Levees Not War

Is This What “Winning the Future” Feels Like?

“Our enemies could not have designed a better plan to weaken the American economy than this debt-ceiling deal.”

—Joe Nocera, “Tea Party’s War on America” (see below)

“With all this incessant emphasis on deficit reduction, it’s going to be extremely tough to convince people that we actually might need to spend some money right now, in the short run, to help get this economy out of neutral.”

—Jared Bernstein, former White House economic advisor (see below)

*

Well, gentle readers, our weekend of faxing earnest, carefully crafted letters to Democrats in Congress (“Tell Obama to Use the Constitutional Option”) had the usual, predictable result.

Below are a few selections of choice commentary on the agreement reached Sunday by Senate leaders Reid and McConnell and Obama—but not yet voted on by Congress. The Senate is expected to pass it today. The House may vote by this evening, though large numbers of Pelosi’s and Boehner’s representatives may yet balk.

[ Timeline of debt ceiling negotiations ¶ How the plan would work ¶ Text of the bill ]

*

New York Times editorial: “To Escape Chaos, a Terrible Deal”

. . . a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery.

. . . this episode demonstrates the effectiveness of extortion. Reasonable people are forced to give in to those willing to endanger the national interest.

Paul Krugman (NYT): “The President Surrenders”

. . . the deal itself . . . is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status. . . .

Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered last December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it’s just me, but I see a pattern here.

. . . It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

Joe Nocera (NYT): “Tea Party’s War on America”

America’s real crisis is not a debt crisis. It’s an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn’t address unemployment, it’s guaranteed to make it worse. (Incredibly, the Democrats even abandoned their demand for extended unemployment benefits as part of the deal.) . . . The spending cuts will shrink growth and raise the likelihood of pushing the country back into recession.

. . . What is astonishing is that both the president and House speaker are claiming that the deal will help the economy. . . . Our enemies could not have designed a better plan to weaken the American economy than this debt-ceiling deal.

One thing Roosevelt did right during the Depression [as opposed to 1937 spending reductions] was legislate into being a social safety net to soften the blows that a free-market economy can mete out in tough times. During this recession, it’s as if the government is going out of its way to make sure the blows are even more severe than they have to be.

. . . Obama should have played the 14th Amendment card. . . . Yes, he would have infuriated the Republicans, but so what? They already view him as the Antichrist. . . . Inexplicably, he chose instead a course of action that maximized the leverage of the Republican extremists.

Steve Benen: “Don’t Call It a Compromise”

I’ve seen several reports on the debt-ceiling framework describe it as a “compromise” between Republicans and Democrats. That’s far too generous a term. Is this a deal? Sure. Is it an agreement? Absolutely. Can it fairly be characterized as a “compromise”? Not at all.

Republicans threatened to crash the economy, on purpose, unless a series of radical demands were met. Democrats made an effort to lessen those demands and make them less painful than intended. The result, not surprisingly, is rather ugly, which is to be expected.

The debt-reduction framework isn’t a compromise; it’s a ransom. . . . If you’re looking for good news in this agreement, you’ll be looking for a long time. Overall, what we’re left with is bad news and less-bad news.

(more…)