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July 11, 2011 08:12 PM UTC

Obama Scolds Congress on Budget Talks

  • 59 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: There’s an interesting CBS News story (h/t to SSG_Dan) today about how quickly we forget that a similar fight happened before, under George W. Bush:

Just a few short years ago, a president sent a request to Congress for a simple, but expensive piece of legislation. President Bush asked lawmakers for a $700 billion blank check to rescue the troubled financial sector that was on the verge of collapsing and taking the US economy down with it.

Both parties in Congress balked. And when the Democratic controlled House of Representatives failed to pass the TARP increase, the markets responded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 777 points after the House vote on September 29, 2008. The Senate came to the rescue by passing the program and the House quickly followed suit…

…Could the legislative game of chicken that eventually passed the TARP program be on tap as Washington steams toward the August 2nd date of the Government being unable to pay its bills?

Unfortunately, not. The 777 point drop, the largest single day point drop in history, could look tiny compared to what could happen if the nation’s credibility to pay its debts is challenged. If world markets lose faith in the American economy, there not be a chance for a second vote if there is any failure to raise the debt limit.

We ask the same question that we asked below: If the budget talks crumble and the economy continues to tank, are Republicans really sure that voters won’t blame them come 2012?

—–

Our friends at “The Fix” give a rundown on President Obama’s press conference this morning:

Obama is quite clearly now using the bully pulpit afforded him by the presidency to cast himself as the adult in the room on the debt ceiling.

One example: He flat-out rejected the idea of a short-term deal – 30, 60, 90 or even 180 days – on the debt ceiling by noting that “this is the United States of America, and we don’t manage our affairs in three-month increments.” (Hard not to hear parental echoes in that line; “That’s not the way we do things in this house….”)

And while Obama avoided taking the sort of direct shots at Republicans that he did during his late June press conference, he still emphasized that adopting a “take your ball and go home” mindset is not acceptable.

“If everybody gets into the boat at the same time, it doesn’t tip over,” Obama said at one point. At another he argued: “American democracy works when people listen to each other.”

Congressional Republicans continue to flat-out refuse to discuss any revenue generating proposals, using the “tax increase” rhetoric as often as they can spit it out. Republicans believe that a down economy probably benefits them politically in 2012 (and some, like Michele Bachmann, are even saying it out loud), but this debate may be happening a year too early for the GOP. If a budget compromise is not reached, a year from now will Americans blame Obama or Republicans in Congress? Republicans may want to make sure that their message isn’t peaking too soon.

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59 thoughts on “Obama Scolds Congress on Budget Talks”

  1. Does he really think GOP members and blue dogs will vote to hike taxes so he/they can spend like a drunken sailor?

    $14 trillion in debt and no ARRA accountability for the billions he used to create or save the $278,000 jobs.

    1. Someone already corrected your math on the cost/job. I am sure you already knew that. I’m also sure you already know that ARRA had very high accountability standards, maybe higher than those for any other govt program ever done.

      Onyly problem with ARRA is that it wasn’t big enough.

    2. That was a direct quote and the Republican party line when Bush rang up the vast majority of the current debt. I don’t remember that bothering you, or any Republican federal officeholders, at the time.

      So let’s be clear, Libertad: show us where you sounded the alarm about reaching $10B in debt under Bush; if you can’t, clearly you don’t give a rat’s ass about debt.

    3. Republicans under Bush lowered taxes and raised spending to a budget that was designed to pay off our debts back in 2001.  Then they added a couple of wars on top of that, without doing what every other President has done when faced with a war – raise taxes to support it.

      Y’all (you and your GOP buddies) have gone beyond arguing with Democrats over what the proper level of spending might be, and straight into Norquist’s magical government-drowning bathtub.

    4. I’ve already punked you out in another thread where I’ve proved this number emerged from Grover Norquist’s ass, and you need to stop spewing his shit.

      Where’s the accountability for Dubya when he guaranteed his tax cuts would pay for themselves in 10 years? Between the Medicare Drug Plan (aka Drug company welfare plan) and the Millionaire Tax cut, $9 Billion of this debt is on the Republican’t Party’s tab….

    5. not sure what ‘tard hopes to gain by repeatedly citing debunked fictional  figures or biased polls. Libertard’s PPC-like actions are:

      – be 1st to comment to a post

      – post inane statements w/ little to no backing

      – let ColPol posters waste time & effort refuting his assertions and fall over themselves proving his stupidity  

      There’s no respect for what he posts so why should there be any responses?  Come on, collectively just hand him his ass this one last time and then ignore him rather than feed his ego.  

      1. ‘tard isn’t the way I would choose to refer to Libertad. I know it’s easy, but I’ve been in the position of working as something of an advocate for the disability community, and I would bet you any amount of money you like that Libertad has less than half the challenges that most people with disabilities face on a daily basis, and he’s twice the asshole about any hard times he DOES encounter.  

      2. Don’t you find referring to people as “retards” or “tards” is equivalent and as mature as referring to people as  fagots, crackers, coons, wetbacks, etc….

        I recently posted on our President calling his mansion basement 129 bowling display just like Special Olympics. It made me sad that our President really only considers himself an elitist and disabled persons of less humanity.

        I put you, dear VanDammer, in that same class of civil goons and elitists. You VanDammer feel superior to other humans, I guess that helps make your case for supporting abortion and the death penalty.

        Parade on with your culture of death VanDammer, good luck with your warped values.

      3. but you have complete freedom to express yourself anyway you want which is one of the appeals of Pols.

        I’ve used several insulting nick names for it but usually come back to Libby.  It is an affectionate name you would use for a dumb animal like a dog.  “Come here Libby and stop eating those road apples”.

        As far as letting the guy hijack the thread with total bullshit, you have to remember people write here for fun and sometimes brutal replies are as entertaining as trying to “stay on topic”.  He/she/it lives in a fantasy world where facts have no meaning so you can say unkind things to it and like a dumb animal it has no idea what you are talking about.

        We used to have some intelligent and entertaining conservative posters like Laughing Boy but like moderate Republicans they have disappeared.  Alas this little bitch is a true representation of the current state of the conservative movement.  Clueless and proud of it.

        1. and actually I’m in total awe of most all of Earth’s creatures.  

          ‘turd and other spurious “fact” spouting RW trolls beget nothing but disdain & contempt.

          There is a pattern to this troll’s actions.  There is a method to this troll’s hijack of a thread.  Just look folks, it’s there.  

          The minions @People’s Press Collective (and other activist psuedo-journo forums) are active in disrupting most rational discourse.  It is a tried & true pattern that you’ll see played out by threadjackers in many political & social blogs.  

          Just calling out what I see and no longer gonna step in ‘turd’s pasture patties.  

  2. responding to DeMint’s claim that we have plenty of money to pay debts even if an agreement isn’t reached so there is no reason for the panic Dems are trying to create about the Aug 2 deadline.  

    Moody guy said that DeMint was technically correct but that in order to pay those debts there wouldn’t be money to pay pretty much anything else and the results would be catastrophic, a deep plunge into recession.  

    He also said that the President is right to insist on a long term plan and that a 4 trillion, 10 year plan as proposed, would be a good way to go and make most investors happy if it was composed of about two thirds cuts and one third increased revenue. This is what is coming from Moody’s, not the left, mind you.

    It seems that the only ones insisting that, with the lowest tax rates and revenue stream in 60 years, any non-revenue neutral increase would be a terrible thing for the economy, are those trying to force the demise of the GOP as, in David Brook’s words, a normal party, in order to rebuild it entirely in the Tea Party/Norquist/Koch image and those who are afraid of them.  That pretty much covers all the important GOP players. So now what?

    http://economiccrisis.us/2011/…

      1. The automatic budget cuts start to occur so we can meet our debt payments?

        Why when Obama supported the Bush tax policies and cutting them would have killed 1 million jobs was it ok, but now it is somehow different?

        1. Regardless of which political party someone wants to blame, the United States (we) have been on a spending binge since the mid-1960’s and we have put a lot of it on the national credit card because we refused to raise the revenues required to pay for our government programs. We aren’t going to get out of this mess through budget cuts alone. My generation, the 60’s generation, and all the generations since then, including your’s, have a moral responsibility to stand-up and admit what we’ve done and then be big enough to be part of the solution which includes tax increases.

          Boiled down to its essence, your position is we lived high on the hog for decades and now we are going to make people suffer by only cutting the budget. What your asserting is we don’t have any obligation to help pay for this. I respectfully disagree. We do have that obligation.  We helped run up the bill and it is now time for us to reach into our wallets and help pay the tab.  

          1. If Bush hadn’t fiananced wars, and the wealthy had invested his cuts in the USA instead of China( where he borrowed most of the money from to boot) , then we wouldn’t have this problem.

          2. Republicans gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy, started expensive wars in the Middle East, and then the economy tanked cause incomes (and therefore tax receipts) to go down.

            So, there is no huge spending; just big breaks to welfare corporations and rich people.

            1. Over the past 50 years, it has been caused by both tax cuts and excess spending. The bottom line is we are where we are and we (not some figment of our imaginations)caused this and it is time to pay the bill which will require tax hikes and budget reductions. There is no blinking at the facts. We can’t shed our responsibilities by blaming one politician or one political party. Like it or not this is our problem and it is time to solve it.  

              2. There is no spending problem; there is a revenue problem. Raise taxes and deficit goes away. QED. There is simply not enough discretionary income to cover the tax shortfall.

                Cut non-discretionary spending? What spending? The big budget item covers social insurance programs like Social Security INSURANCE, Medicare INSURANCE (for senior, mostly) and unemployment INSURANCE. Umm, SS is solvent (income = revenue for the next 30 years), so what the Republicans are actually arguing is that we should move senior income over to rich people.

                The American people agree with me on that point, not the Republicans.

                There are three sources of the present deficit:

                Depression, Bush Tax Cuts and Wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. if Congress DOES NOTHING, the deficit goes away in a few years.

                (1) In a depression, deficit spending is good. You require deficit spending because business and consumers aren’t spending.

                GDP = Consumer + Biz + Gov + Import/Export

                Boost the government part of the equation by borrowing at 1% and invest in the economy: roads, bridges, railroads, wind energy, etc. This gets people back to work and paying taxes.

                (2) Remove the Bush Tax cuts and you get back 2/3 of the deficit.

                (3) Get out of the Middle East, and you save another bunch. Oh, you want to make sure our military personnel are taken care of? Well then, PAY FOR IT!

                1. Name the programs you would cut in order to give tax breaks to the super wealthy.

                  Grandma’s nursing home?

                  Your Dad’s social security?

                  Veteran’s medical treatment?

  3. Republicans don’t believe it’s their government.  Therefore they shouldn’t have to pay back the money they’ve spent, or contracted to pay.  Because a responsible taxpayer, being a part-owner of his government, would man up and be willing to pay back into their government in order to re-stabilize it. Especially after going on a spending spree while at the same time increasing their own take-home pay at the expense of the company’s (government’s) stability.

    Of course, a responsible part owner in our country would do a whole lot of things today’s Republicans seem to be too short-sighted and stingy to even contemplate.

    1. I agree with you.  I am 56.  It is my generation during the 2000’s that ran up the deficit and cut taxes (not that I favored any of that).  In 2000 we finally had the deficit under control and with a promise of paying off some of the deficit.  Unfortunately, it was people my age who let Bush and his minions run all over a good thing.  Therefore, I think we should start paying it back.  That means we get Medicare cuts and Social Security cuts (even they aren’t really cuts, just paring back the annual increases).  We’re going to have to take some responsibility for what we allowed to happen.  Simple as that.  I make under $250,000 and I don’t think we can afford any of the Bush tax cuts.  The three thousand a year I saved just aren’t enough to affect my lifestyle all that much.  Most folks in the poverty categories don’t pay income tax at all.  Do away with the Bush tax cuts completely.  It’s the only way this works.  

      1. These programs are both in place for the benefit of society as a whole.  If you cut SSI and Medicare, you are going to allow people who depend on these programs to become more of a burden on the private sector, and it will cost us more than the price of fixing these programs or even maintaining them as-is.

        First: Repeat after me – Social Security is not contributing to our debt.  Now to discuss its long-term stability under worst-case scenarios (which today’s Republicans seem intent on bringing to reality)… We don’t have to cut SSI; removing the cap on the SSI tax will do the job.  And if you want to be extra sure of its stability, apply some very generous means testing to recipients.

        Medicare and Medicaid must have more drastic changes, but the first thing we need to do is admit to ourselves just how much it costs to serve the health care needs of the people on these programs.  Simple fact: the private health insurance industry can’t (and won’t) provide this service for less money than the government.  Let’s get that on the table so we can take it back off again right now.  So how do we cut its costs?  Here’s one proposal on the table, from the Center for Medicare Advocacy.  First, negotiate drug prices; this will save us perhaps $200b over 10 years.  Second, once and for all stop paying private insurers more than 100% of traditional Medicare for the Medicare portion of Medicare Advantage – if they want a piece of the pie they shouldn’t be subsidized for it.  The list goes on, but if we’re looking for big bucks, we already have good solutions awaiting a less partisan atmosphere.

      2. Though in the absence of a continued stimulus program of any sort, the lower middle income tax rate is the only way Democrats have of continuing to stave off a complete melt-down at the hands of the Republican extremists.

        If our economy is really tanking because of Federal government deficit spending – which exists largely because of an unwise reduction in revenue aka tax rates – then my own future is helped by my paying the higher tax rate and ensuring that my Congressman and Senators are doing their part to spend responsibly.

        (And if, as I believe, the economy is really tanking because the economy itself has screwed the working class out of enough money to be an effective pool of demand, then I would expect my representatives at the Federal government to do everything they can to prime the pump to refill that pool instead…)

  4. ….you were for the $4billion spending cut before you were against it. Now that the Orange Man has candyassed out, the Senate will pass a bill that meets this number and has both spending cuts and revenue increases.

    When it goes to the House, the Republican’t Party will have a choice – vote no and watch the markets implode, or vote yes and watch the Teabaggers go apeshit both on the floor and back home.

    This all happened before:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50…

    Both actions will doom the GOP in the 2012 elections, though in voting No on a bill they’ll take the economy with them. The only hope they have is that the Senate loads up a few dogs in the bill that the House can run over, so they can spout some crap about “Fiscal responsibility.”

    Even so, asshats in the House will spout their dumbassery for any camera they can find, dragging the GOP down to obscurity….

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  5. even in their version of reality, the one in which cutting taxes for the wealthy means trickle down creating good jobs hasn’t been completely discredited by the objective reality of all the years the policy has been in place, closing of corporate loopholes etc wouldn’t take effect until 2013 and Obama also proposes extending the payroll tax holiday so there wouldn’t be any immediate “job killing” tax increase and most would continue to enjoy a lower tax burden.  

    How could such a plan possibly be a downward drag on the economy right now, even according to the basic rightie premise?  

    This goes beyond class warfare.  It’s scorched earth ideological warfare perpetrated by those who see the misery of total destruction as a fair price to pay for the chance to take over and crush all opposition, including the GOP establishment and traditional pro-business Republicans. The GOP leadership, who created this monster meaning to use it the way they so effectively used the religious right for decades without serious interference, have lost control and may no longer have the ability to stand up to their creation even if they can find the guts to try.

  6. Dems are once again being out-messaged by the GOP.   The Dem proposal is to let the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire.  The GOP uses shorthand to say the Dems want to increase taxes, implying that it means increasing taxes for everyone.  And, of course, the media and the Dems don’t make it clear that only the wealthy would be affected.

    It’s not hard to be a GOP messager when you are confronting such inept opposition.

    1. The wealthy have wasted their increased “allowance,” so time for the adults in the room to cut the allowance back to previous levels.  Perhaps when the wealthy can demonstrate some degree of commitment to their country (family), a future allowance increase can be considered.  

      In the mean time, they need to go to timeout.

      1. The wealthy fix their homes when repairs are needed because that’s where they live. They should be reminded that they also live in the USA, and it needs fixing, too.

  7. In what I think is a brilliant move, the President is now making himself look like the one fighting for substantial debt reduction while the GOP is clamoring for a short-term band-aid.

    In the end, I predict a short-term agreement will be passed and President Obama will campaign on the fact that he had a plan to make fundamental changes to the national debt but Republicans were only interested in playing politics. He will further say he only went along with their proposal to save the country from economic disaster. The Republicans will lose all credibility when it comes to debt reduction.

  8. From an email sent a few months back

    The President ordered the cabinet to cut $100 million from the $3.5 trillion federal budget.

    I’m so impressed by this sacrifice that I have decided to do the same thing with my personal budget. I spend about $2000 a month on groceries, household expenses, medicine, utilities, etc, but it’s time to get out the budget cutting axe, go through my expenses, and cut back.

    I’m going to cut my spending at exactly the same ratio, 1/35,000 of my total Budget. After doing the math, it looks like instead of spending $2000 a month; I’m going to have to cut that number by… six cents. Yes, I’m going to have to get by with $1999.94, but that’s what sacrifice is all about.В I’ll just have to do without some things, that are, frankly, luxuries.

    (Did the president actually think no one would do the math? Please send this to everyone on your list so people understand what a load of crap this is—as if they didn’t already know)

    В 

    John Q. Taxpayer

    1. concrete evidence that we are wrong about the fact that the tax breaks  and loopholes for the wealthiest have not created a better economy and more good jobs.  Show us how it is untrue that the stimulus saved jobs.  Show us how job loss in the public sector has resulted in an increase of jobs in the private sector. Show us how we’re wrong about the fact that the top 1% has enjoyed a 23% income increase while income has remained flat for the rest.  Show us how it is false that the gap between what CEOs earn and what the average worker earns has  increased dramatically without any benefit to the middle class economy, any increase in well paying jobs.  

      Show us studies and hard stats, not cute letters from John Q Taxpayer. Don’t bring Obama into it except to show us how under Bush and with the same cuts and  breaks and loopholes continuing under Obama, the trickle down effect has improved the economy for the majority of Americans.  Oh and by the way, does John Q taxpayer pay for his house and car with cash or does he have a mortgage or two and a car loan or two and a balance on his credit cards?.  If so, then isn’t he spending money he doesn’t have?  Or is it OK for John Q as long as he can budget for the payments? If so, why not for the government?

      Provide links to studies that demonstrate why you are right that trickle down has worked so well that more transfer of wealth to the wealthiest will work even better.

        1. It’s meant to be a funny email, using humor to point out the king has no clothes.  See the Wednesday open thread for more humor. This blog entry should have gone in the Wednesday thread.

          But speaking of killing a million jobs, Obama claimed when he cut the budget deal a few months ago that he couldn’t hike taxes because he’d kill 1 million jobs.

          Bill doing Obamas job for him ….

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

          В 

          В 

          I ask what’s the difference now, you’ve been living on the crack cocaine of massive government spending and now you need to ween yourself off the habitual spending spree …. This debt ceiling issue is a perfect time for Obama to take charge and do the right thing …. He’s not doing it, but may be forced to do the right thing …. It will be all good at the end of the day.

          1. You have presented absolutely nothing concrete in response to a single question posed. Remember, I specifically asked about proof of the success of the past 10 years of the GOP tax policy, not anything to do with Obama policy except as he allowed the Bush policies to continue.  You’ve got nothing.  As usual. Not a fact.  Not a stat. Nada.  

        2. but if you did it was a bulls eye.

          “Email says continued tax breaks to rich will create jobs but Obama to blame for lack of jobs even after ten years of mega tax breaks.  Must be true.”

          1. I’m not sure if anyone wants to play the progressive Benedict Arnold defending egregious Republican behavior this week but we’ll try to muddle through til you get back.  Enjoy learning about outdated Microsoft technology.

    3. ‘tad, debunked BY ME before:

      The brickbats were flying even before President Obama convened his first official Cabinet meeting yesterday. At the session, Obama ordered his agency heads to identify and shave a collective $100 million in administrative costs from federal programs in a budget of well over $3 trillion.

      Framed by members of his Cabinet, the president himself acknowledged that the goal amounts to a drop in the bucket. “It is, and that’s what I just said,” he told reporters. “None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we are going to do is, line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.”

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

      He ordered this cut in admin costs AT HIS FIRST CABINET MEETING IN 2009. THIS DID NOT JUST HAPPEN A FEW MONTHS AGO!

      ‘tad, I recognize that simpletons like you who surf the internets looking for bumpersticker material don’t understand a damn thing that you post. But when somebody has already slapped you upside your virtual head already, you need to find new material.

  10. As Debt Talks Intensify, Signs Emerge That Republicans Shift Further Right

    WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Republicans dug in their heels on Monday and said that they wouldn’t support tax increases as part of a deal to raise the U.S. borrowing limit, sticking with the party’s hallmark position amid signs that the caucus is shifting further to the right just weeks before the country’s ability to finance its deficit expires.

    Republicans have been ramping up their message on taxes over the past 48 hours after House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said late on Saturday negotiations for a larger deal targeting $4 trillion of reductions over 10 years had fallen apart over taxes and that lawmakers should go back to the drawing board and focus on a smaller package.

    “The president needs to stop listening to his liberal allies who want to raises taxes at all costs,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), on a day when the fiscally conservative Club for Growth began running ads in Utah challenging Hatch’s decision to support bailouts during the fiscal crisis. “Tax hikes that hurt job creation and an economic recovery are not the answer — pro-growth policies of less government, less regulation, less taxes is the cure our nation needs.”

    U.S. President Barack Obama chastised Republicans on Monday, saying he had “bent over backwards” to negotiate in good faith and that any tax increases wouldn’t go into effect now while the economy remains weak. He also ruled out a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, saying that “we don’t manage our affairs in three-month increments.” Congress must increase the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 or the U.S. won’t have enough revenue flowing in to meet all of its obligations.

    In the U.S. House of Representatives, signs mounted that even Republicans who had earlier been willing to compromise on spending may now be less willing. Rep. Jim Lankford (R., Okla.), a freshman who earlier this year voted for the spending measure that helped avoid a government shutdown, on Monday delivered an impassioned speech in favor of a balanced budget amendment. Republicans want to add a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution to keep spending in line with revenues. The House is scheduled to vote on the measure this month, although it is expected to fall short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. A Lankford spokesman said the vote on raising the borrowing limit is different and that the congressman’s support earlier this year wasn’t reflective of his feelings in this debate.

    “The challenge then was how to keep the government running,” said William Allison, a spokesman for Lankford. “Now the challenge is not raising the ceiling, it’s addressing the debt, that’s the real crisis.”

    After Obama’s speech, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.), a presidential contender who is currently the top of the polls in Iowa, issued a statement reiterating that she wouldn’t vote to raise the debt ceiling. She said Obama “has wrongly assumed that everyone agrees that we need to raise the debt ceiling…. I disagree.”

    Rep. Peter Welch (D., Vt.) said that House Republicans appeared to moving farther from a compromise with Democrats instead of closer. “What you’re seeing in the Republican caucus is first, no deal that includes revenues; then the fallback position is the cuts aren’t deep enough; and then the fallback position is we shouldn’t raise the debt ceiling. Michele Bachmann is sort of leading the parade. They’re playing dangerous politics and they’re looking over their shoulder at a potential tea party challenge if they vote to raise the debt ceiling.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

    1. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated this past Sunday that his number one goal is still to make Obama a one-term President.

      Senator Jim DeMint sided with Michelle Bachmann but worse, saying he doesn’t think the debt ceiling deadline is a big deal.

      There’s only one way to deal with this runaway train wreck in the making.  The U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists, and that should include economic terrorists like these idiots extraordinaire.

  11. If Republicans insist on going back to their starting point, Democrats should go back to theirs: increase the debt ceiling with no attachments.

    Furthermore, I’d like to see some rational Congress person suggest a simple law: the current debt ceiling law is repealed and replaced with a simple formula – Congress authorizes the debt ceiling to be whatever is needed in order to fund Congressionally approved spending (i.e. the budget plus all suplementals), plus some automatically adjusted figure for emergency overhead.

    1. If Eric Cantor is shorting the market while openly causiing a crash then he should be arrested under the Patriot Act, tried and sentenced to life in prison at Supermax. I say this as one Jew to another.

  13. Boehner-Cantor rivalry affecting debt talks

    It’s not the first sign of friction between the two Republican leaders.

    A long-simmering rivalry between the top two Republicans in the House has tumbled into the open, with far-reaching implications for deficit-reduction negotiations with the White House.

    Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are at odds over President Obama’s call for a massive deficit-reduction package to address fiscal problems and provide for an increase in the country’s $14.3-trillion borrowing limit before an Aug. 2 deadline.

    In private talks with the White House, Boehner favored a large package as part of pragmatic political deal-making. But Cantor, speaking for staunch conservatives in Congress, is opposed.

    In a briefing Monday, Cantor downplayed the divisions, insisting repeatedly that he and the speaker were “on the same page.” But friction between the two has grown obvious, reinforcing months-old questions over who controls House Republicans.

    “I don’t think Boehner would want to serve in a foxhole anytime with Eric Cantor,” said a Republican strategist and former leadership aide who asked not to be identified while commenting on an intraparty rivalry.

    Obama praised Boehner in a nationally televised news conference Monday as he warned that a budget accord would only grow more difficult with time. “Do it now,” Obama said. “Pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas.”

    But Cantor and the political right seem to be dictating the course of talks. Their pressure forced Boehner over the weekend to abandon his support for doing “something big” on the federal budget, and cast Cantor as the champion of the conservative flank.

    “Boehner is facing a similar problem to that Gingrich faced in 1995-1996 – he can’t control the rebels in the caucus who helped him gain power,” said Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer, referring to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “The debt ceiling has turned into as much of a test for the GOP and its internal leadership as it is for which party is stronger.

    ”

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na…

    1. You might want to cut it back a bit – more summary, less blockquote.

      But good analysis.  Cantor seems to be undercutting Boehner at every turn.  Boehner could make a deal with Democrats – except that Cantor’s there waiting with all of the Republican ideologues at his back, waiting to take away Boehner’s chair if he so much as says “Gesundheit” to a Democrat.

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