Obama to Push for Wider Deal With G.O.P. on Deficit Cuts

[Derechos]

Snip

The intensifying negotiations between the president and the speaker have Congressional Democrats growing anxious, worried they will be asked to accept a deal that is too heavily tilted toward Republican efforts and produces too little new revenue relative to the magnitude of the cuts.

Congressional Democrats said they were caught off guard by the weekend White House visit of Mr. Boehner — a meeting the administration still refused to acknowledge on Wednesday — and Senate Democrats raised concerns at a private party luncheon on Wednesday.

House Democrats have their own fears about the negotiations, which they expressed in an hourlong meeting Wednesday night with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

“Depending on what they decide to recommend, they may not have Democrats,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in an interview. “I think it is a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it.”

snip

Democrats are not just worried about the substantial policy issues at stake; they are also concerned about the political implications of any deal as they try to hold control of the Senate next year and win back the House.

To the degree that any deal wins bipartisan support on slowing the growth of Medicare, for example, it would deprive Democrats of what has been one of their most potent arguments heading into 2012: their assertion that Republicans would gut the traditional Medicare system and leave older Americans vulnerable to rapidly rising health care costs.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/politics/08fiscal.html?_r=1&hp

[Derechos]

1. More from the article

White House officials acknowledge the unrest among Democrats. But they argue that Democrats will be in stronger shape politically heading into November 2012 if they help enact a credible deficit reduction deal, allowing them to mount the argument that they protected Medicare from a much more drastic overhaul by Republicans.

In contrast, they say, failure to produce an agreement could bring unpredictable and unfavorable economic and political consequences.

[MisterP]

6. save Medicare by cutting it! how Ryanesque

[leveymg]

2. This is embracing the Third Rail - political suicide for Democrats

Why in Hell Obama thinks the rest of the Democratic Party will go along with this is a mystery.

He's cutting himself off from not only the base but the moderates, all of whom have to plausibly run as defenders of the New Deal.

Obama and his little Third Way circle of advisors are creating a lose-lose for the rest of the Party. He needs to be reigned in before he does irreparable damage by committing to the Weak Deal.

[still_one]

3. I want a viable REAL Democrat to challenge him in the primaries /nt

[leveymg]

5. Obama is setting up the conditions under which he might be primaried, and lose the general in '12

Does he want to lose? Before people scoff at that possibility, they need to remember what happened when the Democrats split in 1980.

[EFerrari]

7. Maybe working the four year shift right after Junior

is enough for one man.

[OHdem10]

4. Politcal Suicide for Democrats. I will not assist in their suicide .

[Marr]

8. It sounds to me like Obama is coordinating with Republicans against Congressional Dems.

It sounds like he's maneuvering the Democrats into a position where the voters' angst can placed on Democrats alone. Obama can work out a deal with the Republicans, make it just as neoliberal/conservative as he wants, then dump it on Dems at the eleventh hour, giving them a choice between taking the hit for Social Security/Medicare cuts or the threat of a financial meltdown.

[gratuitous]

9. Didn't Obama run as a Democrat?

Wouldn't it make sense for the president to work out a deal with his own putative party, and then start seeing how to work things out with the Republicans? Why are Democrats in Congress being denied a place at the table? Or is this a Sarge's Diner situation: "Here's your choice pally, take it or leave it."