Why the Shutdown is a Republican Victory

The news from Washington is all about President Obama’s impending triumph in the government shutdown/debt ceiling standoff. “Boehner Blinks,” declared a recent headline in The Washington Post. “Republicans,” explained ABC’s Jonathan Karl, “are working out the terms of their surrender.”

To understand how upside down the current media analysis is, you need to go back a couple of years. In 2011, with Republicans threatening to provoke a debt default, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, which cut government spending by $917 billion over 10 years. The agreement also created a congressional “supercommittee” charged with finding additional cuts. If the committee failed to do so, cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over ten years would kick in automatically at the end of 2012, via a process called “sequestration.”

Traditionally in Washington, budget compromises had meant Democrats agreeing to cut domestic spending and Republicans agreeing to raise taxes. But by raising the specter of default, Republicans had changed the equation. In the Budget Control Act, taxes weren’t raised a dime. Democrats compromised by cutting spending and Republicans “compromised” by agreeing not to let America default on its debt and provoke a global financial crisis.

Not surprisingly, conservatives liked the deal more than liberals. In the House, Republicans backed it by a margin of almost three to one while Democrats split evenly. “Is this the deal I would have preferred? No,” Obama admitted. By contrast, House Speaker John Boehner boasted, “I got 98 percent of what I wanted.”

Fast forward to the beginning of this year. Despite months of negotiations, the supercommittee failed to reach an agreement, and so this March, automatic sequester cuts kicked in. (In between, Congress did raise some revenue by not extending the Bush tax cuts for individuals making over $400,000 a year). If Democrats disliked the 2011 Budget Control Act, they disliked its bastard stepchild, the sequester, even more. In his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama calls the sequester cuts: “harsh” and “arbitrary” and warned that they would “devastate priorities like education, energy and medical research” and “cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

Republicans, being less supportive of federal spending on things like “education, energy and medical research,” were more supportive of the sequester. Indeed, as recently as last month, GOP leaders described locking in the sequester cuts—via a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) that extended them into 2014—as a major victory. In a memo to fellow Republicans on September 6, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor boasted that by “signing a CR at sequester levels, the President would be endorsing a level of spending that wipes away all the increases he and Congressional Democrats made while they were in charge and returns us to a pre-2008 level of discretionary spending.”

For their part, Democrats bristled at the prospect of a “clean” CR. Four days after Cantor’s memo, the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress warned that by extending the sequester, Republicans were “trying to lock these additional spending cuts into place and create a new baseline from which future negotiations must begin.” CAP added that “It’s easy to see why this approach would be attractive to Speaker Boehner; it is much harder to understand why any progressive or centrist would support such an approach.”

Let’s pause for a moment to underscore the point. In early September, a “clean” CR—including sequester cuts—that funded the government into 2014 was considered a Republican victory by both the Republican House Majority Leader and Washington’s most prominent Democratic think tank. Now, just over a month later, the media is describing the exact same deal as Republican “surrender.”

Partly, that’s because of Ted Cruz. Starting last month, as we all know, the Texas Senator—in conjunction with his fellow Tea Partiers in the House—forced GOP leaders to abandon the very “clean” CR proposal they had once championed. The new Republican position became no funding for the government and no increase in the debt ceiling without the defunding (or at least delaying) of Obamacare.

Now that Republicans are backing off those demands, the press is saying they’ve caved. But that’s like saying that the neighborhood bully has caved because after demanding your shoes and bike, he’s once again willing to accept merely your lunch money.

Most of the press is missing this because most of the press is covering the current standoff more as politics than policy. If your basic question is “which party is winning?” then it’s easy to see the Republicans are losing, since they’re the ones suffering in the polls. But the partisan balance of power and the ideological balance of power are two completely different things. The Nixon years were terrible for the Democratic Party but quite good for progressive domestic policy. The Clinton years were, in important ways, the reverse. The promise of the Obama presidency was not merely that he’d bring Democrats back to power. It was that he’d usher in the first era of truly progressive public policy in decades. But the survival of Obamacare notwithstanding, Obama’s impending “victory” in the current standoff moves us further away from, not closer to, that goal.

It’s not just that Obama looks likely to accept the sequester cuts as the basis for future budget negotiations. It’s that while he’s been trying to reopen the government and prevent a debt default, his chances of passing any significant progressive legislation have receded. Despite overwhelming public support, gun control is dead. Comprehensive immigration reform, once considered the politically easy part of Obama’s second term agenda, looks unlikely. And the other items Obama trumpeted in this year’s state of the union address—climate change legislation, infrastructure investment, universal preschool, voting rights protections, a boost to the minimum wage—have been largely forgotten.

Democrats keep holding out hope that yet another political defeat will break the ideological “fever” that grips the Republican Party and helped GOP moderates regain power. The problem, as the last few weeks have shown, is that the GOP keeps defining moderation down. For instance, the Washington GOP’s plummeting public support may well boost the presidential prospects of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, just as the Gingrich Congress paved the way for the comparatively moderate George W. Bush. Like Bush, Christie is described as moderate because he has Democratic allies in his home state and because his rhetoric is not as harsh on cultural issues. But in the White House, Bush’s economic policies were hardly moderate. To the contrary, from taxes to social security to regulation, he governed well to the right of Ronald Reagan. Christie likely would as well. As governor, after all, he’s vetoed a hike in the minimum wage, cut the earned income tax credit, vetoed a millionaires’ tax three times and adopted basically the same attitude towards public sector unions as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.

Yet for the next three years, the press will likely describe Christie as “moderate” for the same reason it now describes a “clean” CR as Republican surrender: Because the GOP keeps moving the ideological goalposts and the press keeps playing along.

Peter Beinart, is the editor of OpenZion.com and writes about domestic politics and foreign policy at The Daily Beast. He is also an associate professor of journalism and political science at CUNY and author of The Crisis of Zionism.

All I know is in the end our guys are going to blow it. their track record is clear

Again, they got a slow in growth in Gov't, we have our Bush tax cuts now made permanent, we blocked gun control, cap and trade is not in existence, and the Gov't is now shut down just like conservatives have wanted for a long time.

That is all part of the track record. They do NOT fold on everything but cannot get everything we want as we hold only 1/3 of Govt.

Excellent and sad that conservatives need to be told we’re winning. I expect that 2014 will be very good for conservatives in the Congress. I think we’ll regain the Senate. Then you’ll see a cap gains tax cut in Obama’s last year, just in time for a GOP victory and an growing economy.

That gives us Congress for at least a generation.

Disturbing and have little hope for change.

Change is happening but slowly so many conservatives don't detect it. They want a sudden crash of the system but are unable to say how to do that when we hold only 1/3 of Gov't.

Still not sure why you think the fact that Obama had to agree to slowing of growth and permanence of the Bush tax cuts "sarcasm". He will lose again this week as sequester gets locked in...not something he wanted. He's losing on gun control and will not get an immigration bill either. Plus, he faces months ahead of Obamacare failures.

The MSM of course is making it seem like Obama is winning at every turn to discourage the Tea Party. That's just the Goebbel strategy of telling lies all the time. It just ain't true.

>>>Excellent and sad that conservatives need to be told we’re winning. I expect that 2014 will be very good for conservatives in the Congress. I think we’ll regain the Senate. Then you’ll see a cap gains tax cut in Obama’s last year, just in time for a GOP victory and an growing economy.

That gives us Congress for at least a generation.<<<

Karl, is that you? I remember hearing something like that prediction about the prescription drug bennie. Just saying.

Well, while I tend to agree with you a bit... It is just a bit. What you describe as a slow success is actually a slow decline. No President would be making progress in immigration or gun control because of the public’s response to either. I think you set your sights way too low or maybe you think that a slow movement toward Socialism is better than the quicker movement that this President is making?

As a hard core Tea Party patriot, I see nothing that you are saying is really a benefit but actually just a slowdown in the advancement of the Democrats agenda.

Sometimes that slow method also works against those expecting changes. It does seem to be confusing many into accepting minimal changes to keep from being castrated in the media.

No President would be making progress in immigration or gun control because of the public’s response to either.

I don't think so.

We happen to have a President right now who is an inept, bumbling negotiator. The only tool he uses is to get in front of a camera. Thank God we have an inept socialist rather than a socialist who is smarter, and an experienced negotiator. Then we'd be in real trouble.

I see nothing that you are saying is really a benefit but actually just a slowdown in the advancement of the Democrats agenda.

A slowdown in their agenda is far better than an advancement. The House's job right now is mostly to hold the line and they're doing that. Plus, we had some out and out victories like permanent Bush tax cuts, no cap and trade, and blocking gun control completely.

Progress is slow...but it's there IMO.

A slowdown continues to be a victory for the Democrats! At this rate of slowdown, I’d suggest about 7 years until this slowdown actually becomes a failure of the Republicans and America. You can only lose so much, even a little at a time, until you have to just give up and realize that we have lost! Actually - America has lost!

A slowdown continues to be a victory for the Democrats!

Well, they don't see it that way. Their constituencies are all screaming for new growth so they can have issues to run on. But it's not going to happen. Budget talks going forward are even going to include discussion of Medicare reform.

Oh, and growth has been destroyed by this Democratic government from over-regulation (EPA) to the Presidents adherence to green policies. No growth is going to occur while these policies exist and have much more effect than anything that the Congress can do (and actually pass with the Democrats).

Not from me. Be serious. We control 1/3rd of the elected offices at the Federal level and barely. We cannot override a veto. We can’t make the Senate do what is right.

So what can we do? Slow the rate of growth and work to reset the budget. That’s it. Let’s see what they come up with.

>>>Not from me. Be serious. We control 1/3rd of the elected offices at the Federal level and barely. We cannot override a veto. We can’t make the Senate do what is right.

So what can we do? Slow the rate of growth and work to reset the budget. That’s it. Let’s see what they come up with.<<<

I was making a joke that you were Karl Rove...u know he tried to get the seniors to vote for repubs and lock republicans as the majority party for a generation.

Anyways, you sound very sensible. The only problem is that 1) When the democrats have just one party they get more accomplished than we are now. They will Bork conservatives, hold up legislation and generally be a huge PITA.

2) Government always grows. It grows only faster or slower depending on what party is where. Gee, hows that work again? How come divided government gives the libs bigger government over and over again? I say to hell with your logic. No offense intended. It’s just the hell with the same old logic that we need to wait for the next election. I say shut the damn government down and let zero pay what he gets in taxes. End of story. No more new debt. No more printing money. Life will go on relatively unchanged for the vast majority of ppl.

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