Monday, December 03, 2012

The Fiscal Cliff: The GOP Plan to Nowhere

As the date that the country may go over the waterfall and fiscal cliff gets closer, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Congressional Republicans have no real plan to deal with the nation's budget deficit.  Other than saying "Нет!" (pronounced "nyeht") like backward looking Communist Politburo members of old to anything proposed by the White House, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen, John Boehner and company have no plan.  As was the case with Mitt Romney's ill-fated campaign proposal, the math for the GOP tax cut extensions for  the wealthy simply doesn't work absent drastic cuts to programs for the poor and middle class.  And the election results on November 6th underscored just how thoroughly the majority of Americans rejected the Romney/Ryan agenda.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the GOP's mindless know nothing agenda.  Here are excerpts:

Sunday, Dec. 2, was Day 26 of the fiscal cliff hostage situation. And the Democrats, who gained an immense advantage in the negotiations over future tax rates by virtue of their victories in the election, seem, finally, to be developing some swagger. Their tone toward the Republicans has become somewhat patronizing. First, there was President Obama’s mid-week invitation of Mitt Romney to lunch at the White House, which was simultaneously magnanimous and a pretty naked power move. Romney couldn’t refuse to come without looking like an extremely sore loser. The single photo released, which quickly went viral, showed Obama giving Romney the kind of good-try handshake that coaches deliver to their opponents after a thorough spanking.

Now, the Republicans are compromising and demoralizing their base. The Obama White House is largely standing back and watching with glee as congressmen line up to abandon Grover Norquist’s no-tax pledge. (My personal favorite is Rep. Chris Gibson of New York, who said his pledge doesn’t count anymore because, thanks to redrawing of the map, he now represents a different district.) Republicans have generally conceded that a deal will have to include more revenue, but insist now that new revenue arises solely from closing loopholes and capping deductions.
The Democrats are essentially pocketing the Republicans’ capitulation on revenue and asking for much more—they’ve adopted the old GOP strategy of simply repeating their desires as a method of bargaining.

[T]he Democrats are confident that the Republicans’ cave on revenue is just the beginning. “I don’t think Republicans are willing to shut down the government over 2 percent of the country,” said top economic aide Jason Furman at an on-the-record briefing last week.
The psychological warfare can also be seen in the patronizing tone Democratic officials are now taking toward the Republicans. The Republican leaders, who used to throw terror into Democrats, are now objects of pity. There was Sen. Claire McCaskill, fresh after dispatching Tea Party loon Todd Akin, on Meet the Press. “I feel almost sorry for John Boehner,” McCaskill said. “There is incredible pressure on him from a base of his party that is unreasonable about this. And he’s gotta decide, is his speakership more important, or is the country more important.” 

The reality should be seeping in to viewers of the Sunday shows that the Republicans don’t have a game plan. They don’t have a single, specific proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. And even if they had one, they don’t have a roadmap to get there. They keep expecting Obama to come back with something more to their liking, which they’d also reject. Many Republicans literally don’t understand what is happening. Sen. Charles Grassley tweeted over the weekend that he was frustrated that President Obama hadn’t embraced the recommendation of the Bowles-Simpson Commission. Apparently, he is one of the many people in Washington who doesn’t understand that Bowles-Simpson recommended letting the Bush tax rates on the wealthy expire, while also proposing to cap or eliminate deductions primarily enjoyed by the wealthy.
Above all, the Republicans have yet to grasp that the field is tilted against them. Republicans have every reason to expect, based on their scouting of past Obama performances, that he will start moving toward them and then, essentially, bargain with himself. But now he doesn’t have to. Right now, the policy choice isn’t between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and a preferred Republican proposal. No, the choice is between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and the fiscal cliff, which Republicans would like even less and the Democrats could live with for a while.

The Republicans are losing, and time is running out. But instead of putting the quarterback on the field and rolling out an aggressive two-minute drill, they seem to be preparing to punt.

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