GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Sulking in his partisan corner, Obama demands Republicans come up with solution to debt difficulty

by

The president sure does have a habit of trying to stand above it all by issuing noble statements about how we should behave, while scolding those who engage in the type of behavior in which he engages on a regular basis.  Recall how, early in his term, he told Jay Leno that he was “trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.“  Despite those highfalutin words, he regularly blames Republicans for his problems.

Today, in his weekly radio address, he laments yet again that “folks in Washington like to blame one another for this problem.”  Then, he blathers on about bipartisanship, about taking “a balanced approach to cutting the deficit.”   But, just like the speech which secured his rise to fame, his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his address today was long on lofty sentiments and short on specifics.

He closes today’s address by suggesting that the alternative to coming together is doing, well, exactly what he’s been doing:  “Or we can issue insults and demands and ultimatums at each another, withdraw to our partisan corners, and achieve nothing.”

Um, Mr. President, isn’t that what you’ve been doing?  Accusing Republicans of leaving him at the altar (sounds like an insult), giving them 36 hours to come up with a solution (sounds like a demand or ultimatum), not offering a plan of his own while faulting the Republicans (who have offered a plan) for not making tough decisions (sounds like withdrawal to his partisan corner).

Leveling insults at, making demands of and delivering ultimada to Republicans, the president has been sulking in his own partisan corner.  While the help of the mainstream media, he attempts to dress up his inaction as the actions of a noble statesman above the petty politics of squabbling partisans.  He might appear more statesman-like if he offered a solution of his own.

Comments

  4. Uh…they did come up with a solution. It’s called “Cut, Cap & Balance” which passed the House last week. He just doesn’t like their plan. Fine. Let the Democrats, who haven’t passed a budget of their own in almost 3 years, come up with one of their own and then everyone can confab afterwards.

  6. President Obama is paralyzed because he wants to vote “present” & wait to see where the wind blows; he will then try to get in front of it & pretend he was for it all along. This is Obama’s pattern. Obama isn’t a leader. He’s a Cult of Personality.

  7. Sebastian, I think you’re onto something about Obama’s desire to vote present. He seems to assume that because he’s helming the meetings, he, through, his first class temperament could just make them reach agreement. But, he’s upset that his presence doesn’t function as advertised, as the media assured him it would.

  8. Hi Dan,
    I guess it all depends on what you mean by a “plan.” If you mean–here is my side, lets horsetrade… OK, But, if he comes out with a set of proposals that require something from both sides, then, I think he has that, in spades.

    “Medicare: Raising the eligibility age, imposing higher premiums for upper income beneficiaries, changing the cost-sharing structure, and shifting Medigap insurance in ways that would likely reduce first-dollar coverage. This was to generate about $250 billion in ten-year savings. This was virtually identical to what Boehner offered.

    Medicaid: Significant reductions in the federal contribution along with changes in taxes on providers, resulting in lower spending that would likely curb eligibility or benefits. This was to yield about $110 billion in savings. Boehner had sought more: About $140 billion. But that’s the kind of gap ongoing negotiation could close.

    Social Security: Changing the formula for calculating cost-of-living increases in order to reduce future payouts. The idea was to close the long-term solvency gap by one-third, although it likely would have taken more than just this one reform to produce enough savings for that.

    Discretionary spending: A cut in discretionary spending equal to $1.2 trillion over ten years, some of them coming in fiscal year 2012. The remaining differences here, over the timing of such cuts, were tiny.

    The two sides had also agreed upon a basic structure for the deal. The agreement was to specify the discretionary cuts and implement them right away. But the entitlement cuts and new revenue were to be in the form of instructions to Congress, leaving it committees and eventually each chamber to write the legislative language and enact the changes. To make sure Congress followed through, the agreement was to include a failsafe: If Congress failed to enact the changes and produce the necessary deficit reduction, then automatic reductions to Medicare and Medicaid as well as automatic tax increases (mainly, expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy) were to take effect.

    The main difference, as both sides acknowledge, was over the size of the new revenue. They’d basically settled the basic principles of how to get the money: By closing loopholes, broadening the base, and lowering rates overall. Boehner had offered $800 billion, or roughly the equivalent of letting the upper income tax cuts expire. Obama had counter-offered $1.2 trillion. But even the $1.2 trillion Obama was seeking – and remember, this was a proposal over which the White House says it expected to keep negotiating – was still far less than the revenue either the Bowles-Simpson chairmen or the Senate’s Gang of Six, two bipartisan groups, had recommended.

    Or, to put it more simply, both proposals were far more tilted towards the Republican position, of seeking to balance the budget primarily if not wholly through spending cuts. When this debate started, liberals like me were advocating a balance of spending reductions to new revenue of roughly one-to-one, which is what the Bipartisan Policy Center’s report by Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin had recommended. But the president had been offering, right up through the end of these negotiations, plans that had ratios of roughly three-to-one or maybe worse.

    The other key difference in the plans was over the specifics of that failsafe trigger: Boehner had asked it include repeal of two controversial elements of the Affordable Care Act, the requirement that everybody get insurance and the creation of the new board for adjusting Medicare payments. White House negotiators said they were taken aback, as it had never come up (at least at the staff level) before Thursday. They didn’t include that in their counter-proposal but, they said, they were willing to discuss other mechanisms.

    Overall, the contents of this deal aren’t radically different from the one Obama and Boehner were discussing two weeks ago, the one that had conservatives like David Brooks understandably thrilled and liberals like Paul Krugman just as understandably aghast (In a sense, it was “starving the beast” in the way conservatives have long imagined.) Now Republicans have walked away from that deal, twice. And keep in mind that even if Boehner had presented this deal, there’s a very good chance he couldn’t round up enough Republican votes to pass it.” http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/92539/obama-boehner-debt-ceiling-press-conference-concessions-revenue

    So, the plan is to basically go with a majority of expenditure cuts with revenue increases, in the ratio of 3:1 or better, and Repubs aren’t interested. I dislike Obama’s position, Dan (for different reasons to the ones here), but I see a plan, implicitly at least, even if it isn’t called CCB. So, why isn’t this a plan for you, Dan? Why is it so necessary to have an explicit plan that starts, for example, with the Gang of six ideas, then move to what Obama and Boehner have been talking about? Especially if the details of the Obama solution are leaked–that has his fingerprints all over it. Is your concern the politics of it, with Repubs putting forward their own unilateral vision, which not surprisingly, went nowhere in the Dem majority senate?

  9. Cas, if Obama has all these ideas, then why can’t he craft a plan Congress can vote on. Would make it easier to reconcile the differences between the two sides.

    It’s like his budget; he needs to put something forward the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) can score.

  10. Cas struts out Obama’s “plan” as if everyone in the sentient world had access to it and the CBO had scored it.

    Cas did not say that all this was lifted wholesale from:

    http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/92539/obama-boehner-debt-ceiling-press-conference-concessions-revenue

    The Daily Kos is ginning up the idea that this “plan” is not really a cobbled together string of unattributed leaks and claims, but a real working document.

    Never-too-clever Obamanauts have crafted their BS alibi after the train has left the station and they are still packing for the trip.

    Cas would like us to debate this ghost and play all the diversion crap that Cas comes here (or is sent) to throw over the transom.

    Obama’s plan is the get the debt ceiling raised or he will kill the kittens.

    Obama will then insist that taxes be raised or he will kill the puppies.

    Obama will then go back to stimulating himself and his selected satraps with billions and billions or he will unleash riots.

    Obama’s promises are written in vanishing ink on wisps of smoke. He talked endlessly about his healthcare plan which was full of this and that, but it was never, ever open to inspection. And now that we have the Democrat healthcare plan to “discover” there is no way to compare it to Obama’s self promoted plan. Obviously, the master of voting “present” leaves no paper trail. You can trace that trait back to kindergarten.

    Cas is a useful idiot tool without parallel. Of course, Kos, Beast, Republic, NYT and many others aren’t there to feed the useful idiots.

  13. Hi Dan,
    “then why can’t he craft a plan Congress can vote on. Would make it easier to reconcile the differences between the two sides.”
    Dan, the only plan that Repubs would apparently accept is one that is based solely on expenditure cuts. So, Congress can vote on it, but without the Speaker on board, who is nominally supposed to be able to guarantee his caucus’ support, it would not pass. So, isn’t that the idea–to get the Speaker to agree to a plan he thinks enough of his caucus can support–the plan?

  16. Tez, Obama hasn’t played them out because he has not played at all. Obama continues to have no concrete plan; he speaks in platitudes & vague notions. That’s not being played. Obama took his toys & went home like the spoiled brat he is.

    Oh, Obama has it easy because the MSM plays his defense & makes constant excuses for him. Obama knows this & exploits it.

  17. Boehner had offered $800 billion… Obama had counter-offered $1.2 trillion.

    No. Obama had *agreed to* $800 billion, an amount already too high for many House Republicans to go along with. Then Obama tried to sneakily pretend that he hadn’t agreed, and to re-open the matter at $1.2 trillion. It’s called, negotiating in bad faith.

    conservatives like David Brooks

    LOL 🙂 What a convenient falsehood.

  18. Obama continues to have no concrete plan

    I disagree. Well, no concrete budget plan, yes. But Obama has a concrete plan: provoke a crisis, in order (he thinks/hopes) to secure permanent higher taxes for a permanently bigger government. Obama made clear in 2008, if you were listening, that he hopes to un-do the Reagan revolution and turn the U.S. into a Euro-socialist country. That’s his plan. It’s quite definite, and he isn’t voting present; he’s carrying it out.

  19. Geithner is past the point of being able to give a straight answer – except on one point about 12-13 minutes in, that he and Obama want to raise taxes: http://nation.foxnews.com/tim-geithner/2011/07/24/chris-wallace-takes-tim-geithner-task-over-obama-s-spending

    Geithner specifically fails to deny under heavy questioning – which means, Geithner concedes – that Obama had agreed to the $800B number in his talks with Boehner.

    Toeing the Obama line, Geithner claims at one and the same time both that Obama’s economy is growing, and that it isn’t growing; with the latter due not to the obvious and great harm inflicted by his and Obama’s policies, but rather due to unlucky weather – and Republicans. What a disgrace is Geithner!

  20. Cas @ #8:

    “Medicare: Raising the eligibility age, imposing higher premiums for upper income beneficiaries, changing the cost-sharing structure, and shifting Medigap insurance in ways that would likely reduce first-dollar coverage. This was to generate about $250 billion in ten-year savings. This was virtually identical to what Boehner offered.

    Jonathan Cohn’s analysis in The New Republic was posted on July 23 at 10:21 am and is the earliest posting of these words I have found on the web:

    Medicare: Raising the eligibility age, imposing higher premiums for upper income beneficiaries, changing the cost-sharing structure, and shifting Medigap insurance in ways that would likely reduce first-dollar coverage. This was to generate about $250 billion in ten-year savings. This was virtually identical to what Boehner offered.

    However, HinesSight, KOS, Beast, Huffpo and many left-loon sites also posted Cohn’s piece from The New Republic.

    So, the issue is not so much whether Hi Cas repeated Cohn with no attribution, but where Cas got the words pasted and copied in the post at #8. Big deal!

    Cas can not show any evidence that the Obama “plan” existed before July 23 at 10:21 am.

    Cas has limited ability in the writing realm. When an abundance of words start to pile up that are starkly different from the typical Cas attempts at communication it is apparent that there is a ghostwriter in the woodpile.

    Why does Cas always show up here with “research” at hand to challenge minor points that can be dragged endlessly through the eye of a needle? One would wonder if GayPatriot is some sort of assignment. As if readers here are going to be bowled over by dumb stuff which is pulled like endless strands of taffy.

  22. Cas,

    I guess #22 is as close as we will get to acknowledgement from you that HT was right: you actually did not say that you lifted the passage wholesale from the TNR blog post.

    An old-fashioned way of indicating a multi-paragraph quote is to put an opening quote mark at the beginning of EACH quoted paragraph, until the final paragraph, which one then ends with a closing double quote. A more modern way of indicating a multi-paragraph quote is to indicate a blockquote, for example, use the HTML blockquote tag to achieve indentation per MLA guidelines, or at least set the quoted text into a different font such as italic, both techniques used commonly by different people on this blog.

    You did none of the above. I’m with HT: whatever mess of a convention you used, was unclear.

  24. HT,
    “Cas did not say that all this was lifted wholesale from:”

    Ah, HT, are you sure about that?

    Comment by Cas — July 24, 2011 @ 4:13 pm – July 24, 2011

    Sure about what?

    1. That you lifted it wholesale?

    2. That you got it from TNR?

    3. That you are not in actuality Jonathan Cohn?

    4. That you cited your source and I can’t find it?

    5. There is no need credit long cut and pasted, detailed explanations and pass them off as your own?

    You are like a neck on a giraffe: obvious, overstated and easy to spot.

  25. HT,
    Sorry mate, but #8 is clear. That is what ” ” marks are for, when they encase a “quote”. Then, when you follow them up with an hyperlink, you go to that link, and you see where I got the info from. The fact that you argue otherwise is your choice, but the fact that you can’t click on the link that #8 provides is not my problem. I just did so, and it took me to the TNR page.

    And ILC,
    Thanks for the MLA tidbit, and sorry that my standard of quotation etiquette doesn’t meet that standard. But honestly, to quote a favourite film, arguing that one should slavishly follow MLA protocols in this commentator’s section of Dan’s blog is a bit like “handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.” IMHO.

    I have asked generally in the past how one does the sort of indenting thing that HT does so well, and have had no replies to that request. If you feel up to sharing that little tidbit, I would be ever so grateful. Then, there will be less outrage at my future efforts… 🙂

  26. I have asked generally in the past how one does the sort of indenting thing that HT does so well, and have had no replies to that request. If you feel up to sharing that little tidbit, I would be ever so grateful. Then, there will be less outrage at my future efforts… 🙂

    Cas, email me and I’ll be happy to show you how to do it. 🙂

  30. As I stated at #23, use HTML’s blockquote tag.

    Thanks for mentioning how to do that. Now I know how, so no longer have to use quotation marks. I know about as much about computers as my grandmother (not literally, though).