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kentuck

(110,950 posts)
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 02:49 PM Apr 2013

Republicans have a new strategy.


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/house-republicans-eyeing-new-hostage-opportunity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fintelligencer+%28Daily+Intelligencer+-+New+York+Magazine%29

House Republicans Eyeing New Hostage Opportunity

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The House Republicans are contemplating a new budget-hostage strategy, the the Washington Post reports in a story that is both highly useful and inadvertently Onion-esque. The hallmark of Onion news reporting is conveying insanity as if it were sane in a completely deadpan way. The news contained within the story is that the House GOP is thinking of tying the next increase in the debt ceiling to tax reform. Under this proposed strategy, the Post reports, “The debt limit might be raised for only a few months, with the promise of another increase when tax reform legislation passes the Senate.”

If you didn’t fall out of your chair when reading that apparently anodyne sentence, let me explain why you should have. In 2011, House Republicans undertook a novel and radically new dangerous political tactic of using the debt limit as a political bargaining chip. Before, the opposition party had treated the debt limit increase as a necessary step, though one they would posture over and use to flay the administration. (Senator Barack Obama followed this pattern.) The Republicans instead decided to actually threaten not to raise the debt ceiling unless Obama granted them policy concessions. This was extraordinarily risky. By mixing together a vote that was needed to prevent economic calamity with inherently contentious debates over the size of government, it turned routine budget disputes into a financial Cuban Missile Crisis.


<snip>


The decision that they no longer care about the thing they were prepared to unleash worldwide economic havoc to achieve has not caused them to abandon the debt ceiling as a hostage. (It’s the party’s Nelson Muntz–ian approach to resolving policy disagreements: “Gotta nuke something.&quot If obtaining retirement cuts went from so urgent it was worth threatening to nuke the world economy over to "meh," the next step is to figure out the next thing to nuke the world economy over. That thing, the Post reports, is tax reform.

But what is the GOP position on tax reform? It’s that tax reform must cut tax rates and not raise any revenue at all. So House Republicans are prepared to refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to let them cut tax rates without increasing revenue. Their extraordinary threat, first presented as a way to force a reduction in the deficit, is now being wielded to prevent a reduction in the deficit.

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Scuba

(53,475 posts)
1. Too bad there isn't some sort of counter-balance to our Legislature ...
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 03:22 PM
Apr 2013

The Founders were remiss not creating some sort of "checks and balance" structure.

spanone

(135,633 posts)
3. i would suggest that democrats allow republicans to go ahead and destroy the economy.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 03:27 PM
Apr 2013

let them take it down.

then make sure that every tom, dick and suzy knows who did it and why they did it.

otherwise the hostage takers win time and time again.

fuck these anarchists...

kentuck

(110,950 posts)
4. Democrats need to stop hollering "uncle" everytime there is a little pain...
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 03:31 PM
Apr 2013

and surrender to the Republicans. The FAA cuts were a prime example. People needed to know why they were waiting so long to catch their flights. Now, they will never know and the Repubs have no incentive to compromise on anything else.

By the way, waiting for late flight is hardly the same as waiting for your late chemo...

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