The crisis of 2011 – in 2010?

If Obama and the Democrats stand fast on principle

And if I fly to the fucking Moon?

Pr Q said:

I imagine that would entail, at a minimum, full extension of the Bush tax cuts, effective repeal of the health care bill, no more money for the unemployed, Social Security ‘reform’ and a bunch of spending cuts directed at the tribal demons of the Tea Party. Of those, health care is the only one where I can see the White House taking a stand. I’m less clear about the priorities of the Congressional Dems.

I am still betting there will be no effective government shut-down. Although much brinksmanship – stamping of feet, shaking of fists and putting on of war-faces.

A government shut-down is a very high-risk strategy for the REPs. They would be better off pushing for a contractionary budget, sending the US economy into the doldrums and making a one-term presidency likely.

Undoubtedly the REPs will demand, and get, cuts in discretionary expenditure items and the extension of the Bush tax-cuts. So tough luck for the “unemployed”, working class recipients of “Social Security” and “tribal demons of the Tea Party”. And bon chance for plutocrats. All that was expected, the so-called “Deficit” Commission has already made the REP position clear.

The REPS will also try, and not get, a repeal of Obamacare. I have predicted that Obama will hang tough on that and will defend his signature legislation.

Obama has the high-ground here, being President and having a hospitable Senate. If things get tough then the White House can borrow from Social Security fund, as the Greeks are doing. And if things get tougher then how long are Red-State voters going to vote REP if their social security cheques dont get cut?

The REP House majority leader has already backed away from threats of a shut-down. And the REP Senate minority leader also hosed down the enthusiasm of congressional freshmen.

Obama has shown alot more political courage and policy vision than I (or Pr Q) give him credit. He has publicly said that”

“I’d rather be a really good one term president, than a mediocre two term president.”

I am betting he means it and that Pr Wet Blanket is wrong.

Tar and feathers!

(On a more optimistic note: The Dutch prequel to The Tea Party is having a rockin’ good time!)

In order for a political party to successfully exploit a threat to deny the government of funding, it must be defending a moral position of the highest importance to all citizens

In holding government operations hostage to a tax cut for the top 2% of earners the party in question is defending a moral postion of the highest importance to the people who tell all citizens what is of the highest importance to all citizens.

Which has the same effect.

weserei @ #7 said:

I don’t think the REPs hand is all that strong on this issue. Obama should go to the mat on this.

Jack Strocchi, how will people be used to “Obamacare” in 2012, when most of it doesn’t even kick in until 2014? That was always the most mind-boggling bit for me: how the White House and Democrats expected to be able to defend against Republican attacks on health care reform when no one was going to be experiencing the reality of it for ages.

Although Krugman is now giving some solid odds on a government shut-down, although he rates it less of a chance than Pr Q:

“I put 50 percent on a government shut down sometime in the next two years — 1995, but worse,” he told an audience at the Fiscal Choices conference hosted by several left-leaning groups.

More likely Krugman believes that gridlock will hobble any concerted US policy to stimulate the economy:

Krugman also predicted that political gridlock will make it near impossible for another bailout of the financial system if the economy backslides into an recession, or worse.

“In that kind of environment, it’s kind of hard to see a TARP 2,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine that we will have the political consensus to do this.”

The latter option looks more likely to me if the US economy starts to slide into recession again, quite possible if the REPs impose large cuts in discretionary spending and state governments start to go belly-up or retrench employees.

I suppose you would also have to consider the possibility that government shutdown is a feature, not bug, of REP political proposals. They are, afterall, interested in “shrinking the size of government”. No better way of doing that than shutting it down.

So shorter Strocchi/Quiggin: the REPs double-barreled opposition strategy will be to stagnate the economy and shutdown the polity.

This is from people who style themselves as patriots. [shakes head in disgust]

@10: It seems to me there are some things being left off the list–sustained efforts to improve the employment situation, scaling back the Mideast adventures, restoring human rights to the prisoners at Guantanamo, more or less everything to do with gay rights, etc. ad nauseam. Is there a reason why the health care and banking bills should be more central to our opinion of him?

@15: [A]re the wars funded through a separate appropriation process?

There’s no constitutional reason why they couldn’t be funded through a separate spending bill. The President could threaten to veto unless a domestic spending bill came to his desk, but that would require the Democratic Party to risk the appearance of being anti-imperialist.

The Tea Party are fanatics and fanaticism always has the initiative in the opening stages of a conflict. But fanaticism grows old fast. It always has a tendency to over-reach, double-or-nothing strategy. Mostly because it sees itself in a race against time.

My advice to Obama is to play rope-a-dope, let them burn themselves out in a flurry of wild swings. But when the final bell rings he should hang tough and go to the mat.

I would also try some wedge tactics against the TP’s white base. He can outflank the REPs in by doing a domestic Nixon-to-China on immigration. He lost the white vote badly in the mid-term, mainly due to the poor state of the job market. The Pew Centre reports of the new jobs went to non-Americans whilst native-born Americans went backwards:

In the year following the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data by the Pew Hispanic Center.

As a result, the unemployment rate for immigrant workers fell 0.6 percentage points during this period (from 9.3% to 8.7%) while for native-born workers it rose 0.5 percentage points (from 9.2% to 9.7%).

A tightening of border control and a jobs-for-Americans program would please border-control fans and encourage the white working class back into the DEM fold. That would be nice for a Change.

Clinton was saved from a government shut-down when the jobless recovery became job-full. The TP leaders are fueled by a discredited economic theory. They they can offer nothing of substance to their popular base, so they will burn themselves out..

Peter Guillam: So Karla’s fireproof. He can’t be bought, and he can’t be beaten.

George Smiley: NOT fireproof! Because’s he’s a fanatic! I may have acted like a soft dolt, the very archetype of a flabby Western liberal but I’d rather be my kind of fool than his. One day that lack of moderation will be Karla’s downfall.

He can outflank the REPs in by doing a domestic Nixon-to-China on immigration.

I’m not sure I understand your analogy. Nixon’s radical approach to China was to be less hostile. It sounds like you’re suggesting Obama should be more hostile toward immigrants, but that would split his own base much faster than it would split the Rs (particularly since many Latinos *are* part of Obama’s base now, due in significant part to the Republican Party’s increasingly-open hostility toward anyone who even looks like an immigrant, but also people of any race who are just plain liberal would react very negatively to Obama adopting anti-immigrant fearmongering).

Letting them wear themselves out with wild swings doesn’t work so well if you start imitating the wild swings.

He lost the white vote badly in the mid-term, mainly due to the poor state of the job market.

…which was poor because his (and the House’s) efforts to improve it were blocked and chiseled down by Republicans and moderates, mostly in the Senate. Some of the electorate may be uninformed enough to pin the results solely on Obama, but literate people with Internet connections don’t have to remain that ignorant if they don’t choose to.

Whites are a huge and diverse (in all ways but one) group and anyone reaching for a single explanation to explain their voting behavior is either trying to support a foreordained conclusion, or a fool, or both.

“When this doesn’t happen, can I ask for a mea culpa on your part?”

When what doesn’t happen, exactly? You agree that the Dems will cave on tax cuts and that they’ll give up the fight on unemployment benefits. I say Obama might stand up on health reform, you say he will certainly do so. Your final para hints that the Reps might back down without even trying a shutdown – if this happens, I’ll admit my error.

My advice to Obama is to …let them burn themselves out in a flurry of wild swings.

Since we’re playing in metaphor:^1^ the least proper response to a scorched-earth campaign is to let the perpetrators burn themselves out, because the fuel they’ll burn through is other people’s food and shelter.

^1^I’m particularly fond of the mixing of ‘burn’ with ‘flurry.’ A blizzard of flashfires awaits us…

Jack @18: Say what you will about Obama and his weakness, stupidity and perfidy, but he’s not going to court the racist vote because he can’t. He can choose the wealthy over the poor, and the warmongers over the rest of us, but he can’t pick white racists over Hispanics, because the white racists aren’t going to vote for him under any circumstances.

“Some of the electorate may be uninformed enough to pin the results solely on Obama, but literate people with Internet connections don’t have to remain that ignorant if they don’t choose to.”

As someone who just got his ass kicked in a State Senate race down in Georgia because the center right Democratic Party are a bunch of socialists[sic]

I can tell you there are a whole lot of angry, ignorant, literate, internet connected upper middle class people who are choosing bliss…

For some reason the lyrics to NoFx’s USA-holes comes to mind…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4X1aHFIWpA

[On a very very small positive note I beat the tar out of the Democratic Senate Caucus’ candidiate by 62% of the vote in the primary so the base of the Dems party wants anti corporate left of center candidates…]

What’ s the theory here? That every exclamation point refutes 20% of the opponent’s position, without any need for an argument?

Brett, there’s a really silly narrative that you’re probably not aware of that goes something like this: Racism by blacks and Hispanics is a huge factor in the corridors of power in this country. Obama’s political success (the narrative goes) is the result of his appealing to those racists – the people who would never consider supporting a white candidate with their time, money and votes. These are the famous “reverse racists” you hear so much about.

I assume, for the purpose of this comment, that your evocation of this absurd argument was unintentional, but really, C. Ned said everything he needed to say. (And, by the way, if you look over C. Ned’s response again, you’ll see that the exclamation points were intended ironically.)

No. Are you?

I wouldn’t expect a shutdown.

I can’t see them forcing any sort of crisis over raising the debt ceiling, which will probably need to be done some time in the Spring. I don’t see how that benefits them, so I don’t see any but their extreme crazy wing supporting the idea of not raising the ceiling. I don’t see how the refusal of these extremists developes into a crisis, as I assume almost every Dem will vote to raise the ceiling, so that it would take practically the entire R caucus voting against the rise to block it.

I honestly don’t know what to make of Simpson’s bloodbath statement, referring to the debt ceiling. He’s either a crazy old off-message coot, or the whole damn lot of them are crazy if they really mean for the Rs to act in concert to vote down a ceiling rise

Now, the matter of the annual budget bills that approve the discretionary spending, that come due at the end of the FY, is an entirely different matter. There it looks like we will see the Rs, acting in concert, deliberately produce a crisis. But it won’t be a shutdown.

Even before the election, Boehner was speaking openly of effectively repealing the ACA by having the House refuse to pass any discretionary funds for it in the budget bills. It would seem that this is something that all wings of their party, both its right wing and its extreme right wing, are behind.

Now, it’s true that to get this result, a de-funded ACA, past the Senate and the WH, will require a game of legislative chicken. But I would be very surprised if they let it be structured as their side having to threaten to shut down the govt. I would expect them, early in the process, some time in the first few months of 2011, to offer a plan to avoid shut-downs, to take them off the table as a weapon, by splitting spending into core and non-core, or controversial. The idea will be to pass the line items, either as final bills, or even just as CRs, that fund govt functions that both Rs and Ds agree are core and necessary, so as to get them out of the way, to shelter them form being interrupted in the battle over the controversial stuff. Of course, if the Ds agree to this, and allow the core items past, then the R House will never let one penny of spending for the “controversial” items pass.

I would expect the Rs to be modest in at least the first bite they try at this, and to limit their gains to just getting rid of spending for the ACA and a few other specific, relatively small, items — both programs and specific appointees. Not only would any deep and serious cuts both split their coalition and anger voters ahead of the 2012 races, they don’t need profoundly large cuts to trigger a constitutional crisis over very profound issues.

Obama would be almost compelled by a successful denial of discretionary funds to, say, the ACA, while it retains a sizable flow of non-discretionary funds, and while the obligation to enforce it continues (it will just be de-funded, not repealed), to seek other means of spending that non-discretionary money and meeting those govt obligations. But any attempt on his part to use other govt functionaries to fill in for the people not hired because the ACA was denied discretionary funds, will just as surely be challenged in court by the Rs.

This is a very fundamental question of what that phrase “power of the purse” means. And a messy constitutional fight over such an issue is exactly what the Rs need to cover their inability (of their extremists) or unwillingness (of their “moderates”) to get actual significant budget cuts. The tea party types promised revolution and Armageddon. They at least have to deliver a season of constitutional hardball, or they are exposed as overwrought at best, frauds at worst. But if they can deliver a crisis, and then have their Federalist Society-packed courts hand them a victory over their first bite at unilateral House repeal of selected govt functions and personnel, they will be emboldened to press their advantage, and the second, third and later bites will not be so mild and shallow.

“The idea will be to pass the line items, either as final bills, or even just as CRs, that fund govt functions that both Rs and Ds agree are core and necessary, so as to get them out of the way, to shelter them form being interrupted in the battle over the controversial stuff. “

The amusing thing is, this is pretty much how Congress is supposed to operate, if you’ve got a naive civics text book view of these things: Vote on items separately, so that the popular things pass, and the unpopular things don’t, instead of putting everything together into 2000 page appropriations bills in order to confront the members with the choice of either voting for stuff they oppose, or shutting down the government.

IOW, the Republicans’ nefarious plan is just good government. Says something when you see good government as a sneaky weapon, doesn’t it?

Hey rwschnetler, I try not to waylay live threads with stuff like this, but this thread seems to have petered out, so let’s have a go at this.

You’ve got two questions:

So what is your point in the first paragraph in post 32?

I thought that paragraph was self-explanatory, and I’ve got nothing to add. Perhaps if you have a more specific question …

And in 32, how did you assume :

I stipulated that point, as I said, for the purpose of that comment. (That purpose being an admittedly snarky, ironic willingness to assume ignorance on Brett’s part, rather than malice.)

If you would prefer to assume that Brett’s comment was intentionally evocative of that absurd argument, that’s okay with me and doesn’t meaningfully change my point.

Apparently you want to deny the existence of those black racists, or to state it another way, claim that only whites are racists.

I think it’s more the assumption that blacks will vote overwhelmingly Democratic no matter what, and white potentially Democratic-minded bigots might actually vote for the non-Republican if the non-Republican was white.

An interesting test of your claim of racist parity would occur if the Republicans fielded a black candidate and the Democrats fielded a white candidate in 2016. I personally suspect the overwhelming majority of black voters would vote for a white standard-Democrat over a black standard-Republican, Brett, and while you clearly stridently disagree with this, it’s the consensus assumption.

And you know that. And you knew that already. So you’re trolling. I mean, heck, when you find yourself restating your interlocutor’s point in ways you know they’ll disagree with, then you’re consciously, intentionally trolling.

Don’t act fake surprised when you troll successfully, dude. It’s bad form.

“and while you clearly stridently disagree with this, it’s the consensus assumption.”

It’s my assumption, too. Two white candidates, or two black candidates, merely neutralizes the racism factor, (To a first approximation, anyway.) leaving other factors to control the outcome.

But in your hypothetical black Republican vs white Democrat matchup, yeah, I think the black vote would be significantly more Republican than in the opposite matchup. Maybe not majority Republican, but more Republican.

Correction: You started this in post 26 not 27.

There are a lot of folks writing about how Obama is about to cave on us TOMORROW. Yet when he doesn’t, those folks just seem to write the same thing about something else where Obama Has Disappointed Us Again And Will Betray Us. So, when this doesn’t happen, can you be a bit different and note in some objective way how well the doom-saying played out?

You did note the author’s name at the top of the page?

Racists of color. This is a meaningless term in the the United States.

JM, your comment is directly responsive to the underlying argument made by the anti-anti-racists, but I think it fails in some sense because it doesn’t address the superficial argument that they make. My intent in 32 was to ignore the superficial argument and expose the underlying argument.

The superficial argument is merely definitional, and as such, it’s not unreasonable: Racism, in this view, is properly defined as race-based hostility; something that all humans are prone to, regardless of race. (To suggest otherwise is racist!)

The underlying argument is the one I outlined in 32: Racism – using their definition – is essentially identical among races not merely because the definition is the same, but because the causes, consequences and moral meaning of racism are identical among races.

The anti-anti-racists are desperate to argue over definitions. Look at rwschnetler in 33. I’m very specific in addressing the underlying issue in 32, but he’s desperate to divert the conversation to definitions.

Anti-anti-racists are tongue-tied when confronted with their underlying argument. They either have to defend that argument (which is impossible because it’s ludicrous) or they’d have to deny it (which they can’t do because it is, in fact, their underlying argument).

Look at rwschnetler here:

Then you wrote a little story in 32 and not only make as if it is his argument, but also self evaluate this to be an absurd argument.

Is he offended because I’m falsely attributing a ludicrous argument to Brett? Or is he offended because I deem that perfectly sensible argument ludicrous? He can’t say. He’s stuck.

oops

“The underlying argument is the one I outlined in 32: Racism – using their definition – is essentially identical among races not merely because the definition is the same, but because the causes, consequences and moral meaning of racism are identical among races.”

Well, let’s see.

Causes: The general causes of racism are just the tendency to think of those like you as being better than those unlike you, and a certain mental laziness that rejects the work inherent in treating people as individuals rather than interchangeable members of a class. So, check, I’d say the causes are the same.

Consequences: The consequences of racism vary from individual to individual, from essentially nil, to mass murder. The key point to understand is that they vary from individual to individual, not from race to race. Yeah, it’s convenient to pretend otherwise. See the second cause of racism, cited above.

Moral meaning: Again, the moral meaning is the same: You’re treating individuals as interchangeable examples of a class, rather than the people they ACTUALLY are. Ignoring their own individual guilt and innocence, their own individual merits and demerits. That’s a moral wrong.

So, on the basis of the superficial definition, or the deeper meaning, I think I’m right.