Obama and Democrats, united by shutdown, looking for gains beyond it

[highplainsdem]

Three-page Washington Post article, well worth reading in its entirety:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-and-democrats-united-by-shutdown-looking-for-gains-beyond-it/2013/10/12/143f1954-32be-11e3-89ae-16e186e117d8_story.html

President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders, in their ongoing showdown with Republicans, now have an additional goal beyond protecting the health-care law, reopening the government and preventing the first-ever default on the nation’s debt.

They are gambling that if they can hang together and remain tough to the end, they stand a chance to break a dangerous cycle that has taken hold in Washington — one of legislating through brinkmanship, which has taken the government and the financial system to the edge of disaster at least four times over the past three years.

“This not just about Barack Obama. This is about the next president, whoever and whatever party it might be,” Obama told Democratic senators at a White House meeting on Thursday, according to Senate majority whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

So far, the Democrats’ strategy of refusing to meet Republican demands — which is not without risk — appears to be working.

-snip-

[Cali_Democrat]

1. The latest Republican proposal calls for a six week debt ceiling extension.

So we'd be revisiting the same crisis in six weeks.

They are all about the manufactured crisis.

[Samantha]

2. And I think they would be working from their list, trying to get a host of concessions,

one at a time, once every three months. Social Security cuts, Medicare cuts, changes to the Affordable Care Act, cuts in Medicaid, abolish minimum wage -- you know the rest. So in other words, for the duration of the President's second term, every three months the Republicans would hope to extract a huge toll.

Then purloin the election in 2016, put a Republican in the Oval Office, and take the entire ballgame home.

The President is right to say the Country cannot function this way, running from crisis to crisis every three months.

Sam