The news is flying today. Joe just posted about the NYT report that Obama and Boehner are on the verge of deal, but Amanda Terkel at HuffPo is saying to "ignore the NYT alert." And Brian Beutler at TPM reports that the President is pushing for all program cuts and no tax increases at all. Sam Stein, Amanda says, has the real story, and it's not good.
The Gang of Six deal looks like a dying swan, as many have predicted at this time yesterday. So what's President Obama's response? Try for something even worse.
Sam Stein with this breaking Huff Post report (my emphasis):
The fail-safe debt ceiling plan crafted by the Senate's top two leaders, Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) – is close to being put on political life support, those familiar with negotiations tell The Huffington Post, as lawmakers coalesce around a major deal instead.Will the man never stop? And by "the man" I mean Barack Obama.
Sources on the Hill Thursday morning expressed a newfound -- at times defeatist -- sense of worry about the political prospects of the proposal, which would cut roughly $1.5 trillion over ten years while granting authority to the president to suggest (but not sign off on) future spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling now. House Republicans have told leadership that they are sour on the idea, with more than 90 members pledging to oppose it. Another factor contributing toward its demise, however, has been the Obama administration's decision to continue to push for a bigger deficit-reduction package, which has led many lawmakers to consider the McConnell-Reid option both insufficient and potentially unnecessary.
Apparently not. Stein again:
What such a deal would look like is difficult to pin down in detail, as much of the Gang of Six proposal requires congressional committees to write in the specific cuts to programs under their purview. But it would involve steep reductions in health care spending -- both in Medicare and Medicaid. In previous debt ceiling negotiations, the administration has supported further means-testing elements of Medicare as well as raising the eligibility age of the program. Cuts to Medicare suppliers would also be part of a larger package, as would adjusting the payment structure of Social Security so that a lower level of benefits was paid out over time.How much clearer do things have to get? "He hurts me less than the last bad daddy" — is that where we are? Forget the cuts to the safety net. Even that massive spending package will kill in its sleep any recovery we might be on the verge of.
So what to do? At this point, I'm fishing around for ways to dead-stop this stuff. Suggestions welcome; effective plans please. Here's two to consider as a start. Let's assume that it's more important to stop a Dem from dismantling the safety net, that it is for a Dem to be a party loyalist. With that as a given:
■ Progressives in the House could join with the Tea Party to kill any deal. The only recourse would be the McConnell workaround to a clean bill — the only deal I think Progressives should find acceptable.
■ Someone could Eugene McCarthy Barack Obama; give him a primary challenge. Someone with nothing to lose and some decent integrity, who could offer voters a place to protest-vote as 2012 comes around. A way to show Obama that we don't negotiate from weakness with hostage takers.
If we're not willing to be effective — and effective plans mean risk — if we're going to cave to this stuff time after time, maybe we should put the blame on ourselves and not our stars. After all, we're actors in this drama as well.
GP
