Living With Their Rhetoric

President Obama had a good week in foreign policy, yet is seeing the expected insanity from the House GOP as the country hurtles towards a shutdown and default. With the Senate likely to take the latest meaningless House stopgap continuing resolution and send it right back to the same malignant cabal that sent it to them, we are headed towards several weeks of economic and social calamity caused purely by a group of treasonous and racist secessionists bent on nullifying the last presidential election.

It's well past time for the president to stop talking about "Congress" and start pointedly talking about the "House Republicans" because the lies and hypocrisy are coming from them specifically.

“The American people don’t want a government shutdown, and they don’t want Obamacare,” House Republican leaders said in a statement. “We will do our job and send this bill over, and then it’s up to the Senate to pass it and stop a government shutdown.”

Actually, the polls show that Americans don’t want the House to shut down the government over a defunding of Obamacare, but the facts have never gotten in the way of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, or Kevin McCarthy.

A solid majority of Americans oppose defunding the new health care law if it means shutting down the government and defaulting on debt.

The CNBC All-America Economic Survey of 800 people across the country conducted by Hart-McInturff, finds that, in general, Americans oppose defunding Obamacare by a plurality of 44 percent to 38 percent.

Opposition to defunding increases sharply when the issue of shutting down the government and defaulting is included. In that case, Americans oppose defunding 59 percent to 19 percent, with 18 percent of respondents unsure. The final 4 percent is a group of people who want to defund Obamacare, but become unsure when asked if they still hold that view if it means shutting down the government.

Nor should rank-and-file GOP hardliners be exempt from our contempt.

“The federal government has shut down 17 times before, sometimes when the Democrats were in control, sometimes with divided government,” said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina. “What are we doing on our side of the aisle? We’re fighting for the American people.”

You’ll all remember Virginia Foxx from her embarrassing behavior in the House chamber over the last several years. This paragon of what passes for leadership in the House GOP demands a government shutdown to stop Obamacare, yet her state of North Carolina is much more dependent upon government employment and GDP caused by government spending than most other states. So fine, Ginny, let’s have President Obama shut off the federal money to your state and we’ll see how long you are in office.

“If Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats would stop being so stubborn then no, of course the government won’t get shut down,” said Representative Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas.

That’s the same Arkansas that also benefits disproportionately from government employment and government spending, so I presume Mr. Cotton that President Obama has your approval to not only shut down the federal government in your state, but to also redirect federal spending away from Arkansas?

If there were any political justice, the administration would start pointing out the consequences of Tea Party rhetoric, district-by-district. I don't expect Obama to do this, as the president should never sully himself with the sewage of his opponents. But that doesn't mean Joe Biden and congressional Democratic leaders should give these Tea Party creeps a pass. Someone needs to start pointing out to home-state media that if these Tea Party luminaries really support a government shutdown so much, then they should be prepared for the administration to take them up on their rhetoric - with their districts going first.

Taking The Country Over The Cliff

With yesterday's House vote to tie a Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the government beyond October 1 to a defunding of Obamacare, the House GOP leadership turned the car keys over to the Tea Party. The consequences of that should be clear to the Obama White House by now, and they should be telling the country between now and October 1 that the House GOP is willing to let the Tea Party minority ruin the country regardless of what the rest of America wants.

The GOP "strategy" behind John Boehner and Eric Cantor's capitulation to the Tea Party yesterday reflects the reality that the House GOP is controlled by 80-90 Tea Party representatives whose constituents want them to do whatever they can to make the law fail, even if that means a shutdown or even a default. This is not hyperbole, as the Pew Center poll released this week confirms this, even if the rest of the GOP wants their representatives to "make it work as well as possible." But if you let the extremist mob take over your party, is there an endgame in sight short of catastrophe? No.

Boehner and Cantor have lept into this with the assumption that once the CR is sent over to the Senate, the GOP can pressure vulnerable 2014 Senate Democratic incumbents to turn against Reid and Obamacare, or failing that, the bill will come back to the House with the defunding stripped out of it. Then what John?

It is assumed that Boehner will either play chicken and send it back again with unacceptable things, sending the government into an October shutdown, or alternately send back a CR devoid of the defunding to avoid a shutdown with Nancy Pelosi's help, something the White House seemingly wants regardless of Pelosi's desire to let Boehner sink himself. Yet as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic points out, helping Boehner out of his own mess with the CR only ensures a default later in October.

There seemingly is no clear strategy on how we get from a likely shutdown to the debt ceiling fight. Despite repeated statements from Obama that he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling, Cantor talks openly about the GOP's demands for increasing the ceiling, which include delaying Obamacare a year, approval of the Keystone pipeline, and a commitment to a timetable for tax reform. But how does Cantor get to that point later in October if the Tea Party has shut down the government to stop Obamacare at all costs? Why would Cantor or Boehner think that after weeks of a shutdown and damage to the GOP they could force anything upon Obama? Furthermore, if the Tea Party was emboldened by stopping Obamacare through the shutdown, why would they let Cantor cut any deal at all to avoid default, when their constituents want it to happen?

These GOP leaders think that stopping Obamacare at all costs is their winning issue for 2014, which may be true in their gerrymandered districts. But Republicans outside of the Tea Party understand that opposing Obamacare at the expense of a shutdown and default, just so Tea Party darlings can do 2016 fundraising is the end of the national party.

By the way, how many jobs have been created and how many Americans have health coverage due to House GOP actions and policies since 2010?

Why Not Yellen?

“Larry was a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth and made the kind of progress we are seeing today.”
--President Obama yesterday, drinking the Kool-Aid on Larry Summers

I was happy to see Larry Summers withdraw his name from consideration yesterday for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve, yet this sad episode of the Obama administration tells you enough troubling things to make you wish for 2016 to get here quickly.

From most accounts, this president decided that the two best people to succeed Ben Bernanke were Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. Think about that for a moment, and then focus on the incredibly poor judgement behind such decision making. Geithner was in the middle of the meltdown last decade, and then as Treasury Secretary ensured that Wall Street got what it wanted in the bailout while homeowners got ignored. For his part, Larry Summers has his fingerprints all over the crime scene that was the 2007-2008 meltdown, and made the fateful decision to eliminate an option for a large stimulus package from the president-elect's range of choices, thereby giving us this pathetic economic record and "growth" Obama incredibly touts today.

It's bad enough Obama wanted two of his "boys" for Bernanke's job, even though Summers has clearly established why he shouldn't be considered. It is even worse that he can't seem to work up even an elevated heartbeat for someone as well-qualified as Janet Yellen, you know, a woman. Obama wanted Summers so badly instead of Yellen that he was ready to ask Republicans to vote for her, naively thinking he could do so for free, instead of seeing the writing on the wall from fellow Democrats and simply going with Yellen even with all her support from across the spectrum.

Lastly, Obama's selection here if confirmed extends well into the next president's term. Don't assume for a moment that Hillary Clinton would have been more comfortable with Larry Summers than Yellen.