Posted on 02/08/2013 5:07:56 PM PST by PJ-Comix
At the beginning of the year, the media hailed Barack Obama as the winner of the standoff on the fiscal cliff – and it wasn’t difficult to see why. Obama forced House Republicans to swallow a tax-rate increase for the first time in more than a decade, breaking a vow that had been a bright line with their conservative base. Even though the President had to adjust on the baseline for the marginal tax increase from a $200,000 income level to $400,000, he successfully used the leverage of scheduled increases of tax rates in all brackets to break GOP opposition as the clock ran out.
Not everyone agreed that this was an unqualified success for President Obama and an unmitigated disaster for Republicans. Peter Orszag, once one of Obama’s closest economic advisers and his first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, wondered aloud whether Obama’s victory wouldn’t prove Pyrrhic. “It’s entirely possible,” Orszag told CNBC, “they’re going to win the week and lose the quarter,” thanks to the separation of the tax resolution from other fiscal-cliff issues such as the debt ceiling and the sequester.
As Orszag predicted, Obama won one battle, but may be losing the war. And it has become very apparent that Obama hasn’t even really prepared to fight it.
The desperation began to show this week. Barack Obama blinked first by announcing that he was requesting another postponement of the automatic cuts in order to produce a “balanced” deficit-reduction package. Congress, Obama said, “should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms” instead of allowing the sequester to go through. Boehner reminded Obama that the House has twice passed such measures, only to go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The White House also tried taking a page from the (unsuccessful) Republican playbook of 2012 by claiming that American industry would have to lay off workers if the sequestration hit. “There is no reason,” Obama intoned, “that the jobs of thousands of Americans who work in national security or education or clean energy, not to mention the growth of the economy, should be put in jeopardy.”
Obama provided plenty of dire warnings about the damage that his own budget-gimmick proposal may do if it becomes active in less than four weeks. What Obama hasn’t provided is an actual solution for replacing his previous solution. In fact, Obama hasn’t yet provided a budget proposal for FY2014, despite having a statutory requirement to do so by now – making four budget proposals out of Obama’s five opportunities that arrived late. Instead of offering specific proposals for spending cuts to replace the sequester, Obama offered a vague demand for “tax reform” that would increase revenue again.
This deadline has been in place for months. It became clear weeks ago that Republicans would likely allow the sequester to go forward, at least long enough to put pressure on replacement cuts from Democrats, and would be in position to refuse to raise any more revenue. And yet Obama not only sounded like someone shocked out of a reverie, he offered nothing to resolve the standoff – and neither did Harry Reid and Senate Democrats, not even an offer to take up the bill approved by the House in the last session if passed again.
Boehner has triumphed in at least exposing the White House’s fumbling on spending issues – and he wasted no time in driving the point home. “Yesterday the president warned of grave economic consequences if the sequester were to go into effect, but he didn’t announce any specific plans of how he would address it,” he pointed out after Obama’s demand for a delay. “He didn’t bother to outline how he would replace the sequester, which he suggested and insisted upon in August of 2011. He didn’t even tell us when we might see his budget, which is again late, and how he would address the sequester in his budget.”
In short, the President has no plan, and no leverage. With the tax rates and Alternative Minimum Tax fixes now permanent, Obama has no more leverage to force the House into bending to his will. His one gimmick to force Republicans to cave into his demands for higher taxes and more spending just backfired, and Obama has nothing more to offer. After almost four years of budget cliffs and gimmicks, Barack Obama will have to accept that reality and get serious about budget reform on the other side of the ledger.
Hopefully the perfect storm is closing in on Obie/Osama. He has no ideas. He has no plans. He has no budget. He will be run out of the country should the Sequester occur. Obie will have to use those 7,000 machine guns and 2 billion rounds of ammo when THE PEOPLE revolt. Boehner is no genius but he will clearly come out ahead on this issue.
Baloney.
The average American has no idea what Sequestration is about. The Obama media simply has to say it’s all the Republican’s fault and the stupid, inattentive public will buy it, lock, stock and barrel.
Obama has been nothing but Reid’s stalking horse for 2 years.
Thank heavens Boehner is finally treating him like the inconsequentiality he is.
Better late than never.
Agreed. Further, the sequestration may not be reported but EVERYONE will feel it. Obama asked for it. He refuses to give options. When it happens, even the media can’t help him. The entire USA will know the Emporer has no clothes.
Heh heh. Seventeen percent of the budget (defense) is primed to suffer 50% of the spending cuts if sequestration actually happens. The generals and admirals are already screaming bloody murder about the long-term effect on American military readiness, and the cuts haven’t even happened yet.
Even the left-wing news media establishment, which has been licking Obama’s boots since at least 2004, can’t bring itself to ignore all those generals and admirals. So the typical Democratic voters, stupid and ignorant though they are, have finally been learning that their Emperor has no clothes.
Sorry, but the media will report voluminously on the sequestation...
And say it happened solely because Republicans would not raise taxes on the rich.
The media makes it’s money off spending, and they’ll fight to the death to protect spending in any form.
But, according to the media, it’s all because Republicans wouldn’t raise taxes on the rich.
That’s a simple meme for the media that serves their interests (selling idiots to adertisers).
Best we’ll get out of this is the realization by the brighter voters that welfare comes at a cost. And we’ll only get that if the Republicans play this perfectly: howls from the R Senators over the military cuts, and wailing over “our hands are tied- the Dems insist on no other cuts” from the House Rs.
Heh heh. The Republicans caved in on that. The taxes on the rich have been raised to Mr. Obama's satisfaction. That worn-out old one-trick pony won't jump through the hoops any more.
The media will bail himm out, somehow.
The media has no problem with hailing Obama for making Republicans raise taxes on the rich with the fiscal cliff deal then turning and blasting Republicans for causing the sequester by not raising taxes on the rich.
Heck they’ll make more money selling the ‘demographic’ of the people who’ll buy such an impossibility to their advertisers.
People with critical abilities won’t buy it, but those aren’t the people advertisers pay top dollar for.
They are voters though, and therein lies our hope.
Yes. You’re right on the mark.
President Valery Jarrett tries to keep Pretty-Boy Obama well supplied with Teleprompter Speeches.
After the 2012 election, suddenly Pretty-Boy Obama has became a Lame-Duck Liability to President Jarrett.
Fortunately, the Liberal Agenda Media very quickly morphed a horrible School Shooting into a Constitutional Challenge, and Pretty-Boy O. was promptly sent out to read President Jarrett’s Teleprompter Speeches to adoring Liberal Fans.
Now President Jarrett has the freedom of action that has been so effective for her over the last 4 years.
President Jarrett’s Sequestration Plan can easily be blamed on the Republicans, and repeated frequently through the Puppet Liberal Agenda Media, to the six-o’clock-dinner-news audience.
Just like the first 4 years of Obamanation, the next 4 years should be equally disastrous.
Obama needs no plan B for he wins either way. If the sequestration goes into effect, he has achieved the liberals wet dream of gutting future growth of the military budget. If the Pubs cave on the sequestration, Obama wins by declaring the Pubs have agreed to his ever increasing spending plans. Our mistake has been believing that Obama is nothing more than a empty suit. He is a ruthless, calculating ideologue.
Yup. Obama (or his handlers) seem to have a real knack for creating “can’t lose” situations. It would be nice if the GOP were to think ahead and try to prevent that, but so far they seem to help him build a strong hand.
You nailed it.
Morrissey can't begin his piece with paragraph full of lies and then expect readers to continue to follow along.
First of all, there was no "tax-rate increase" because nothing was passed before "the clock ran out". The clock DID, in fact, run out. The Bush tax cuts expired at the end of the year and rates returned automatically to the Clinton era rates. It was only then, now January 2013, that the House passed a NEW tax bill that essentially reinstated the Bush tax rates for nearly everybody, and permanently this time.
Since the new tax cut bill was passed AFTER rates had already gone up the Republicans did NOT "break a vow" because they did NOT agree to raise taxes on anybody. Sure, the rates were back to Clinton era levels for only a very brief period, but that happened automatically. The distinction is important.
I'm betting it will be even moreso.
Some have said His Heinous and hits regime are a wrecking ball upon America.
I disagree.
They are a nation-busting nuke being set off right in our midst.
After enough of us are vaporized in the misery and conflagration to follow - the rest will suffer and die from the fallout of taking the last Superpower and laying it prostrate and naked before our enemies.
This is going to be better to watch than the tax fight that I was 100% sure Republicans would lose at.
A young black Dem (O supporter and liberal) at work told me that Obama was controlling this whole thing again and that it would end just like the others.
I said “The GOP house will extend the debt limit a few more months and let the spending cuts go into effect”
So he says that the GOP will get blamed for the spending cuts that Obama signed onto, just like the others.
I asked :”Do most voters even care about those cuts?”
He claimed they did but his polling sample is Marylanders w(+Dems) who live on gubment spending. I told him they don't count because this state is BRIGHT BLUE. I questioned if key voters care.
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