What do you think of this Lawrence O'Donnell notion that Obama is winning the debt ceiling fight?

[bluestateguy]

Do you find it convincing? Yesterday I would have said no, but today I am back on the fence.

Is Obama's 14 dimensional chess really working, or is it just glorified capitulation?

[dennis4868]

1. you can answer the question...

by just asking, which party want to end this crisis more, the dem or repubs? The repubs of course to the point where McConnell is waving the white flag...

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. So McConnell "gives in" and SS & MC get gutted (& Obama gets the blame)..that's a win for us?

[dennis4868]

4. I never said that....

Okay first of all, Obama said that SS IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE DEBT PROBLEMS, WE SHOULD NOT FIX THE DEBT ON THE BACKS OF SS RECIPIENTS, and that we must strengthen SS and from that you say Obama wants to gut SS...WTF? Really hard to communicate with people who don't use the facts and hyperspeculate all the time...OUT!

[SidDithers]

25. +1...nt

Sid

[patrice]

11. The debt ceiling and MC & SS have been decoupled. Negotiations for what is to

happen to each of the other issues, MC & SS, have not started yet, so your characterization "gutted" appears to be possible evidence of some intent that may not have that much to do with reality.

[SugarShack]

31. Lawrence has been making Obama's case and it's UNCONVINCING!

[bbgrunt]

2. it is beside the point. We all want BO to be

a hot shot negotiator, but to negotiate in our interest. Fighting for budget reductions is exactly the wrong fight to be having--unless it is stopping the wars. And regardless of the outcome, putting SS and Medicare into this debate is a terrible move and makes me very very nervous.

[patrice]

12. Both Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders are of the opinion that MC can be improved to serve

more people better. There are other expert sources who have been studying this, such as Physicians for a National Health Program, especially as to the potential for improvement in Medicare that addresses payments, such as the 14% over and above normal MC payments that HMOs receive, while leaving MC services untouched.

Please consider googling Medicare reform and:
- Physicians for a National Health Program
- The Brookings Institute (not exactly known as a right wing think tank)
- The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation
- others

[Whiskeytide]

20. I'm not crazy about it either

But I have new found respect for Obama. He's not a messiah - just a politician. But he's a good one. I bitched for 12 years that the republicans were simply better at the game than we were. They were dismantling the government left and right, and making us look like incompetent fools standing around with our junk in our hands wondering why none of the cool girls would talk to us. Obama has brought some good old fashioned Chicago politics to DC, and he's taking the republican leadership to the woodshed. Proposed cuts in medicare or SS that don't take effect for 10 or 15 years are, in my opinion, our equivalent of the self expiring Bush tax cuts. Its a rope-a-dope inside of a fumblerooskie all wrapped up in a ... whatever. I'm proud of him for the first time in a while.

[Enrique]

27. that's what i think

ideally Obama would just take McConnell's offer and do a "clean" increase in the debt limit. Tackle the deficit when the unemployment emergency is over.

[Marr]

5. A win would be coming out of this with raised taxes on the wealthy, and no cuts at

all to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

A tie would be a raise of the debt ceiling with no accompanying "compromise", as it's been in the past.

A loss would be trading this basic function of government (raising the debt ceiling) for some undermining of those social programs. That would be trading the cow for magic beans.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't like what I see. Call me cynical if you like, but something tells me we're going to get a big sell-out at the eleventh hour with a label on it that says "victory".

[DJ13]

7. Good points

[leftstreet]

9. +1

[bbgrunt]

10. good analysis.

[patrice]

14. What about Medicare's financial problems? How will it survive? Are all moneys involved in MC

spent exactly as they should be to the best benefit of those in its care?

Is there no possibility that a program designed decades ago and with highly variable, and hence manipulatable, reporting systems, not to mention various parasitic accretions in the systems around MC that administer the funds, some of which accretions go under the general heading of "Risk Management", that might be contributing to the support of salaries which have little or nothing to do with the direct care that Medicare pays for and in some cases even impeded that care in certain financially strategic ways? Is there no possibility of any of this? Why not?

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. And there you have it

Win, lose or draw.

[Bluenorthwest]

30. Spot on

Win, lose, draw.

[some guy]

6. I don't watch TV

so I don't know what his notions are. I don't care to watch a video clip, either, so please don't bother presenting me with one.

I think the whole thing falls somewhere between kabuki theater and shock doctrine. I'm not sure exactly where it lands on that spectrum, but I'm pretty sure the US will be in a worse position once it's all said and done.

The only possible bright spot would be if the corporate elite were to be so badly damaged that they abandoned the GOP as an out-of-control disaster. Of course, that would mean they would lean more heavily on the Democratic party and pressure it to continue its long, slow drift to the right; but an absence of a right-end on the spectrum *might* provide a brief opportunity to begin discussion of moving to the left as a nation.

edit: added an "n"

[Viking12]

8. glorified capitulation

[LooseWilly]

13. Defining "winning" as getting the position he started with, raise ceiling without cutting spending..

allows the fight to be called a win for Obama... assuming that the Republicans don't grow a pair and agree to huge spending cuts in exchange for cuts to some tax loopholes.

Apparently the corporate grip on Republican gonads is so tight that they won't even tolerate a cut of tax write-off loopholes for corporate jets... in exchange for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

A gamble on that point has paid off for Obama... and so now he will look more reasonable to all of those voters who are willing to tolerate corporate tax loophole cutting if it allows cutting of Social Security and Medicare.

Meanwhile, he looks a little frivolous to all those who don't appreciate having their means of support and medical coverage gambled that way. Especially since, if the Republicans couldn't actually fail to raise the debt ceiling, then there wasn't really any need to offer Social Security and Medicare cuts.

Not capitulation... more like borrowing money from grandma to bet in a hand of a high stakes poker game... which he has luckily won.

[aquart]

16. On August 1, I bet Wall Street is willing to give up the jets.

[LooseWilly]

21. They might be willing... but it won't get that far.

Wall St. will have their people, the Republicans, fold long before then... longer before then than I would've thought...

[patrice]

18. As opposed to defining "winning" as something that is impossible at this point in time? Shall we

have a vote as to the definition of "winning"? Which one will get the most votes: improvements as soon as possible and with the possibility of creating processes for building more after 2012, depending upon what WE DO? or Perfection or nothing completely, therefore, under the control of Republicans?

And of the two definitions, which one absolutely precludes the other and which one potentially includes the other?

[LooseWilly]

22. There's no need to get so defensive that you become incoherent.

There's nothing unreasonable about the definition of "winning" being that Obama gets what he was after from the beginning: a straight raising of the debt ceiling without having to accept spending cuts dictated by Republicans in order to get ceiling raised.

My point was solely that this isn't a "win" for progressives, or even moderates really... in the sense that there is nothing in what the bill is looking likely to be that will pull any revenue from those who can spare some—the corporate jet loophole profiteers or the top 2 % or any of the rest of them—and so the government revenue hemorrhaging will continue while the wealthy count their tax-saved dollars before depositing them in the bank.

Would it be possible to do something about that? I don't know... but consider this—Obama just displayed a masterful game of manipulation in order to set the Republicans up so that he could offer them what they, as a party, have wanted for 70 years... but in such a way that they couldn't accept—all so he could frame talking points in the upcoming election in a way favorable to himself... yet he can't work his plan so far as to force the Republicans to accept some progressive concessions?

Obama has now shown that he isn't just incompetent... which, unfortunately, now opens him up to judgement from the left of his party regarding what now appears to be mostly just unwillingness to do shit to secure any policy that he could throw to them as a "bone"... aside from something like DADT which he had to have the Feds file an appeal to keep the courts from overturning before he could get it repealed... and even now it is only a court ruling that is barring enforcement because Obama's DADT bill still hasn't been signed off on by his new DOD Secretary nor himself...

If you have enough control over the definitions of winning and losing... you will always win and the other side lose. Trying to schlack that simple fact over with rationalizations will not change anything but the rhetoric of the loyalists and apologists.

Maybe, instead of using the diction of sporting contests, the actual resultant policy should be the headline?... "Obama seems likely to secure raise in debt ceiling without having to agree to spending cuts" vs. "Obama winning deficit debate" ... surely, you see the difference?

[OHdem10]

17. Jonathan Alter believes so too. He believes the GOP are coming

off as obstinate and uncooperative. (Tweety)

Krautheimer says the President has the upper hand.
Of course he also said everything he could to try
make Obama.(Fox)

[TomCADem]

19. Obama "Nothing Is Agreed To, Unless Everything Is Agreed To."

The Democrats were saying this all along. The Republicans miscalculated, because they thought that just because Democrats were willing to negotiate, the Republicans could take the cuts the Democrats had indicated a willingness to consider, without offering anything in return. Well, they are finding out that the Democrats were telling the truth all along. Nothing is agreed to, unless everything is agreed to. Thus, Republicans can say tax cuts are off the table all they want, but then so are all the spending cuts that they think they got.

This is why the Wall Street Journal is demanding that Republicans accept McConnell's surrender proposal. Because, the Republicans have boxed themselves in with their tax cuts are off the table, but we must have trillions in cuts demands. They proudly insisted that they will not compromise, but they now have to essentially cave, because they are not willing to give a dime in taxes even at 4 to 1 ratio.

[girl gone mad]

23. The chance of the debt ceiling not being raised is and always was 0%..

so the idea that Obama needed to offer up any concessions at all seems absurd.

[meow mix]

28. +rec, yeah as if his corporate overlords suddenly overcame thier addictions.

:rofl:
still looks like obama got played, to me.

[Kahuna]

24. I hope he's right. Lawrence has more insight on these issues because

he's worked as a staffer. He's also a pretty smart guy, not prone to going out on a limb.

[Vinca]

26. I hope he's right. That's all I can say at this point.

[Bandit]

32. I recall a short time back Republicans were out in force reassuring business

that the Debt Ceiling would indeed be raised..I think Obama got wind of that as we all did. It is sort of hard to continue a hard line when you have already made assurances to the contrary..

[ZombieHorde]

33. I have a feeling many of us have different definitions of "winning" in this situation. nt

[Johonny]

34. I think Obama is winning, not so sure I'm winning

I care more about me :)