July 24, 2011 07:50 PM UTC

Radicals On Parade, Featuring Colorado Congressional Republicans

• 15 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Los Angeles Times updates on debt-ceiling negotiations this weekend:

Picking up the pieces after the latest round of debt negotiations imploded, congressional leaders met Saturday with President Obama and began work on a Republican-backed plan to cut spending by roughly $3 trillion over 10 years in exchange for their vote to raise the debt ceiling, according to a leadership aide familiar with the deal…

Republicans emphasized that they are starting from scratch, and are not picking up the Plan B proposal floated earlier this month by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and then altered by Reid (D-Nev.).

…The new House proposal would break the spending cuts into two phases, said the aide, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the negotiations. The proposal would also raise the debt limit in two phases, an idea that Democrats have opposed, the aide said.

Furthermore, the GOP plan did not include new tax revenue, although Democrats intend to keep pushing that key issue in negotiations.

A short term extension guaranteeing a second grandstand vote, and no new revenue–sounds like quite the “deal,” doesn’t it? Usually it’s the case that negotiations produce better offers, not worse ones, and when they don’t it’s usually a sign that some negotiators are not being serious.

But Republicans have spent at least as much time fighting among themselves as the President this past week. The much-discussed “Plan B” proposal from Sen. Mitch McConnell, still considered a likely fallback option in the event that negotiations for larger compromise fail, has emerged as a major problem for GOP caucus discipline, to the point where McConnell has been denounced in conservative circles almost as fiercely as Barack Obama himself. Apropos, here’s Colorado freshman Rep. Scott Tipton, talking on the radio last week with Jeff Crank:

Can’t see the audio player? Click here.

Jeff Crank: Senator Mitch McConnell’s plan, which I don’t like, and I call that “Cut Run and Hide,” which is exactly what it is. Which is, you want to not have members of the Senate make these politically tough votes on raising the debt limit. And so it’s a real stark contrast, and I think that McConnell made a real mistake doing that. Immediately you saw the media say, “Oh there’s a fracture in the Republican Party.” There’s no fracture. That was one person going off the reservation. That plan has no chance of passing the U.S. House. Am I correct?  

Scott Tipton: Exactly. I would not vote for McConnell’s plan. And as you note, it’s going to be giving discretion to the President to be able to make those choices. We know what choices he would make. It isn’t a realistic plan. We’re again leading the way. We are putting forward a legitimate plan, and we need to have some partners that are willing to at least stand up and address the real issues. We aren’t seeing it in the Senate. We aren’t seeing it out of the President. The American people expect more.

Tipton is referring to the House’s failed “Cut, Cap and Balance” cuts-only alternative plan, which passed the House last week before dying in the Senate. But that bill’s $6 trillion in proposed spending cuts would have severely damaged the GOP’s credibility with voters had it become law–polls have shown repeatedly that the types of draconian cuts proposed in that bill, with no offsetting new revenue, are not what the American people “expect.” Once the “Cut, Cap and Balance” dust settles, we should see ads that make the “Ryan Plan” Medicare privatization ads look tame–the cuts required to actually arrive at that figure will absolutely horrify all but the most ideologically radical conservatives. Now that House Republicans voted for “Cut, Cap and Balance,” all of those unrealized consequences are fair game.

Folks, we can’t even tell you with certainty that House Republicans are doing this under pressure from their base anymore: anti tax crusader Grover Norquist tried to give them some wiggle room on his infamous no-tax pledge last week, asserting that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire wouldn’t necessarily violate it. As Allison Sherry of the Denver paper reported Thursday, Colorado Reps. Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn in response denounced Norquist. It’s safe to say that the tail is no longer entirely wagging the dog here, and that frankly defies logic. What is to be gained politically by positioning yourself to the right of the most hard-core activist against taxes there is? Or is the dogmatic groupthink in the House GOP really this bad?

Either way, if massive cuts with no offsetting revenue are not what the American people want, it’s very hard to see what good another cuts-only offer as described above is going to do for them. But we’re not technically at the default deadline yet–and until we truly arrive at the last possible moment, it’s likely the unserious “offers” made for the sole purpose of grandstanding, and to provide fodder for base-pleasing interviews with guys named Crank, will roll right on. The only thing we can figure is the growing disconnect between the radical “Tea Party,” and an America fatigued by extreme rhetoric and proposals, blinds them to the self-harm they’re inflicting. Placating this tiny percentage of the electorate is seemingly everything now.

Don’t worry, there still will be a solution; some (see above) will just have no constructive role in it.