Some additional thoughts on the budget issues

[5412]

Hi Folks,

Well I just read a couple more articles where Boehner basically walked out of the meeting with the president and there was not much new said.  President wants to raise taxes and spend more and the republicans do not.  While Boehner made some good points about the bills that passed in the house things appear to be at a standoff.

As many folks on this forum know, I have written some textbooks on the subject of negotiations and taught it all over the world for about three decades.  Most of my observations are coming not from what I read, but what I infer, reading between the lines if you will and I see some possible scenarios.

First of all is Obama is not a negotiator and he lost his heavy hitter when Emmanuel went to Chicago.  Basically I have not seen any changes in what the president and democrats are demanding over the last couple of weeks.  One suspicion is that they feel that it is premature to make any concessions, which they probably do not want to make; plus they have the media fanning the flames on their side.  So far that does not appear to be working.  The democrats may be under the idea that at the last minute the republicans will get very flexible with a gun to their head.  That in my opinion is an illusion.  

On the other hand Boehner is making good points; many which will not appear in the mainstream press of course, and basically what I read today is what is the point of sitting there when we have passed a bill in the house we truly believe in and the other party has no intention of changing their position.  Impression I get is Boehner is getting a lot of positive reinforcement and he may well suspect, if he caves, then he loses his job as speaker really quickly.  

In line with that, BO may well end up truly being surprised, thinking the Republicans will cave at the last minute because they always do.  I hope so anyway.  Point is someone needs to scream in his face, "We won,you lost, remember????'  He just seems to refuse to accept that the people are not behind him in the least.  

Second possibility is both sides are posturing to their base, the hard left articles are appearing so BO is trying to appease them.  I think the timing of BO approving gays in the military is not just a coincidence.  Boehner is trying to keep those hard on the right happy.  Might be part of the charade to sucker punch the public at the last minute.  Sure hope not but could easily happen.

If the president is not taking Boehner and the far right seriously this could really get fun and he is slapped in the face with reality.  When the deadline is passed it may be the first time the Bachman's of this world can speak up and point out the obvious, they were elected to stop the spending and bring the country back to some sort of fiscal sanity.    The fact that no democrat is voting for a balanced budget amendment is one they should really make some hay with.

Here is a great link to an interview with the co-founder of Home Depot talking about BO and the debt.  

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/home-depot-co-founder-blasts-obama-even-brain-dead-economists-get-it/  

I love it when he is asked what he would tell Obama if he had a chance to meet with him.  Basically the guy says that no matter what he would tell him, Obama likely would have no clue because he never had a real job.

Keep your fingers crossed because this could be the beginning of the unraveling if the conservatives stick to their guns.

regards,
5412

[docstew]

Agree with your thoughts. However, Boehner and the GOP leaders are allowing themselves to be painted with the "intransigent" brush. Their statements should be something along the lines of:

"During our negotiations with the President, he has repeatedly stated that increasing revenues is a necessary part of fixing our debt crisis. We agree that it would be irresponsible to continue down the path we are on and continue saddling our next generations with debt they can never repay before they are born. We disagree, however, and believe that reducing the hemorrhaging of funds should be first priority in solving this crisis. We are open to ways of increasing the amount of money brought in, which will be helpful in balancing our books and paying down our massive debt. Looking to history, we find that the way to bring about the greatest increases in money coming into gov't coffers, in other words increasing revenues, is to lower marginal tax rates. It worked for JFK in 1962, it worked for Reagan in 1982, and it worked for Bush in 2001. It works by growing the economy and encouraging businesses to hire more workers. IT WILL WORK AGAIN."

They go on the news selling this approach of cutting spending as first priority, cutting taxes to stimulate the economy and creating jobs, while making it clear that it is a GOP initiative, are winning points that will spell the beginning of the end of 0bama's only term. They will sieze the narrative from the POTUS, energize the base, and stymie those who believe it's all about tax cuts for the rich.