Explaining Obama's actions re: the sequester

[BlueStreak]

There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth about Obama's various positions leading up to today. I humbly suggest it isn't terribly complicated.

1) He made a good faith offer for a big balanced deal. The inclusion of chained CPI was an offer made with the near-certain knowledge that the teabaggers would not allow any deal. Obama's main strategy is to maintain his position as "the only adult in the room".

2) By now, Obama must realize that there will be no compromising with the teabaggers. And he must have accepted the corollary, which is that if he can't find a way to gain 15 seats in the House in 2014, his second term is essentially already over. He may get a little bit on gun control and a little bit on immigration. But basically the most important thing that remains (absent Pelosi as Speaker in 2015) is to work hard to get the ACA exchanges up and running and to get all the rules in place to sustain Dodd-Frank. Not exactly a dynamic four years. So Obama must realize his top priority must be to win those 15 seats. Considering he didn't lift a damn finger to win ANY house seats in 2012 and never showed up in Wisconsin when we needed him, it really isn't that much of a stretch to talk about winning 15 seats -- especially when there really isn't much else worth doing. Let's hope he understands that, and is just wise enough to not "do a McConnell" and say it out loud.

3) Obama knows the economy is very soft. It was already getting soft before "the cliff." Growth is practically zero now and the unemployment rate won't budge. That leaves us with one of those cynical times where a politic an makes a choice to accept some bad in the interest of a long term good. Basically Obama wanted the GOP to make the sequester happen. There wasn't really anything Obama could do to stop them, other than giving away the store, which none of us would accept. So he decided that the best strategy was to let the GOP force the sequester, and make sure they own it.

Notice that in the past several weeks he hasn't really asked for any negotiations, other than in vague terms "I sent you a balanced approach. My door is open. I want to work with you." But he didn't want to negotiate. His bully pulpit rhetoric was all about foreshadowing just how bad things will be after the sequester. In fact, the sequester itself might not cause all those problems. But the sequester on top of a slowing economy could really be disastrous. So much of the economy is psychological. If people get back into a recessionary mind-set, this could get really ugly.

But Obama could not prevent that, so basically now he is wishing for some pain. I know that sounds harsh, and Obama will never admit it. He's too smart for that. But just watch. From this point forward, any bad economic news is going to be linked back to the "Republicans' reckless handling of the sequester." Notice that he has said almost nothing about the fact that the economy is already slowing down on its own. His strategy is to like future problems back to this one event that EVERYBODY is paying attention to, in a high-stakes game of "POTUS told you so." If it gets bad enough, this might spook the Republicans to compromise with some infrastructure spending or other helpful measures in advance of the 2014 election cycle. And if they don't make such a fundamental turnaround, the goal is to drive the Republican brand downward from its already low numbers.

He really has no other choice. And the upside is huge. If this strategy puts the House back under Pelosi while we hold onto the Senate -- and we pass real filibuster reform at the opening of the 2015 session -- the 2015-2016 time could be VERY progressive.

Think about Reid's about face on filibuster reform. My contention is that was the direct result of a deliberate strategic decision by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi that said, basically, "There is no upside to changing the rules this term because nothing will get through the House anyway. We are better off having the GOP seen as blocking progress at every step, so let's let them keep the rope that they will hang themselves with. And if we have the opening heading into 2015, that's when we do the reform." Remember, you didn't hear a word of criticism from Obama or Pelosi when Reid did that.

Any thoughts?

[Sugarcoated]

1. you make a lot of sense

I didn't put all the peices together like you have, but I actually was hoping for the outcomes you speak of...just didn't think it was quite so calculated. Obama's no dummy and he's certainly realized the Puke's game....anyone could. Guess that's why they're rock bottom in the polls.

[BlueStreak]

3. Some of this is wishful thinking on my part

Frankly he might not be in this situation if he had been willing to run hard against the "do-nothing Congress". He decided -- absolutely deliberately I believe -- to make the election about one man, Barack Obama, and to not complicate things by involving House races in the decision.

And he may have been right. It is certainly possible that his margin of victory really boiled down to peeling away enough people who were inclined to vote Republican for the House, but just couldn't go with Romney. And if Obama had linked the decision ("There is no point in voting for me unless you also send me a Democratic House&quot , Romney might be President today. So I am not second-guessing Obama's strategy for the election.

But surely he knows the score today, and his strategy MUST be to do everything possible to ruin the GOP brand by 2014, while still appearing to be the adult in the room.

If that isn't his strategy, it sure seems like every action is consistent with that strategy.

Maybe I am smoking dope and none of this will come to pass. After all, conventional wisdom says he has no chance of picking up seats in a mid-term. But He has kicked conventional wisdom's ass a bunch of times already.

Conventional wisdom said a first term Senator can't be taken seriously.
Conventional wisdom said being against the Iraq war was the kiss of death.
Conventional wisdom said he couldn't beat Hillary in the primaries.
Conventional wisdom said America certainly wasn't going to elect, gasp, a black man.
Conventional wisdom said that there was no way for an incumbent to win a second term on such a bad economy.
Conventional wisdom said that the table was set for Romney to waltz into the White House.

Basically, "conventional wisdom" hasn't been right about the big stuff for quite a long time, so I just don't buy the proposition that we can't pick up the House in 2014 and hold the Senate.

[graham4anything]

2. President Obama ropes the dopes every single time,and keeps eye on the prize-LONGTERM

When Rush said President Obama wants to annihiliate the republican party
I think of old character actor Frank Nelson
well
yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

bring it on.

The house will be democratic in 2014
and the senate will hold strong

and 2016 Hillary will cream Jeb Bush and whomever is the VP

and then SCOTUS will be 8 to 1 in short time after

The long term prize is what is important
not the day to day but long term and forever.

because day to day the old adage is true "this too shall pass"
Just like the stink of Nixon
Just like the stink of Reagan
Just like the stink of W

this too shall pass.

Keep the eye on the long term prize.

[BlueStreak]

5. I believe this is what he is thinking. The man has unbelievable patience.

And your comment about SCOTUS going 8-1 is interesting. Notice that Obama hasn't said a word about Scalia's outrageous comments this week. Presidents generally don't comment directly about SCOTUS justices or cases that are pending, so his silence is not surprising. But you also hear a whole lot of side talk boiling up about the voting rights act. I wonder how much of this might be encouraged by the White House.

Again, the short term view is that Obama doesn't have any control over what SCOTUS will decide on voting rights. But if the evil 5 pull the rug out from under that law, Obama should be looking for ways to use that as part of the push for 2014.

And 2014 is not just important for the possibility of taking back the House. The GOP brand is seriously damaged. Only 20-some percent are willing to self-identify as Republicans. It is important to get another 5 million people in the habit of voting Democratic in 2014, to put us in a stronger position going into 2016.

Regarding an 8-1 SCOTUS, I don't see that. But let's say Hillary wins and looks like she has a good chance to serve through 2024, there may be a couple of the evil 5 who will say "I'm outta here". They will know that they will soon be in the minority one way or another and they may not want to run out the last years of their lives just throwing spitballs at the other justices. I'm talking about you, Thomas and Alito. Actuarially speaking, either of those two could plausibly outlive an 8-year Hillary Presidency. But would they want to? As far as I can tell, Thomas hasn't contributed one damn bit of anything to this court other than to sign his name on a bunch of 5-4 decisions. What would be the point of a pea-brain like that, who has no capability of making any serious legal arguments, to continue sitting on a court that is routinely deciding things against him 5-4 or 6-3? Alito might be more inclined to fight the good fight. Scalia and Kennedy would most likely be dead long before the end of an 8-year Hillary term, maybe even before Obama's term is over.

[truebluegreen]

4. I'd call it wishful thinking,

but it is wishful thinking I've been doing myself, trying to find some kind of silver lining in this debacle.

Maybe this will wake enough of the country up to who and what the Republicans represent (and we owe a big vote of thanks to the TeaBaggers for stripping off the mask).

Certainly nothing good is going to happen until we get the House.

[ancianita]

6. I buy this. This administration might have written the template for future stealth governance.

I'm not sure that's a good thing, either.

[BlueStreak]

7. I know what you mean

But our government is really completely broken with all the money that is in control and all the Gerrymandering. It is the broken government that is so hideous. I really think Obama is playing the only game that is available to him. Nothing is guaranteed, but I can at least see a path to success with what he is doing. It will likely be very ugly for at least the next 2 years and probably a lot longer than that.

But remember that Democrats did dominate for several decades, and these were the best years America has ever seen. Between the scenarios already discussed in this thread and a seismic shift in demographics, it is not outside the realm of possibility that by 2024 we will have wrestled back control. If we can get rid of the evil 5 (with just a little help from Mother Nature), we can reverse Citizen's United, which will help a lot. And we can also throw out the worst of the Gerrymandering, as clearly that is against the most fundamental rights of a representative government.

The teevee networks will never discuss these things. They have the attention span of a parrot. But frankly it is probably better that they don't talk abut this. it seems to me Obama is thinking way beyond what most of our enemies can see. Clearly the Kochs take the very long view as well. After all, their daddy was doing this same crap 60 years ago when he formed the John Birch Society. But I think most of the others are very much opportunities thinking only of immediate gratification. This will be their undoing.

[ancianita]

9. Amen to all you say. But you are the first to offer a way out of this brokenness, and I am

relieved at your insight at what the long game strategy could still win to fix this brokenness.

So let's hope. The less media shines a light on this strategy, the less the GOP could strive to screw it up. I'm still with the "please proceed" side of how governing will change.

Thanks for your post today. It made my day.

[eridani]

8. I personally can't figure out if Obama really thinks the deficit is our major problem, or not

If he does, we are in deep shit. If he pivots to job creation instead, maybe we can pull our chestnuts out of the fire.

[BlueStreak]

10. Well, he cannot pivot to anything now, except gun control and immigration

because on those two issues, the GOP is sensing some real danger if they don't change. They sense no such danger on the austerity front.

It greatly saddens me (and Obama too, I think) that we may well have forced this economy back into recession or at best locked it into this jobless recovery situation. The media all over the world is fixated on "out of control spending", and I think Obama knows he cannot push against that right now.

But we can. The only worthwhile thing that the BS plan (Bowles Simpson) did was to at least frame the problem in simple terms. When they started, our expenses were about 24% of GDP and our revenues were 16% of GDP. Historically the place where things balanced was around 19%-20% of GDP. We were on track to get to the 20% range on expenditures with any kind of reasonable recovery But we are still under 17% on the revenue side -- the lowest taxation in 50 years. And let us be crystal clear. When the Republicans are saying "Obama got hie tax increase in January", that event made the reckless Bush tax cuts PERMANENT for 98% of the public, and only made a token increase to the richest 2%. Moreover the rich have succeeded in gaming the system with low capital gains rates, the carried interest loophole, and various other tax evasion strategies.

The gap between our present 17-of-GDP-ish% taxation and the historical 20% level is

1) the Bush tax cuts that Obama just made permanent
2) all these loopholes the rich exploit

So I can curse Obama every day for allowing the reckless Bush tax cuts to become permanent. But at least I will give him some credit for sticking to the position that we have to address the most criminal of the loopholes that allow Romney to pay only 9%, that allow Buffet to pay a lower rate than his secretary, and that allow the rich to keep $31,000,000,000,000 offshore where they pay no taxes at all.

[Whisp]

11. Bluestreak, that was awesome.

[union_maid]

12. There's also the fact that negotiation was even more futile

Sequester is bad, and no one thinks any differently, but it leaves SS and Medicare alone and cuts defense spending as I understand it (which is not terribly well.) He could never have gotten that from negotiations.