The New Republic

You realize, of course, that the current "solution" simply kicks the can down the road a few months. The Republicans held America hostage over the Debt-Ceiling increase from May to August (since a 'clean' bill should have been passed in May). Now the "Super Committee" will report out in December (assuming there's no "early leaks", which is probably unrealistic) their absolute failure to come to an agreement -- the Republicans dogmatically clinging to "no new taxes", the Democrats preserving Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid for the public. So yet another "Hostage" situation -- do we DARE cut the military 800 billion dollars overnight? And who cares if we do -- will Obama desperately fold, because the Republicans are insane, like the last three times?

- AllanL5

August 3, 2011 at 12:07pm

This post is a reminder of why you are the best in the business, Jonathan. You eloquently deconstruct Michael Shear's implausible scenario and then you offer up a capital proposal for the Democrats in the future.

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 12:11pm

My hope is that in 2013, having achieved reelection and having had time for more legal research, Obama will declare his intention to invoke the 14th amendment, go through with it, and dare Republicans to call his bluff. If they are either unable to achieve standing to challenge it in court or lose the subsequent case, the debt ceiling is defanged forever. If they win, things are no worse than now. It may lead to an impeachment attempt but assuming the Senate doesn't go Republican (and it's hard to see both that and an Obama reelection happening), it would go nowhere and more likely than not expose the House Republicans as the wackos they are. Remember that by that point Obama may have had the opportunity to change the composition of the Supreme Court a bit. Also, if the Bush tax cuts expire there will be somewhat less pressure on the debt ceiling.

- boyski

August 3, 2011 at 12:14pm

More of this? How do you have the stamina for it? We've got another round of last minute beserker headlines in 2013 to look forward to? Just give in, give them the Randian Bladerunner hellscape twilight that they crave. At least you won't have to listen to them.

- IggyPop

August 3, 2011 at 12:19pm

@AllanL5 - Sure, we'll have another great big fight over the supercommittee, but it won't be conducted under the looming threat of national default and global catastrophe. Big cuts to the Pentagon just aren't in the same class of disaster. As a matter of fact, quite a few folks on the left would regard them as a positive good. (Personally, I'm undecided but lean toward the "positive good, at least in the long run" side.) Does that mean Democrats are guaranteed to hold the line? Of course not. But there is at least a decent chance of it.

- Dausuul

August 3, 2011 at 12:25pm

Second Libref's comments.

- Tristan

August 3, 2011 at 12:30pm

Or you could simply do what Roid suggested some time back -- make raising the debt ceiling a condition of annual budget resolutions. That way, the Congress gets to authorized spending (including debt-financed spending) and raise the debt limit to accommodate that debt spending in one transaction, rather than the current odd de-coupling of the two. If the parties don't reach agreement in time, the Congressional party can shut down the government but the President needs to hold firm to a demand that the debt ceiling be raised before he or she approves the budget resolution. That might have bad implications for a fragile economy, but wouldn't risk default and economic catastrophe the way this past set of debt limit negotiations did.

- wildboy

August 3, 2011 at 12:42pm

Or, referencing "The Study," we could hand out free crack pipes on the floor of the House and see how that affects legislative behavior.

- propjoe

August 3, 2011 at 12:48pm

Deadweight Chait; wrong again in spectacular fashion Republicans would welcome Democrat tactic of not raising debt ceiling. They could then cut Gov bloat even further. FYI, Republicans all favor less Gov spending; its how they took back the house. Chait is exactly wrong, again, yet the moonbats cheer. Chronic liberal cognitive dissonance is becoming acute. chait -- how do you get paid to be wrong. Oh yea, I forgot you just need to be amusing and entertaining. Get back to being snarky -- where you excel.

- mr_rationale

August 3, 2011 at 12:49pm

In a similar vein, I've often wondered what will happen if a future Republican president tried repeal health care reform, voucherize Medicare or impose another element of the GOP agenda. Why wouldn't the Democrats adopt the Republicans approach circa 2009-10 that any major legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes? Mr. Rationale -- Chait was referring to a scenario involving a Republican president. If the debt ceiling were not lifted, a future GOP president couldn't simply cut the budget he would have to literally decide what bills to pay and not to pay. Any constituency (retirees, the military, farmers, bondholders) not getting paid would be up in arms.

- PeteM

August 3, 2011 at 1:13pm

The Rat Man, forever sinking to the occasion. "FYI, Republicans all favor less Gov spending..." Oh you mean NOW they favor it? My my, be still my heart. Now, I wonder why they've always managed to steadily increase spending and then all of a sudden a couple of years ago decided that things like the massive deficit they caused were a big deal... hmmm, what could it be?

- Tristan

August 3, 2011 at 1:19pm

To rationale's Heritage creator: Would this anti-government entity be the selfsame party that initiated two stratospherically expensive wars and passed a drug-coverage benefit that dedicated not one penny of revenue to pay for it? You truly live in the hermetically-sealed bubble known as "epistemic closure."

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 1:21pm

Oh rich bubble persons including Congress, President Obama and corporate chieftains, etc: how bad do you think it has to get out here before something really snaps? Also, please, oh Tea Party and other minions of the far right, please stop waving the American flag and stop talking about freedom and democracy. Because this latest spectacle was the most anti-democratic thing I have seen in my life outside the hijacking of the 2000 "election," which was tragically, apparently, a foregone conclusion. Jeb promised Florida and by God, Bush got Florida and we got Bush; the people, the democracy and our economy be damned.

- Sophia

August 3, 2011 at 1:22pm

Now that the potential for economic terrorism by debt-ceiling has been made clear, can anyone suggest a reason why the president should not insist that any budget or budget extension be funded with SOME combination of debt and taxes? What is the point of the budget if it cannot be paid and one party can then breach whatever budget deal was made? At this juncture, I would prefer to see the super-committee fail and the cuts to the military and Medicare be implemented, together with the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts. With those measures we would be very close to fiscal balance and likely see debt growing slower than the economy when it finally does recover. This is not because I think the policy would be ideal, far from it, but it is a very strong position from which to improve. The Republicans will want military increases. The Democrats can then insist that each such increase be funded with a progressive tax measure, be it further raising rates (apart from the Bush cuts -- no double counting) or eliminating preferences. The Democrats can also insist on any other domestic policy measure that they want, assuming that is that they at least retain the ability to filibuster in the senate. Given our outlandishly large defense budget compared to the military resources of the entire rest of the world, we can endure some ill-advised defense policy for a while. If one really cares about waste, fraud, and abuse, the Pentagon is where most of it can be found, and there would be a strong incentive for the Pentagon and Congress to clean up their act on procurement and the elimination of wasteful spending the purpose of which is to please particular congressmen. Similarly, re Medicare, many will be able to supplement from their own pockets if need be and there is the Medicaid backstop (that has to remained largely untouched). Medical costs are going to blow up in our faces eventually anyway, whether privately or publicly financed. We cannot sustain constantly increasing shares of the GDP for healtcare, already far in excess of all other industrialized nations with little or no benefit in health outcome. When we have had enough of being sucked dry by the healthcare industry and the health insurance industry, we will have no choice but to adopt some variant of single payer/monopsony as there is no other alternative to control costs. At that point, Medicare and Medicaid disappear completely. Problem solved.

- roidubouloi

August 3, 2011 at 1:40pm

From your mouth to Obama's ears, Roid. Brilliant.

- AllanL5

August 3, 2011 at 2:03pm

The thing that's sad about all these comments (excluding the Rat's) is that they are so wishful: Obama should do this, the Democrats should do that, if A happens then Obama can do B, etc. Me, I've given up. I don't expect any amount of intelligence or strategy from the Democrats any more. As far as any measurable short term wins go, I am done expecting them from Obama and the Democrats in congress. This is not to say that I don't have a faint hope that Obama is playing a VERY long game in which he ends up winning. But so far, the indicators are not very positive. He may win reelection, in which case gird yourselves for 4 more years of disappointment and getting slapped around by Republicans.

- NR409654

August 3, 2011 at 2:49pm

Yea second that Allan.

- IggyPop

August 3, 2011 at 2:57pm

I think there is another reason why Democrats will not use scorched earth tactics. When the Republicans recklessly cut taxes or threaten to bring the government to its knees by blocking an increase in the debt ceiling, the likely outcome is not adverse to their tenet of anti government, except, of course, in regard to the military.

- Nusholtz

August 3, 2011 at 2:59pm

BTW, one more thing ... defense cuts? Will never happen in reality. The next Republican president will start another war (they all seem to think it's part of the job description) and once at war, Congress will be too feckless not to appropriate the funds needed. So us all sitting here and thinking to ourselves how clever Democrats were to make that the poison pill for Republicans is just stupid.

- NR409654

August 3, 2011 at 3:06pm

I too agree, roid's post is quite good. And it further bolsters my hypothesis that there are two roids, either two radically different entities under the same skull or two different people posting under his name. Sometimes, the posts that go by "roid" are so intelligent and judicious and interesting and other times, they are hysterical and abusive and naive in the extreme.

- liberalref

August 3, 2011 at 3:50pm

Yeah, well, you all should devote most of your effort to sorting out the details of those triggered cuts, because the triggered cuts are exactly what we're going to get. The only way that won't happen is if Democrats suffer a total collapse on entitlements which I think (hope) is unlikely in an election year with a terrible economy. I find it odd that people like Jon Judis are so worried about the triggered cuts to defense. What should really have people nervous is the cuts to non-defense, non-entitlement spending. Non-defense, non-entitlement spending is a much smaller piece of the Federal pie than defense, which of course under the deal has been expanded to include "security", so as a proportional share of the current budget the sword hanging over the Democrats is bigger and sharper than the one over the Republicans. How's that revenue picture going to look after the IRS cuts its workforce by 15%.

- AaronW

August 3, 2011 at 5:31pm

Why would the Republicans want the debt ceiling abolished? Do you think the Democrats would actually ever get anything from it? Even if they did try to blackmail the Republicans they'd get nothing. They're not nearly ruthless or crazy enough. The Republicans would just laugh, give them not one cent, and the Democrats would quickly back down.

- RHSerlin

August 3, 2011 at 8:38pm

The debt ceiling can only be used by the party that is in favor of making the Federal government ineffective. If the Democrats try to use it, the Republicans will be only too happy to shut down the government and let it go into default. The debt ceiling can be used to weaken or repeal environmental and financial regulation, the ACA and any other Democratic initiative, not just fiscal legislation. It can be used to cripple and doom to failure any Democratic president. And it can be wielded by just 41 Republican senators, even if the Democrats retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House. It can't be done away with until the Democrats occupy the presidency and control both houses of Congress, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and when will that happen?). It's true that the Republicans might shrink from using the debt ceiling in the face of strong popular disapproval, and that in some very unusual circumstances it might work to the Democrats' advantage. But now that the Republicans have decided to use the debt ceiling as a tool of legislative extortion, it creates a structural imbalance in American politics that draws into question the legitimacy of the system.

- BillW

August 3, 2011 at 11:00pm