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.
Paul Almond (Salon): “What We Wish Obama Had Said”
Does anyone else have a sick sense of déjà vu this morning?
After months of slow-motion capitulation, President Obama has cut an eleventh-hour deal with Republican leaders to raise the debt ceiling. After vowing to heed the public outcry for a balanced approach, he has instead consented to a plan that manages to run rough-shod over the poor and middle-class, coddles those who caused the recession, imperils the government’s two most popular entitlement programs, and virtually guarantees that our economy will continue to falter.
In other words, just another day at the office for our 44th president.
Hunter @ Daily Kos: “White House spin on debt ceiling deal promises Democrats will be able to stand firm . . . next time”
The problem with this deal is the same problem with all of the White House “compromises” during this administration. They accept ridiculous Republican demands on the theory that next time around, they’ll be in a better position to fight them. Then, when the next time rolls around, they agree to Republican demands again, still saying that next time will present them with a better opportunity. Now we’re basing the entire White House assertion of a “bipartisan” deal on the mere say-so that during the next round of negotiations, we’ve figured out a way for Democrats to stand firm.
Really? No: really?
The White House is basing this entire deal, and agreeing to nearly all of the demands made by the farthest-right conservatives, on the premise that they will stand firm next time on the exact same economic and political points that they were not able to stand firm on this time . . .
Jonathan Cohn (New Republic): “This Is Not Leadership”
[The] first round of cuts to discretionary spending might reduce some waste, but it would also undermine vital government services. . . . As Robert Greenstein, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed out in a recent statement about a different proposal, there’s just no way to enact spending reductions of this magnitude without imposing a lot of pain. . . . more people eating tainted food, more people breathing polluted air, more people pulling their kids out of college, and more people losing their homes—in other words, the hardships people suffer when government can’t do an adequate job of looking out for their interests.
More immediately, but equally troubling, this agreement would not address our most pressing economic problem: lack of jobs. On the contrary, by reducing deficits starting next year, this deal would do the very opposite of what virtually every mainstream economist now believes we should do: increase consumer demand by pumping more money into the economy.
. . . this time, I think, it’s impossible not to second-guess [Obama’s] decisions. Why didn’t he demand Republicans raise the debt limit, the way Congress has routinely for previous presidents, and stand by that when Republicans inevitably refused? Why didn’t he spend more time criticizing Republicans for their values and priorities rather than trying to find accommodations with them? Why didn’t he play up the possibility of the 14th Amendment, if only to increase his leverage? Imagine if the president had, from the very beginning, laid out a few key principles and stuck to them: No tying the debt ceiling to deficit reduction; no attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; no deficit reduction without higher taxes on the rich.
Jared Bernstein, former White House economic advisor: “A Few More Comments on the Pending Deal”
$1 trillion in cuts in discretionary spending over 10 years. What does that mean? It refers to the non-entitlements in the budget: defense and non-defense programs where dollar amounts are appropriated every year. On the non-defense side, it’s transportation, education and training, child care, housing assistance, health research, energy.
From a jobs perspective, a lot of infrastructure and investment in stuff like clean energy comes out of this part of the budget. . . .
[Last night President Obama] bragged that “these discretionary caps will put us on track to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to its lowest level [as a share of GDP] since Dwight Eisenhower was President.”
Why is that a good thing? Why are 1950s levels (relative to GDP) of investment, infrastructure, and research in medicine and innovation so damn optimal?
And 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.
*