ABOUT that Fiscal Cliff — The Daily Beast has summed up nicely the chances of a deal:
“There is a growing sense among Republican policy wonks and senior lobbyists that the chances of getting any kind of meaningful deal on the deficit between now and the end of the year are drifting toward zero.” Daily Beast, Dec 4th.
Speaker Boehner held a press conference on Friday, December 7th, to discuss where negotiations are currently going, which you can watch below.
The real takeaway from this press conference is not that negotiations are going badly — although that is what the video portrays — but that there is little that can be put on the table to actually negotiate with.
At this point, Speaker Boehner is facing a challenge within the GOP to oust him for even talking seriously about some of the ideas on the table. Earlier this week he received a letter signed by more than 100 conservative activists that threatened to work against him and any other GOP member that supported any attempt to raise taxes and/or to curb tax deductions and such. Boehner is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
American Majority Action (AMA) launched a #FireBoehner campaign, and numerous other conservative and Tea Party groups have joined the effort to toss Boehner as House Speaker. For that to work requires that just 16 members of the Republican Party drop support for Boehner in January which will take away enough votes to prevent his return as the House Speaker, opening the way for a new Speaker.
So as you watch the press conference video above, please ignore Speaker Boehner blasting the president. The two of them could probably reach a deal quickly if left to work things out together. Boehner is just echoing talking points at this point as he tries to work out some deal acceptable to his own party.
There is also criticism that Obama is not responding seriously to Boehner’s proposals. This is undoubtedly true but also just rhetoric. There is no GOP plan with specifics or any plan that can get enough GOP votes to pass even if we were to adopt the Boehner’s GOP plan ‘as is’. So reality is that President Obama is really left to negotiate with himself because any deal made at the moment is not a viable deal at all.
Things don’t get negotiated from the center. If I were Obama, I would ignore any ‘plan’ that didn’t have specifics and a guarantee of X votes to go with that plan. Speaker Boehner really needs to negotiate the Fiscal Cliff within his own party before he can expect the president to make a deal that the GOP won’t honor.
Speaker Boehner is an honorable man. Life must seem crazy for him at the moment. I wish him well and hope that he can strike a deal which really does cut national expenses and find ways to pay for whatever else remains as obligated debt. The Constitution gives that challenge to the Congress not to the president — so before we make any progress it is the Congress that has to come to terms first, and Republicans pretty much own the House which is where it all starts.
