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Remember last January, when the President said he wouldn’t negotiate with hostage-takers—like the Republican representatives who demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling? His argument, as I understood it, was that:
- A failure to raise the debt ceiling would be unambiguously bad policy.
- It is irresponsible to threaten to implement a bad policy just to gain concessions on the spending front.
It’s an argument I expect we’ll hear again, next time the debt ceiling comes up.
And what’s the President up to in the meantime? He’s demanding a new round of spending increases in exchange for corporate tax reform. Now, since pretty much every sentient being in the Universe agrees that we’re long overdue for corporate tax reform (and in particular for lower rates), I think it’s fair to characterize the President’s position as a threat to retain a bad corporate tax policy just to gain concessions on the spending front.
It was Richard Nixon who famously demanded to be judged by a double standard with the claim that “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal”. Perhaps President Obama would like to amend that to say “When the President does it, that means it is not irresponsible”. Not everyone will agree.
“He’s demanding a new round of spending increases holding corporate tax reform hostage in exchange for corporate tax reform.”
I think I understand the intent of this sentence, but I’m having a really hard time parsing it.
Steve,
Your analogy is flawed. The GOP position is like an employer saying to workers “I’ll close down the company if you don’t do what I want.” The President’s position is more like the employer saying “I’ll give you all a raise if you start doing what I want.” One is a negative incentive, the other a positive incentive.
When does horse trading become hostage taking? It is another fuzzy line. Perhaps it depends on that word “unambiguous”. Failure to raise the debt ceiling would be unambiguously bad, but failure to reform corporate taxes would be bad-ish in some areas. Maybe. I guess the republicans want corporate tax reform more than the democrats do anyway.
It seems the corporate tax cut would surprisingly generate a one-off tax revenue bonus, and it is the spending of this that is being discussed, I think. The policies are linked to that extent. Although the debt ceiling and spending cuts are also linked.
3 “When does horse trading become hostage taking? It is another fuzzy line. ”
I think Steve’s point is that the line should not be drawn based on which side is doing it.
Also, what’s “unambiguously bad” is in the eye of the beholder. Steve is saying (and I agree) that failure to reform corporate taxation is unambiguously bad, whereas it’s hard to see why that’s the case for failure to raise the debt ceiling. For that, it all depends on what happens next. Default on the debt would be bad, but cutting spending to stay within the debt limit? Certainly not unambiguously bad.
David Sloan (#1): There were an extra few words I failed to excise during the editing process. This is fixed now. Thanks for catching it, and for calling it to my attention.
When the most powerful professional diplomat in the world doesn’t possess a basic sense of diplomacy, you know society is in a bit of a tailspin.
You’re taking political gamesmanship entirely too seriously. There is supposed to be posturing and absolutes. Of course, the President’s track record suggests that he doesn’t stop posturing.
I don’t think you can compare a threat to not pay the government’s bills with “a threat” to maintain current tax policy.
I agree with Martin under #2.
The GOP was threatening to bring about what could have been a severe economic crisis in order to obtain concessions.
As I understand, this kind of behavior is unprecedented in modern US politics.
Obama is offering an improvement (from the perspective of the GOP, at least) on the status quo, in exchange for some concession elsewhere.
This is very much in line with political tradition in the US.
“Severe economic crisis” resulting from not raising the debt ceiling is debatable at best and purported by a single party, whereas there is usually broad support across the isle for corporate rate reform. I believe Steve’s point was not the merits of the individual tradeoffs, but the President’s lofty criticism of it only when the other side does it. While not unusual for both parties, he should get called out on it once in a while.
“The GOP was threatening to bring about what could have been a severe economic crisis…”
No, actually they were only threatening to give shrill partisan hysterics more fodder for flatulent scare-mongering.
@ Ken B
“No, actually they were only threatening to give shrill partisan hysterics more fodder for flatulent scare-mongering.”
How is indefinitely increasing borrowing costs for the US government not something to fear?
@Daniel #12
I doubt he buys the notion that not raising the debt limit automatically leads to the outcome of raised borrowing costs “indefinitely”. Can you explain that line of thinking instead of making that conclusion for him.
@ Jay 13,
“I doubt he buys the notion that not raising the debt limit automatically leads to the outcome of raised borrowing costs “indefinitely”. Can you explain that line of thinking instead of making that conclusion for him.”
The low interest rates that the government gets rely on the assumption that the government will always pay its debts. If a government signals that it will not pay its debts this may change the markets outlook on government debt. No way to no for sure of course unless Republicans push it past the deadline.
When congress passes spending bills that get enacted into law, and when that spending needs to be financed with additional borrowing, not approving or even threatening to not approve an increase to the statutory debt limit is clearly irresponsible. Are there extenuating circumstances to that? There might be. I can’t think of any offhand but am fairly certain trying to get legislation you want passed is not one of them.
As for the President’s proposal, we have tax legislation on the books, it may be lousy and in need of repair but there is certainly no obligation on anyone’s part to do that. You can argue that’s what we elect legislators and executives to do, and if they fail to do that they are doing a lousy job, but I think that falls well short of being irresponsible like that which comes with threatening to not pay your bills.
@Jay 13:
Right.
I don’t buy that it leads to women growing beards or rivers overflowing their banks either. I concede it could lead to widespread lycanthropy and spontaneous human combustion.
@ Ken B
“I don’t buy that it leads to women growing beards or rivers overflowing their banks either. I concede it could lead to widespread lycanthropy and spontaneous human combustion.”
Yep because choosing not paying your debts is as related to interest rates as it is to women growing beards and rivers overflowing their banks right?
@ Daniel #14
Again, not everyone buys the notion that not raising the debt limit signals the need to default on obligations unless interest payments are fully funded by more borrowing and we’re not near that yet.
@ Andy #15
There’s a reason the increases aren’t automatic. It might be painful to the other party, but debt ceiling increases provide a needed time to reflect on the spending results of legislation passed by previous congresses. They would never get any face time otherwise. The same Democrats (including the President) that say we should raise it now without debate or concessions all voted against raising it under Bush.
@ Jay 18
“There’s a reason the increases aren’t automatic. It might be painful to the other party, but debt ceiling increases provide a needed time to reflect on the spending results of legislation passed by previous congresses. They would never get any face time otherwise.”
Except for every time we have a budget negotiation.
@ Daniel 19
When the Senate does not pass one in 4 years, it makes it difficult to debate.
@ Jay 20,
Why does the House continue to fund the government than? The point is that there’s a way to force spending cuts without threatening to stop paying debts. The reason they’re not shutting down the government is because the 90’s showed that shutting down the government is politically ruinous for the party that is seen to be responsible for the shutdown. Instead of going that route they decided to go with a threat they believe to be much, much worse and thus harder for the other party to stomach happening.
@ Danial 21
Again, the only person to threaten stop paying the debts was the President, please stop jumping to that conclusion without proving it would be unavoidable.
My point was there aren’t a lot of other ways to force the issue. As the Senate proved, you can run without a budget for years without forcing the issue. The House Republicans chose this route to force concessions on spending. Disagree with it all you want but the Dem’s did it during Bush. I would also argue that the 90’s shutdown was not very “politically ruinous”. Clinton took some hefty approval ratings hits and in the next election, R’s gained 2 Senate seats while only losing 8 in the House and keeping the majority by a landslide.
@Andy B 15,
A great example of this is the current discussion over the appriations for HUD. Back in the 1st Quarter, the House GOP agreed to a Ryan budget. Even though the Senate never agreed to that budget, the House has been operating as if that budget was in place.
But now, the Appropriations Committee has been trying to actually appopriate funds for HUD, and they have discovered there is no way to fund the programs they want to fund, while meeting the targets they agreed to earlier. Thus, they have punted and will revisit after their recess.
The fundamental problem is that top-down and bottom-up budgeting aren’t meeting in the middle. The way to resolve the conflict is to reach and agreement on what the role of government should be, and then attack the budget based on that agreement. Ryan and Cantor have a perspective; I don’t agree with it, but at least they have one. Unfortunately, they are not able to get the rest of the GOP Caucus to follow along, much less the House Democrats or the Senate.
@ Jay 22,
“Dems did it under Bush”. In what capacity did the Dems do it under Bush? Even when they were in control of the Senate, they always extended the debt when they had to. Dems never gave a credible threat of not raising the debt ceiling. They may have hemmed and hawed but at the end of the day they would never have let it expire. Republicans have decided to make it a big deal every time it comes up despite a shrinking budget deficit, continued low prime age employment rates and basically no inflation.
@ Danial 24
The Senate debt ceiling vote in 2006 had nearly all D’s voting no (incl Obama). In 2007 25 voted no and 5 didn’t vote at all (incl Obama). In 2008 the ceiling raise was attached to TARP. I’m no supporter of Bush or the R’s in congress during his term, but saying the R’s are uniquely acting irresponsible now is absurd to me. When congress is split the only way to force legislative votes is with deals like this otherwise the other house can simply ignore the bill. You may not agree when the other side does it but it goes both ways.
@ Jay 25,
Democrats weren’t needed to increase the debt limit in 2006, because they didn’t have control of the senate. It was simply political posturing in those instances. Whenever they were needed to help pass it along they did (see ’02 and ’07). That’s why I said “credible threat”. Making symbolic gestures at not raising the debt ceiling and actually credibly threatening to not raise the debt ceiling are different matters.
@ Jay 25,
Democrats weren’t needed to increase the debt limit in 2006, because they didn’t have control of the senate. It was simply political posturing in those instances. Whenever they were needed to help pass it along they did (see ’02 and ’07). That’s why I said “credible threat”. Making symbolic gestures at not raising the debt ceiling and actually credibly threatening to not raise the debt ceiling are different matters.
Steve, I don’t think Obama’s position is that he won’t negotiate with people who threaten something that both sides agree is bad. For instance, he’s willing to negotiate over the sequester, which both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders think is bad policy. Where he draws the line is on threatening things that both sides view as not just bad policy, but something absolutely catastrophic. Now whether failure to raise the debt ceiling is actually catastrophic is another matter, but I don’t think Obama’s being inconsistent here.
The problem with this sort of structural analysis is that it ignores the nature of the threat. There is an unlimited amount of hostages available to terrorists. If you negotiate to get one back, they will take another, and you have gained nothing.
Likewise, there is no limit to the number of times the government can be shut down by a party with a House majority or even just forty-one senators. Giving anything to keep the government running gets the President nothing, because the government can be shut down again.
In contrast, if you negotiate for tax reform, and you get tax reform, the President cannot come back “next time” and take tax reform hostage again. You HAVE your tax reform.
Meanwhile, the assumption that “pretty much every sentient being in the Universe agrees that we’re long overdue for corporate tax reform” attempts to make such reform analogous to saving hostages. But, in fact, there are people who oppose corporate tax reform of the sort the GOP wants, and, more important, there are very, very few political issues on which pretty much every sentient being in the Universe agrees. So the opportunity for the President to take such an issue hostage again is not all that common, and the risk of a repeat performance is remote.
In the more usual political case, one side will take hostage something the other side wants as to which there IS NO universal agreement, and surrender it as part of what politicians call a “compromise” – a term that has fallen into disrepute thanks to the Gerrymandered cretins currently occupying our Congress.
I am reminded of a guy who once tried to dispose of spanking by labeling it “a form of beating.” I may be wrong, but I suspect that the number of people who will defend an occasional spanking is greater than the number of people who will defend “beating,” which suggests that arguments of the “A is a form of B” form are bogus. Many “double standard” claims fit into this mold, and the current one is as good an example as any. Structural similarities are a place to start, not to end.Details matter, quantity matters, sequellae matter.
@ Daniel 26 & 27
We’re just going to have to disagree on what “help pass it along means” in the ’07 case, personally I don’t think 30 D’s not voting to raise it (including Reid and Obama) is helping it too much. A group of D’s led by Ben Nelson were proposing adoption of a pay-go budget system in exchange for the debt ceiling raise (which for the record I agreed with, remember half the No-votes were R’s in that vote). It’s not the R’s fault they didn’t have a united front but they were essentially doing the same thing the R’s were more recently. D’s didn’t have the majority in the Senate in December of 02 when they raised it so I’m not sure why you bring that one up.
@ Keshav 28
I’m not sure that’s what Steve is saying either. He’s basically saying the President is a hypocrite for criticizing the R’s for trading spending legislation for a debt ceiling raise and turning around and doing the same thing with corporate tax reform. You don’t have to support either side of those deals to agree with his point.
@ Jay 29,
You’re right. The GOP did have control in 2002. The interesting thing about 2002 is that the treasury department had to use their special powers to keep government financed in 2002. I guess republicans weren’t able to pass it by themselves so had to get the Dems to go bi-partisan on the resolution. In 2007 on the other hand the debt limit was increased without much argument. Also no ultimatum is given to the president in these other cases.
If you’re following the most recent discussion in congress, you’ll see that Republicans want these large decreases in government spending to come from somewhere, anywhere, as long as it doesn’t affect my constituents. The problem is, there’s not enough money in things that don’t affect their constituents to come up with their desired spending decreases. Their solution so far is to hammer programs that help the poor and leave all other stuff alone, but there’s simply not enough waste or excess in the programs that help the poor to come up with desired savings. This put’s us on a runaway train in which Republicans just want savings or else they’ll refuse to increase the debt limit. How can that happen if they can’t find something they want to save from?? Why haven’t they produced any kind of long term plan for deficit reductions with specific proposals to cut Medicare?
Politics IS double standards, hypocrisy & spin. (Another good reason to minimize the sphere of influence.) They flip-flop when they think it’s to their advantage, and we rationalize it when it’s “our guy” doing it. Since we don’t know any of these people, the healthiest working presumption is that *they’re all playing the same game* and pretending otherwise just makes one look silly, but it’s so easy to slip into that trap. The objectivity test is “would I be saying this if the shoe were on the other foot?” (I expect this to be met with more hyper-nuanced distinctions about different examples.)
Lawrence J. Kramer: I disagree with your analysis of the relevant details (and hope, but do not promise, that I will find time later to make a long response), but I do want to thank you for this particularly thoughtful and well-expressed comment.
@ Jay 29 (continued),
I also think that there’s a distinction because of the time period we’re living in. Why are we worried so much about spending decreases in the midst of the worst recession since 1929? It’s like worrying about termites when your house is on fire. Termites are a problem and should be dealt with under normal circumstances, but when the house is on fire we should be worrying about putting out the fire, before we worry about our termite problem. The termite problem was something we should have been worrying about before the fire started, but now that it has, the termites just aren’t relevant at the moment.
@ Daniel 31
Both of the Paul Ryan budgets passed the House in 2011 and 2012. While not directly cutting the Medicare baseline, agree with them or not they do attempt to curb the growth in Medicare spending by converting to block grants that are indexed for inflation. In my opinion this is much more likely to actually slow Medicare spending then pass the “Doctors Fix” every year or say you’re going to cut Medicare by $700 billion down the road in the ACA and then never actually do it.
@ Daniel 34
Recession ended in June 2009. I’m not convinced that continued irresponsible levels of recession spending are helping us in any way.
@ Jay 35,
We do disagree that simply privatizing medicare would curb spending (there was no proposal to block grant medicare, only medicaid), but for many reasons and since I’ve addressed this on past forums, I will not go into this here. Let me know if you want a link to previous discussions about this. Also, you haven’t seen the affect of Medicare spending cuts attributed to the ACA, so how do you “know” that they were empty cuts?
Yep, officially recession ended in June 2009, since than we’ve had a depressed level of employment below what any economist would reasonably say is a full employment level. If my economy falls by 10%, and than only grows relative to population growth, should this really be considered us having eliminated the crisis situation. If you’re willing to accept millions of long term unemployed than I guess so.
@ Daniel 36
The continued passing of the “Doctor’s Fix” every time it comes up and demagoguery against the Paul Ryan budgets every time its mentioned makes me skeptical that any group in congress will pass a $700 billion cut to Medicare as stated in ACA anytime soon.
As far as spending goes, I’m only worried that we’re going to go into the next recession already running disgusting deficits and what will we do then? Again, I remain unconvinced that current levels of spending are doing anything to promote growth given the stagnation we’ve seen since 2009 nor am I convinced that moving towards a more balanced budget would cause a collapse given the utter non-response of the recent indicators to the sequester.
#29 – I agree context etc. matters, which is why I find all the ‘hostage’ hyperbole to be just that. Terrorists may not care about public opinion (other than maximizing fear), but in a ‘sentient’ democracy it seems far from true to say that compromising “gets the president nothing”; it can earn him valuable goodwill with many (moderate) voters for being reasonable – especially if there is real public concern over debt, which is why the austerity threat has any teeth in the first place. But coming back with yet another shutdown threat would almost surely fail the reasonableness test and backfire. You may be right that insulated districts make it more likely some members will still find this in their direct interest, but in that case what we have is an intra-party squabble which their opponents may well cheer on (with crocodile tears) from the sideline.
Also the situation seems more symmetric than you describe. Tax policy changes are impermanent, and the president has many more issues and tools to use as well; the minority party simply tries to leverage the one tool it has.
“Tax policy changes are impermanent, and the president has many more issues and tools to use as well; the minority party simply tries to leverage the one tool it has.”
I have no problem with the minority party using the one tool it has, although the same can be said of terrorists. Indeed, it is not necessary to condemn terrorism in order to counsel a refusal to negotiate with terrorists. The objection to negotiation, the thing that makes the double-standard argument weak – is the fungibility of hostages. Just as terrorists never run out of high-value hostages to take, the minority never runs out of government shut downs to impose (if the debt ceiling is an issue). That’s why the GOP position is STRUCTURALLY like the terrorist’s position. In contrast, you have to deal with SL’s claim that “pretty much every sentient being in the Universe agrees that we’re long overdue for corporate tax reform (and in particular for lower rates).” Why make that claim? What does it add? But if it adds anything, then you must be able to make a similar claim about the President’s other issues. Surely, there is no consensus that Obamacare must go. What other allegedly universally loved bill is the President obstructing? Which one would he obstruct again in order to get another debt ceiling deal, given that what he wants now is an end to debt ceiling negotiations of any sort.
There really is no structural symmetry at all in the positions of the President and the GOP. What you have offered is a moral equivalence – using the only tool in their belt – but that is not a structural symmetry. In other words, it’s fine to try to defend the GOP’s terrorism, but that does not make BHO’s horse-trading a similar tactic. After all, as you say, he has lots of tools and issues to work with, and he is using one of them now. It’s just not the same one as the GOP is using; thus, not double standard.
@ jay 38,
I’m not sure what you mean. The ACA makes specific cuts to medicare. It doesn’t require other bills to implement these cuts. The Paul Ryan budget on the other hand is very abstract, with very little in the way of specifics. Even some people who initially thought Ryan was the bees knees have admitted this fact.
Your other point is based on what analysis? Look at the average number of jobs created in the second quarter this year vs the fourth and 5he first. I wouldn’t over interpret a few months data but these are not the levels of growth required to get us back to full employment anytime soon. We should be more worried about entering another recession in an already depressed state. We have the ability to take on a considerable amount of debt before it becomes a problem but the deeper we go in the hole with employment the longer road we’d have to recovery.
#39 — On symmetry:
I’m sure you’re correct that not literally everyone agrees it would be better if the US did not have the highest (statutory) corporate tax rate in the developed world (or something like that). Likewise, as is evident on this post, there is not unanimity on the notion that failing to raise the debt ceiling (if it really came to that) would have catastrophic economic consequences (particularly over the LR). I think the post was simply trying to compare two issues which it seems “most reasonable people” would view as threats of bad policy.
And the president only needs to pick whatever tool he believes is most effective (and has picked this one); you seem to assume he could not come back once we “HAVE our tax reform” and threaten to undo it. This seems no more impractical than the GOP winning concessions and then trying to use the shutdown threat again. My main point above was that the viability of all these strategies plays out in the court of public opinion, which is where the terrorism analogies unravel.
@ Iceman 41,
And the president only needs to pick whatever tool he believes is most effective (and has picked this one); you seem to assume he could not come back once we ““HAVE our tax reform” and threaten to undo it. This seems no more impractical than the GOP winning concessions and then trying to use the shutdown threat again.”
I feel that re-using the shutdown threat is a lot more likely to occur because we will inevitably need to increase the debt limit once again in another year or so, but it is not inevitable that tax reform will be undone. In the first case congress must act to not let the debt limit pass, while in the second case they’d first have to act to undo the tax reform before the president could use it as a threat again.
Fair point. Of course the reason it can be used repeatedly is because we keep breaching the limit rather than addressing the underlying issue, which is kinda like reneging on tax reform. But let’s say that is less practical for practical reasons. So the guy with multiple options just moves down the list to his second most effective issue. The question was this notion on the table that having only one hold-up tool makes you a “terrorist”, but with more than one you’re merely a horse-trader. And again I find the references to “terrorism” and “hostage-taking” to be pure (& inappropriate) puffery in a system ultimately determined by public opinion. It’s all negotiating – or posturing if you prefer — & they’re all playing the game as best they can. The real double standard is to convince yourself if the tables were turned each side wouldn’t take up the other’s positions, threats, tools etc., which I find usually makes people look quite silly.
@ Iceman,
I agree terrorist is a bit a of a strong word. Maybe, blackmail would be a better word. The parties don’t really disagree that reneging on the debt would be a terrible thing all around, so your horsetrading analogy doesn’t quite cut it. I also agree that polits will always exaggerate because it’s part of their job. I also know that Democrats haven’t in the past credibly threatened to shutdown government or renege on debt limits (which you might not believe to be a big deal, but plenty of economists and financiers regard as quite scary if the treasury ran out of the extraordinary measures it employs to keep debt financed). Not to say that Democrats don’t employ their own stupid tactics when their the party in power (getting rid of the filibuster comes to mind), I just think that many economists would agree that government shutdown and not paying debt are two of the most extreme sticks congress has available.
#44 – “Blackmail” isn’t much better, still misses the point that none of this stuff works unless there is a real underlying issue that both sides believe the voting public is actually concerned about. (Assuming we’re not literally talking about revealing incriminating photos or something.) Otherwise threatening a shutdown will backfire politically and the other side knows it.
Horse-trading wasn’t my term, I was dismissing the asymmetry that implied so I think we’re on the same page there.
Since threats must be credible (e.g. consistent with one’s espoused ideals), it seems less surprising that the party that is more associated with higher spending (a fair general characterization I think) is less inclined to use those particular tools. Of course there’s always the filibuster, which as you mention is a good example of double standard. I presume you’re not suggesting one side is just inherently more responsible.
@ Iceman,
Not inherently just in practice over the past 10-15 years, possibly since 1994 though. That’s just my opinion though which I believe to be supported by their actions but for which obviously you’ll disagree about.
Terrorist: “If you don’t give me what I want I will do something reckless!”
Target: “But people will hate you!”
Terrorist: “Great, as long as they fear me!”
GOP House Members: ““If you don’t give us what we want we will do something reckless!”
All Democrats (off record): “Go ahead, make our day. See you at the mid-terms. Good luck with that.”
GOP Senators: “Knock it off you morons!”
[Of course the tale ends differently if people think many voters also view continuing to rack up debt as reckless and realize there is plenty of $ to pay off T-bills.]
Moral: I do agree there can be structural differences between the negotiating positions of minority & majority parties, depending on the makeup of Congress & the nature of the issues at hand (IMO there are many policies which most reasonable people would find sub-optimal = opportunities for “reform”).
I disagree this supports analogies between democratically elected minorities and terrorist groups.
@ Iceman,
If the democrats are (off the record), how do you know what they’re saying?
I make the charitable assumption that they are rational, logical “sentient” beings. Remember publicly they would be shedding crocodile tears for the impending doom of the US economy.
Also note that to say one side *is* more responsible is not just to observe they have acted differently from their respective position, but that they *would* act differently if / when in the opposing circumstance.
@ Iceman 49,
I guess I think that the democrats do believe that not paying the debt (after the treasury has exhausted extraordinary measures) will do genuine damage to our economy. Obviously they don’t believe the sky will fall, but I think they really do not want the Republicans to take us over that thresh-hold. They also probably believe that increases in the deficit that have little to no ill affect on our economy in the short-term (if not help) and defaulting on debt have affects on our economy of a much different magnitude.
And while I see that there are “opportunities for “reform””, I don’t think the place to start is to hammer the poor at a time when they are particularly vulnerable with cuts on medicaid and food stamps, when these kind of cuts are largely irrelevant to our long term fiscal health.
@ Iceman 50,
I think I did observe them acting differently, in the Bush administration, during years they held power over one part of congress, and during the Reagan and Bush #1 administration. I also believe Republicans during the ’70’s and 80’s and even the 90’s were much more responsible than the Republicans we have today. I also think your counter-factual idea is untestable, so I have to base my thoughts about a parties responsibility on their current actions rather than how I think they behave relative to how the other party would behave in a similar situation. If you can give me an example of a similar situation, in which the Democrats as they exist today are playing chicken with our economy in some way to get us to fall on their side of the marginal differences between the parties on spending, let me know so I can make a fair assessment.
(note to Landsburg, I accidentally type iceman’s name into the Name field above, please don’t post that)
@ Iceman 50,
I think I did observe them acting differently, in the Bush administration, during years they held power over one part of congress, and during the Reagan and Bush #1 administration. I also believe Republicans during the ’70′s and 80′s and even the 90′s were much more responsible than the Republicans we have today. I also think your counter-factual idea is untestable, so I have to base my thoughts about a parties responsibility on their current actions rather than how I think they behave relative to how the other party would behave in a similar situation. If you can give me an example of a similar situation, in which the Democrats as they exist today are playing chicken with our economy in some way to get us to fall on their side of the marginal differences between the parties on spending, let me know so I can make a fair assessment.
@ Iceman,
I just want to understand where your coming from? Even if there’s money around to pay t-bill’s, the executive branch is still technically obligated to expend what congress had laid out for it in appropriations bills. It’s also technically obligated to pay the debt, so what recourse would the executive branch have in this case (besides trillion dollar coins)?
@ Daniel 52
Once again for the fifth time, the only people who have mentioned reneging on paying the debt have been democrats while complaining about what the R’s were doing. Not everyone agrees with you that they were playing chicken with the economy or doing something catastrophic, so you can’t state just state that as fact and base it from there. I have not read a single report saying the R’s permanently wanted to never raise the ceiling (the Ron Paul types aside), they just wanted something out of it first (something they believe would prevent future rises). The D’s did it in 2007 with Ben Nelson wanting to trade a ceiling raise for a pay-go budget, but unfortunately he didn’t have a totally united party behind him and it failed. Other than the difference in effectiveness, I see little difference in the two scenarios or one side acting more responsibly than the other.
@Jay,
We’ll have to disagree about the logistics. I think there’s a constitutional problem with not raising the debt limit but having an appropriations bill that clearly states the amount that should be spent. How does an executive branch get past that? And I don’t think it was responsible for Ben Nelson to do it either and enough of the sane people in his party and the Republican senators at the time prevented him from carrying it out. That doesn’t make me more likely to approve of the republicans now. And not everyone agrees that making cuts now will prevent future crisis and some believe that it might make things worse. Not acknowledging that the other side could be right and being willing to push the country into a situation that your own party admits would be damaging to the economy seems irresponsible to me.
*not responsible fir Ben Nelson
Defaulting on our debt (we can always print the money, which we do at a rapid clip already) and raising the debt ceiling are two entirely separate subjects.
Consider the couple, confronted at the kitchen table with a mountain of bills, and another mountain of credit card offers.
The solution to paying the bills, especially if the principle of “sustainability” is invoked, is to go out and work longer, harder, and smarter to bring money into the door; and it might mean selling the boat, the RV, the vacation home at the beach, and other assets that likely are mortgaged, to get out of debt, etc. This is called improving one’s financial strength, a virtuous goal.
On the other hand, there is that big pile of credit card applications from Hyatt, American Airlines, American Express, etc., beckoning one to earn points for a trip to a sunny island. This is eerily similar to the debate over the debt limit, which is about how many hundred billion-dollar credit cards will we sign up for today, knowing that by law we can get approval? Upgrades, of course are no problem.
But the last thing that couple facing difficulty should do. They should throw that mail in the trash along with their other credit cards.
They do not have to eat cat food, at least not yet, since they will get food stamps. They might think about the monthly cable and cellphone bills, though, and plant a big garden next spring.
@ Daniel 56
For the record I did preface it with “THEY believe” that spending cuts will prevent future raises. I’m under no illusions that not everyone agrees with R’s or people on that side of the spectrum. I agree that passing appropriations bills and then never raising the ceiling when the executive branch tries to implement them is irresponsible, but again I don’t think that was their endgame and we might disagree on that. In a split congress they tried to use a tool at their disposal to get a policy voted on in the house they didn’t control, and if it truly came down to not being able to pay interest on the debt or mail out SS checks (not just threaten not to, but the dollars actually not being there), I believe they would have balked long before that as they pretty much have on every other issue recently.
@52 — So now you’re literally putting words in my mouth :)
I think we need a new thread. I’ve heard it would be a fairly simple matter to pass a bill that explicitly prioritizes debt repayment, supposedly the chicken little issue in this game of supposed economic chicken, but I’ll defer to others on the micro logistics.
In terms of other examples of “balance”, your reference to nuclear option is probably ‘nuff said, but here’s a fiscal biggie you might find more comparable: I think just about everyone agrees we need to bolster the solvency of our entitlement programs. Yet it seems proposals toward that end are demagogued in a pretty one-sided pattern. Soc Sec reform that does not touch benefits to current or impending retirees is misrepresented to scare senior groups. And a Ryan-*Rivlin* proposal on Medicare & Medicaid is met with images of people in wheelchairs being dumped over a cliff. Responsible??
@ Jay 59,
You may be right that their threats are empty, but it did force produce the sequester (which both parties also dislike ironically) so the democrats must have thought that the threats were at least semi-credible.
@iceman 60,
I guess we’d have to go back to our discussion on HC and death spirals again in order to come to an agreement on whether Ryan-Rivlin’s plan was something to be feared, but let’s just assume I agree with you that the democrats tactics were hyperbole. I think using scare tactics and actually credibly threatening to let the debt limit not increase (which some believe, including Boehner to have damaging effects on our economy) are different crimes. I’m not saying that democrats are free from hyperbole, I’m saying I haven’t seen them threaten to actually take action to possibly harm the economy unless their demands are met, which is why I think they have been more responsible in the past 10-15 years.
@ Daniel 61
I think both parties “dislike” it only when it became popular to do so. They can both find parts in it they don’t like and its caused a lot of political theater (cutting white house tours, please). Though I think it is much ado about nothing as I don’t think 85B in cuts to the RATE OF GROWTH of the budget when it will still grow by 235B (CBO numbers) does anything meaningful to our long-term outlook.
@ Daniel 61 (cont)
Can you provide a citation on the Boehner thing, everything I’ve read says he plans to use trade a ceiling raise this fall only for spending cuts. On your other point, I believe the other side would arguably point to ACA passage (and the tactics used to pass it) as equally irresponsible as far as recent history goes, but again that depends on where your bias lies.
@ Jay
Here is John Boehner talking about the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling in July 2011:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/what-if-the-debt-ceiling-isnt-raised/?_r=0
The difference in the ACA passage was that democrats weren’t demanding anything from the other side in return and Republicans could eliminate it if they came to power in the next election cycle before the key component’s of the ACA went into affect. You can’t undo a financial crisis brought on by not raising the debt ceiling (assuming this is what would happen).
#61 – I think delaying our ability to even have a meaningful discussion about addressing entitlement reform is “action” that represents a much bigger threat to our economy (especially if it’s true we could easily prioritize debt repayment). Talk about an issue on which one can go to the well over and over.
@ Iceman 65,
Except that a lot of economists think entitlement reform is not an urgent issue. It is a “long-term” issue about which there is much uncertainty. In the short and medium term there is no pressing debt issue in a lot of economist’s opinions. That said it’d be nice to make cuts where there is excess, but democrats aren’t convinced that the type of reform Republicans want will actually save money, so there’s two sides to this argument. Proposals from Obama that include cuts to Medicare have been met with a “no deal” from republicans, so it’s not as if one side is ignoring the issue and the other side has to force them into a deal. My point is that Republicans like Boehner have in the past acknowledged that not increasing the debt limit could do lot’s of damage to our economy and it is a threat that is imminent, while there is no general consensus that entitlement reform needs to be dealt with now or anytime soon.
@ Daniel 64
In my opinion Boehner said those comments in order to force action from the President as he did little to change his position or be more open to compromise, posturing would be another word for it.
You misunderstood my ACA comment, I wasn’t comparing it to the debt ceiling debate, I was stating that people who disagree with you may believe that the D’s tactics during and the passage of the ACA was equally as irresponsible.
@ Daniel 66
What proposals for medicare cuts has the President offered that have been turned down? The only ones I can remember were part of the ACA and its not like the R’s voted no simply because it cut medicare.
So it’s more responsible to do things from which the damage is potentially larger (on the order of tens of $trillions) but farther in the future?
I think we’ve established that there is uncertainty around the outcomes in both cases.
My starting point was that everyone agrees the current path of entitlements is not sustainable.
Yet we call them the “third rail” because they get demagogued so badly no one wants to even talk about it. And I believe the source of this has been a bit one-sided.
But that’s just because they’re the party of bigger govt and a higher safety net. Others genuinely believe this has negative consequences beyond a certain point. I’m not claiming one side has the moral high ground (I believe you were). I say they both play the same game, and if they switched sides (as their members sometimes do) they tend to adopt whatever arguments advance their larger cause (themselves). We don’t know these people and pretending otherwise seems silly. Whenever one catch oneself believing the people on one side *are* better or act better (as opposed to preferring their espoused philosophy), it’s time to step back.
@ Jay 67,
Actually the president had repeatedly said how bad not raising the debt limit would be. Boehner’s comments were aimed at his own party because many of them believed it wouldn’t be so bad to let the debt limit lapse if they didn’t get their way. He was nudging them to action, not the president. Remember how the president was proposing cuts, roughly 3 to 1 (sometimes an even higher ratio than this) to increases in taxes and the republicans weren’t having it and were screaming revolt if Boehner accepted. Here are the proposed Medicare cuts in addition to the cut’s from ACA, which have already started to take effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/us/politics/obamas-budget-cuts-focus-on-medicare-medicaid-and-military.html?_r=0
@ Iceman,
Except by some prominent economists estimation, other than Krugman, cut backs now could make it harder to pay off the debt later. Where was I saying one side has the moral high ground? I was saying I believe one parties actions to be irresponsible but I don’t see that from the other party. You might have a different opinion and that’s fine, but I am still going to judge a party based on its actions and not on some counter factual. For the record, as I said before, I think getting rid of the filibuster would be a bad move and would be irresponsible, I just think its of a different magnitude than the republicans irresponsible actions.
I also mentioned irreponsible actions regarding the massive insolvency of our entitlement programs. So far your response has been that’s farther in the future.
For all I know there may be good arguments for getting rid of the filibuster for good. It was just an example of evenly distributed hypocrisy.
Once upon a time, Russell and Whitehead attempted to explain all of math in terms of set theory. It was a bold endeavor – and ultimately it failed. Set theory was not the firm foundation they had thought.
And once upon a time libertarians attempted to explain social theory in terms of property and autonomy rights. It was a similarly bold endeavor – and ultimately it failed. It’s difficult to build a society on property/autonomy rights when those rights are defined by the very society you’re trying to build.
Case in point: There is no objective standard by which to distinguish blackmailing from bargaining; rather, the distinction is based on a subjective evaluation of people’s a priori claims to property/autonomy rights. Blackmailing involves a wrongful threat to harm another person’s liberty/autonomy rights, whereas bargaining involves an unprohibited effort to secure the surrender of another person’s rights. We need a social judgment about the rightfulness of people’s claims to property/autonomy before we can evaluate the rightfulness of their efforts to secure the surrender of other people’s claims.
As evidenced by the current discussion, people differ about those subjective claims – and thus, about the propriety of offering to surrender them, or of seeking to secure the surrender of someone else’s claims.