The GOP — All Politics, No Policy

“[W]hat you’re seeing clearly demonstrated here is a kind of policy nihilism on the part of the GOP that helps explain why addressing the country’s problems has become all but impossible. It isn’t enough for Boehner to disagree with [NRCC Chair Greg] Walden over Chained CPI. Boehner effectively controls the NRCC. The notion that this is a private matter between him and Walden is just hogwash. If Boehner doesn’t think the NRCC should attack Dems over a policy that GOP leaders themselves say they want Dems to join them in supporting, he could, you know, just say so. After all, if Republicans won’t say they’ll refrain from attacking Dems over Chained CPI — after embracing the Ryan plan to cut Medicare while attacking Dem candidates over Obamacare’s Medicare cuts for two straight cycles — why would they ever embrace entitlement reform, as GOP leaders themselves are asking them to do?”

Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, WaPo

Hypocrisy and politics are like peanut butter and jelly, but I really believe today’s GOP has taken things to a whole new — and low — level.  They are, in effect, refusing to govern.

Covered with Obama Cooties

We all knew this was coming, but it still invites screaming and broken crockery.

The GOP has been demanding that we cut entitlements, the President proposes chained CPI in his budget, and the head of the NRCC, Greg Walden of Oregon, calls the proposal a “shocking attack on seniors.”

Walden is focused on seat numbers in 2014, not budget numbers.  I suggest our Prez do the same.

Boehner Offers Nothing for Chained CPI

“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes.”

John Boehner

Prez “Chaining” Himself for Nothing?

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo on the President’s coming out for chained CPI to calculate Social Security benefits:

“[O]n the politics, President Obama and his advisors have made clear this isn’t what President Obama is actually for. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea. It’s rather what he’s willing to do if Republicans are willing to make a big move on revenues. So he’s anticipating claims that he’s not serious about long term cuts and making clear that he’s willing to put real cuts, painful cuts that most of his supporters will hate, on the table. There’s an internal logic there. But the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be much of any evidence that Republicans are going to make that any kind of move like that. So really this is just the President negotiating with himself, validating the wisdom of big Social Security cuts while Republicans are still saying — and show no signs of not saying — that no more taxes should ever go up ever.

“Now, the counter to this is that the optics of going the extra length helps the President with swing voters who want to see he’s trying to compromise. I’m uncertain about that. But that’s certainly part of the calculus.

“But there’s the third point that I think is most important to understanding what’s going on here. This isn’t only about President Obama’s negotiating acumen. In conversations with the president’s key advisors and the President himself over the last three years one point that has always come out to me very clearly is that the President really believes in the importance of the Grand Bargain. He thinks it’s an important goal purely on its own terms. That’s something I don’t think a lot of his diehard supporters fully grasp. He thinks it’s important in long-range fiscal terms (and there’s some reality to that). But he always believes it’s important for the country and even for the Democratic party to have a big global agreement that settles the big fiscal policy for a generation and let’s the country get on to other issues — social and cultural issues, the environment, building the economy etc.

“This has always struck me as a very questionable analysis of the where the country is politically and what it needs. But I put it forward because I don’t think these moves can really be understood outside of this context.”  Emphasis added.

My personal feeling is that the President can’t do a Grand Bargain with the group that’s in Congress now, especially the House, and that we don’t need one anyway.  As the economy comes back, deficits are declining to reasonable levels in the short and medium-term.  A Grand Bargain can wait, but jobs and growth can’t.  The more growth we can fuel now, the less painful that Grand Bargain will ultimately have to be.  Now is the time to pave the way for a future Grand Bargain rather than for doing that Bargain itself.

Progressives are freaking out today about chained CPI, but it ain’t gonna happen without revenues, which means it ain’t gonna happen.  So the President is making an offer that the GOP can — and will — refuse.

Cliff Update

The GOP has dropped its demand that moving to chained CPI for calculation of Social Security benefits be part of the fiscal cliff deal.

They play to return to it as part of the debt ceiling negotiations instead.  Those are going to be fun!

Both parties in the Senate have apparently agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for families making up to $400,000 or $500,000.

Right now they’re fighting over the Dem position that the spending cuts called for in the sequestration be delayed for two years.  The GOP is balking at this and doesn’t want to use increased tax revenue for more spending.

Negotiations continue, and the Senate is going to reconvene tomorrow.

It’s Falling Apart

From “‘Major setback’ in fiscal cliff talks,” Manu Raju and John Bresnahan, Politico:

“Negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have suffered a ‘major setback’ after Republicans demanded the inclusion of a new method for calculating entitlement benefits as part of the fiscal cliffpackage, according to Democratic sources.

“The provision, known as ‘chained CPI,’ is opposed by many progressives because it would result in lower payments for Social Security beneficiaries.

“Democrats are objecting to including this as part of the current negotiations on a scaled-down fiscal cliff deal. They say they’ve already given ground on other issues, including raising the threshold for new taxes to around $400,000 annually, as well as showing flexibility on estate taxes, sources said.

“But Republicans are insisting on the ‘chained CPI’ provision in exchange for raising taxes.

“If no deal is reached — and that’s where things stand at the moment — Reid will push a proposal to raise taxes for those families making over $250,000 in income, though Republicans say that stands little chance of passing both chambers before New Year’s Day. With no deal, about $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts would take effect in 2013, a double-dose of austerity that could send the economy back into recession.”

The stock market won’t be happy, and when the stock market ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.