don't need billionaires. We can run a sucessful capitalist democracy without them. It is not clear however that we can run a successful capitalist democracy with them.
- keepin_on
April 15, 2011 at 6:37pm
Thanks rayward, I just just about to make the same point. That paragraph was worded to be vague, there's no telling what Obama actually said. Unlike the subsequent paragraphs which were a bit more direct and explicit.
- GSpinks
April 15, 2011 at 7:12pm
Thirty years, keepin. Supply-side economics welled up on the right in the late 1970s. Ronald Reagan signed on to it then, and was able to put it into practice after he took office on January 20, 1981.
- liberalref
April 15, 2011 at 9:35pm
In fact, isn't it only a week or less since an unsourced comment ostensibly from Obama turned out to be either (a) pure invention or (b) the White House doing a fairly smart spin to mess with the GOP heads.
- ironyroad
April 15, 2011 at 10:13pm
- You sent me searching Ray. Everyone have a drink. Context and more from the interview in another AP story from same-same reporter:
Get it? He's baiting the GOP to "agree on a framework" and already conceded less spending and more revenue are part of that. No news here. If they agree to a frameworks prior to extending the limit, fine. But that goal is separate from the passage of the debt limit. But he's not linking specifics so "where the government trims its operations will have to be left for after the 2012". The framework of spending and revenue can be locked up before a clean bill is voted upon and then details of the framework can wait till '12.- michaelg
April 16, 2011 at 11:10am