House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made a rare floor appearance this morning to demand answers from the White House as part of the ongoing fiscal talks: "Where are the President's spending cuts?"
It's disconcerting, in a way, that Boehner still doesn't seem to understand the larger debate he's currently engaged in, but so long as the Speaker is confused, let's try to give him a hand.
First, if the Republican leader wants to know where President Obama's spending cuts are, he can start with the more than $1 trillion in spending cuts Obama already accepted as part of the resolution to last year's debt-ceiling crisis.
Second, Obama's debt-reduction plan, like Obama's most recent budget plan, already includes additional spending cuts, on top of the cuts the president agreed to in 2011.
And third -- this is the part Boehner really doesn't seem to understand -- Obama has no incentive to negotiate with himself. The House Speaker is saying, in effect, "We're demanding spending cuts, so Obama should propose some, and we'll let him know when we're satisfied."
The White House has decided not to play this game and for good reason. If Boehner wants more spending cuts, he can propose more spending cuts. That's how negotiations are supposed to work.
As we discussed last week, the New York Times reported that the president is "scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator." Throughout his first term, Obama "repeatedly offered what he considered compromises on stimulus spending, health care and deficit reduction to Republicans, who either rejected them as inadequate or pocketed them and insisted on more."
Under the rules Boehner drew up last year, Republicans are supposed to tell the president, "Make us happy," and Obama is supposed to keep offering conservative ideas in the hopes of guessing what they'll find satisfactory.
The Speaker's comments today seemed to be an attempt to bring the old rules back. The sooner GOP leaders realize the rules have changed, the easier it will be to find a resolution to the current impasse.
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Maybe if Speaker Boehner weren't so concerned with keeping such a tight grip on his gavel, he'd have enough blood flow for his brain to understand how these things are supposed to work.
He has a brain?
@Phenner
Oops, my bad.
Steve, with all due respect--and I'm really not being snarky here--the Republicans are in a corner and they're fighting like a badger would. It's nasty and fierce and no-holds-barred from their side. John Boehner knows that it's his move, but if he pretends that the hold-up is with the White House, and he says it loud and often enough, some percentage of the voting public are going to nod in agreement.
Sure. It will be the same 20-25% who listen to Faux news and Rush, who think Obama is a Kenyan Socialist, that the Rich are just waiting for more tax cuts before they are able to create millions of new jobs for Americans and that 'W' was a great president.
Unfortunately, the rest of the country is beholden to this sort of wackiness. Sad situation.
You're right about that, Daddy. I'm just pointing out that there's no misunderstanding or lack of clarity. It's underhanded and devious. I have exactly zero respect for Boehner and his ilk.
If Boehner wants more spending cuts, he can propose more spending cuts.
Bonehead may be dumber than a bag of rocks, but he's not entirely stupid. His reptile brain sitting atop his spinal cord knows that most of what he would propose is deeply unpopular and would make his party even more unpopular if they were the ones publicly tying themselves to such proposals.
Exactly ! If Obama makes the proposals (cuts) he owns them and vice -versa
Yes, actually proposing spending cuts might risk exposing the long-running conservative lie that there's huge amounts of waste to be cut. The only way they keep that going is by talking about "spending" in the abstract, because nearly every actual program has people who will be upset if it's cut. This is also why they maintain the fiction that things like foreign aid and PBS are 40% of the federal budget.
@SAET has it spot on. Even Republicans, in clear, glaring majorities, hate the idea of cuts to Medicare and any raising of the age of eligibility. If he can bait Obama into offering them, then they will grab them like a redneck in Walmart on Black Friday.
And then, in the run up to the 2014 midterms, the Republicans will scream loud and proud about how Obama destroyed Medicare and how the Democrat Party (sic) cannot be trusted with their retirement programs. Paul Ryan will be the poster boy for this effort. Fox News (and dark PAC money) will be his megaphone.
Another one for the GOP "what are we doing wrong?" list -- stop substituting cover-your-ass political theater for actual governing.
It's worked for the past 30 years, why should they change now? Let their constituents see how lame they are and that they refuse to do their jobs and just maybe, the fools that keep re-electing them will wise up.
Because it is time to change. Reaganism and its clever tossing of all money to the rich is no longer hidden: it is exposed for all to see and the people do not like it. Obama is a transformational president, taking us back from Reaganism and the obscene variant on it that the GOP now represents.
I agree it's time to change. I would argue go over the cliff and see how it shakes out. Then, come back and rationalize both revenue and expenditures. One way to do this, while it has lost favor, is zero based budgeting. Truly understand why we are running trillion dollar deficits and adjust acordingly. Stop comparing revenues and cost savings over 10 years when we have an annual trillion dollar deficit.
Filibusters are not the answer. The people want reform and what we are seeing is just rhetoric. Compromise and move on.
I guess the GOP wants us to believe that "Obama not kowing down to our demands" = "Obama doing nothing."
Speaker Boehner, we're smarter than that. The ball is in your court, not the President's.
The question is whether Obama will play the game Boehner insists he play. To tell you the truth, I don't trust Obama's poker playing any further than I can throw him. His proposal was already WAY too close to the worst thing he should even think about accepting. Please let my fears be unfounded.
And Obama agreeing to raise the Medicare age would be a complete betrayal.
I'm with you. His habit of caving in to them has me wondering if he's ready to do it again. I hope he lost that habit in his first term because he holds all the cards and he doesn't need to fold.
I agree. Obama's tendency to cave even before negotiations started is what's led to this false Republican belief that all they have to do is rant, and Obama will keep providing them offers until they get what they want. I'm hoping he hangs tough, and if necessary, come back to renewed talks in Jan.
I still believe that caving in tactic, more than anything, was what happened in 2010. People were disgruntled and dismayed, so they either sat out the election or voted out of disappointment. We will continue to pay for that for at least the next ten years.
I do have high hopes that will not happen again. Obama is not a stupid man by any means. The American people spoke loudly... they still are... in the election, plus all the polls (reputable ones anyway) show a huge majority for leaving the so-called entitlements alone and raising tax rates on the top income earners. Cutting defense is also necessary, and yes, that will cause some problems.
There will have to be adjustments made in Social Security and Medicare. The last SS adjustment, for example, was made in 1983, and the program should be updated, but it is not necessary to cut the program. The adjustments do not need to be addressed immediately, however.
Raising the eligibility age for Medicare would be fiscally ineffective anyway as the healthiest of seniors are the youngest using Medicare. Cutting the small amount of benefits they use would not save a thing.
Wow, speaker Boehner really tied one on last evening, didn't he. Speaker Boehner is an alcoholic, a self-will run riot. Is it me or is he more orange and having trouble drawing breath each too?
Not orange, exactly.
As a chameleon he is taking on the color of that leather chair on the left.
He has also produced the same amount of useful legislation as the chair, so overall, a good impersonation.
There ought to be a rule that no Representative or Senator can propose cuts that don't affect his/her own constituents. Boehner can start the ball rolling by proposing cuts that negatively affect Ohio Republicans.
I had this same thought when Lindsey Graham was prattling on the other day on one of the Sunday news shows. If I were Obama, I would have replied to Graham, "OK Senator, you want cuts, fine. Which military bases in South Carolina shall we start with?
SC is overloaded with military installations. When L. Mendel Rivers, who represented the Charleston area, was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he used his power to locate ridiculous numbers of military bases in that state. So many that some people only half jokingly wondered if the weight of all those bases might cause SC to fall into the Atlantic. If we're going to do something about wasteful, duplicative spending, SC would seem to be a prime target for cuts.
Except for the fact that the bases serve a purpose and are in an area of the country well suited to that purpose. Baby... bathwater... :P
It would be insane for Obama to agree to raise the Medicare age.
"Government, keep your hands off my Medicare!" Remember how funny that was?
Well, Obama is about to prove that those people were right.
If Obama and the Dems go along with an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, they'll pay a big price for it in the 2014 elections. The Dem base will be unenthusiastic, and Republicans will have an excellent opportunity to reprise 2010.
I agree completely with David Cay Johnston that Democrats should take the opposite approach. If we really want to cut spending on Medicare care as a percentage of GDP, reduce the Medicare age to 50 or 55 as a big step toward single payer health care.
This Romnesia crap is just nuts! How can the GOP constantly play the blame game ahead of the blame game? POTUS could be dribbling a basketball and the GOP would say "We have no deal until POTUS learns how to dribble a basketball"....really??? Michigan....Really????
Boehner, Obama has given you budget cuts. Where are your tax increases?
1/3/13 and the tax rates go up across the board.
1/4/13 the GOTP has to explain why 98% of the country is being held hostage for 2%.
1/5/13 the crumble begins.
The Republicans in these talks include Sens. John McCain (AZ), Jon Kyl (AZ), Lamar Alexander (TN) and Lindsey Graham (SC).
Just look at those states and note the quality of these particular 'honorable' men.
How is it that anyone can have concerned discussions with these men who have proven to be so less than honorable? It is true they that frequent appear as bickering 'sock puppets', in the public space (MTP) specifically to send coded message to their hidden donor masters, and to drive to madness careful observers.
While the media has found a role as pliant moderator, the media is at disadvantage, because they cannot access the quiet room discussions on parties' strategy and can only gain limited information by posing questions. Those pliant moderator questions are themselves answered in code messages, in that there is rarely a direct answer to the moderator's question and more likely that the 'sock puppets' answer is not to the point, always distracting, and deliberately changes the subject. When that response is made the pliant moderator politely moves on to the next non sequitur or is it that the moderator has a laundry list.
The only thing missing from the 'sock puppet' mystery theater, is a game show host, allowing contestants to place bets on certain numbers that when revealed cards have nothing on them except 'try again'. It is madness to run this forum as though it were useful, when it is not, it is just another turn of the 'sock puppet' wheel of fortune. The point of the game within a game within the game is quite not what the casual public cannot spare the time to figure it out, but to leave that casual public the feeling that a real discussion related to real problems is being discussed at all. (Confused) The message from 'real space' is that the moneyed interests want to hold all the chips, place all the bets, and cash out tax free. The loser is the condition represented by the economy, and the people in the economy. (We have had thirty plus years of not talking about the economy in a real way, ever? This has led us here? Where we want to be?)
How much less honorable and less worth can you get when each of these so called honorable men regularly pay homage to the behind the scenes powers, the campaign donors and donor organizers such as Oliver Norquist or donors such as Koch's and Adelson. What do you think when any one of these rotating carousels of 'sock puppets' speak in code language.
How can anyone after following these issues for decades be so unaware that political charade must come to an end? If 'off the cliff' does end it then how will it be that 'we people of the economy' achieve two things; undo the damage caused by 40 years of distraction, propaganda, and wrong headedness; and rehabilitate the ability to think clearly when we have not done so for so very long.
Trusting these 'sock puppets' if that is all we have to work with, does not make progress of any sort a remote possibly. History is clear across all civilizations across all time when you build impossible things, it soon becomes impossible maintaining those impossibilities, therefore the future becomes impossible to predict and has to take a new direction.
One central impossibility comes to mind: Improving the Economy to produce the things we need for all 100%.
Spending cuts ???????? Spending cuts ??????? I'm a center/left-ist and not only am I pissed off about all of this that the GOP is doing to our nation, while other countries are laughing their asses off ... I find this:
Dec 6, 2012 12:19pm
Atlanta TELEVISION NEWSCAST - National Disgrace
I'll bet there's about 75% or more of the people in
this country that will never get the word on this.
For America’s sake, people, please pass it on.
HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT, YOU AIN'T GONNA BELIEVE THIS!!!
This is for real-------Please watch this News Report
Atlanta TELEVISION NEWSCAST...WSB TV
Outrageous!!!
I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY BUT UN-BELIEVABLE!!!
This story is about "our" Govt., sending billions of "our" tax dollars overseas to help rebuild Mosque's that got damaged in some flood ???????? And giving computers and internet access to people who are gathering extremist and terrorist together and giving them the ability to work together against us ???? While "our" Govt. is jerking us around with Debt ceiling talks and tax hikes and Union busting laws and all the rest ... we're helping terrorists ..... with MY MONEY ???????????????????? WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >8^(
Quick, go hide in your panic room! Get a grip dude. Better double the thickness of that tin foil just to be safe.
Obama needs to have a state of the Union address and spell out what he has offered the GOP in 2011 and what he has offered now in detail. Then he needs to be blunt and state that through this Boehner and the GOP have not offered any specific spending or revenue suggestions at all and the only response they have given repeatedly is "not enough give us more" Well its hard to hit a moving target and the budget process needs to be a cooperative effort by both parties which means the GOP needs to give specific detailed recommendations on what they are seeking. The GOP continues to dig in and state no to any tax increases on the top 2% and has demanded in their own words "painful" cuts to social security (something that is well self funded) and medicare (which can use some reorg and better management). Boehner gives the impression he feels Obama will chock at the last second and agree to entitlement cuts and forgo any increase in revenue from the top 2%. Mr. President stand your ground its time the 98% stop covering things so the top 2% can get richer while the middle class gets poorer.
Speaker Boehner is still demonstrating on why he's bad at his job.
Obama does not need to offer anything if Republicans want to negotiate lower rates for the wealthy. Republicans are not making concessions on the tax rates for those over 250k because those higher rates are locked in for January 1. If taxes go up for the middle class, public opinion is already running high against the Republicans. Most of the down side is for the Republicans who are being pressured by their constituents and campaign contributors which include the banks and Wall Street. Boehner is going to be forced to specify what programs he wants cut because Obama and the Dems are not going to do the dirty work for the Republicans. If they want cuts, let them take the heat for the proposed cuts instead of Obama handing them an election issue. Public opinion on Medicare is going to make it risky for either party to propose any changes including hiking the age of eligibility. The only acceptable change would be means testing and premium hikes for those on Medicare who have big incomes.
The extremist in the House need to get on board. The markets say so and the American people have spoken.
"I'm an optimist..."
Um, desde cuando (puto)?
John "Orange Glow" Boehner is no fool.. the specifics he is demanding on entitlement cuts is all about politics... After president Obama comes out with specific cuts to Entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, he and the republicans in the House and the Senate will turn around and use it AGAINST the Democratic party in 2014 to try and gain control of the Senate...He will charge president Obama with having betrayed his base and seniors by proposing cuts to these popular programs...
While at the sametime he will make the case that it was REPUBLICANS who all along tried to save these programs from any changes to benefits... This is the real reason why the House Republicans have not given president Obama any specific ideas or cuts aimed at these popular programs.. They want president Obama to do the dirty work for them in order to avoid being blamed for any reductions in benefits that will occur should these programs face changes in any "Fiscal Cliff" deal...
I want the president to say no. No deal until January. The tax rates go up, the sequester goes into effect. And then negotiations start all over again. The president then says that the new deal will not include reducing taxes on anyone in the top 2%, the military cuts from the sequestration will not go away, and the debt ceiling limits must go. Without those 3 items in place, there will be no deal. No spending cuts not already agreed to. No reduction in taxes.
And I would love it if he would say that any cuts to Medicare or SS must be matched dollar for dollar in cuts to the DOD. If the Republican Party is serious about reducing spending, DOD funding must be on the line.
How about some serious cuts to that bloated military spending? You should be able to whack off a couple hunderd billion real easy.
Republicans hold no cards....So many would love to see the Pentagon budget cut...Lockheed Martin $161 billion of our tax dollars, Boeing $121 billion dollars Northrop Grumman $69 billion dollars, Raytheon $57 billion dollars, General dynamics $47 billion dollars, BAE Systems $42 billion dollars, SAIC $25 billion dollars, McDonnell Douglas $24 billion dollars, General Electric $19 billion dollars, Oshkosh $18 billion dollars and hundreds of more corporations receiving big paychecks annually from the Pentagon military industrial complex from our tax dollars...wars for corporate profits – it doesn't matter how many die – just as long as we can fool the Americans that the wars are patriotic and that these wars for corporate profits are to protect them....then the corporations can continue to make trillions of dollars....and imperialistic control of mid-east oil fields so the oil corporations can gouge us at the pumps for even more gargantuan profits.
Even with the debt ceiling the republicans hold no cards....for one thing it's money that congress has already spent and has to pay back and the American people by a huge percentage will blame the republicans.
No cuts to medicare - that's where tens of millions WANT their tax dollars spent social safety nets....NOT on the corporations eating up our tax dollar via the pentagon government contracts, receiving government subsidies, use collusion and off-shore tax havens to hide their money from even paying a dime in taxes ...and they want even more!!
I believe Dr. Krugman originated "Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but not their own facts" in reference to various "policies" proposed by Republicans and other austerity freaks, but it also applies to us.
Which is whi I'm asking: What's with this "President Obama caved in 2011" crap? What did the President cave on? SS? Medicare? Extended UEI benefits? As best I can tell, President Obama managed the very bad hand he was dealt in an extremely intelligent and foresighted manner.
In 2011, President Obama had neither the votes to accomplish what he wanted nor the support of the citizenry in not agreeing to GOP proposals and still managed not to give anyhting away. Today he still doesn't have the votes, but it's the Republicans who are boxed in and, while rumors galore flit around the political landscape, the President has made no offers that touch SS or Medicare.
This is "caving"?
Actually....It's called an abdication of leadership.Pretty much the same as his fourth year without a Budget passed is. This guy leads from the back row. I'm all for going over the cliff...the economy has taken a beating under this failure..so I believe another 4 years of Economic depression under this failure would be no surprise.