Calling their bluff?
http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/why-obama-may-stall-the-debt-talks-20110628Why Obama May Stall the Debt Talks
Going slow is in the president's interest.
By Marc Ambinder
Updated: June 28, 2011 | 1:16 p.m.
The two principals in the debt-ceiling talks, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, began talking on Monday with the same deadline: August 2, when the federal government will default on its debt. But Obama’s clock is running slower. And that means his leverage may ultimately be greater if he waits for several weeks before making a deal.
Obama’s political apogee will be in late July, when, if there’s no deal, the bond market will begin to panic, leading interest rates to rise and the stock market to fall. That’s when the public will begin to understand what happens when the U.S. can’t make its payments to creditors. That’s when the president can use his bully pulpit to call for an adult conversation.
That’s why Republicans want the White House to focus on vote counts right now. What combination of policies will exceed the necessary threshold for passage in the House and the Senate? Boehner is willing to concede that a debt-ceiling deal based on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan may not get 218 votes. And Republicans have already conceded that they’re willing to cut significantly from defense appropriations to get them.
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But
Obama knows that vote counts in the absence of the crucible of crisis will differ when Wall Street, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other traditionally Republican interests begin to nervously walk lawmakers out of their partisan garrisons. And he’s betting that Republicans, having learned that his team is on nimble feet when it plays close to the edge of the cliff, will concede more up front than they did in December, when only the threat of a government shutdown (darn it, the Smithsonian would be closed!) loomed as the existential sword of Damocles.
The longer Obama waits, the more Republicans will privately panic, knowing that their leverage decreases steadily as the weeks go by -- and exponentially at the turn of August. more...
http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/why-obama-may-stall-the-debt-talks-20110628
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