Posted on 08/04/2011 8:30:28 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
White House says it 'forced Republicans to back down' in debt fight By Michael O'Brien - 08/04/11 10:12 AM ET
The White House shot back Thursday at Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) claim that Republicans had called the president's bluff in debt-ceiling negotiations.
The administration issued a point-by-point rebuttal to Ryan's op-ed yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, in which he characterized Republicans as having successfully stared down Obama in the protracted fight over spending and the nation's borrowing authority.
Maybe the most bombastic claim Ryan made was that Republican leaders called Obama's bluff by forcing him to accept legislation that included no revenue-raisers and raised the debt limit in two stages, the second of which comes before the 2012 election.
"The president stood firm and forced Republicans to back down, preventing them from using the prospect of default as leverage again in six months by ensuring that any additional debt-limit increases will not be needed until 2013," wrote Stephanie Cutter, an assistant to the president and a deputy senior adviser, on the White House blog.
Cutter also made mention of the reported moment when Obama abruptly ended debt talks by warning House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): "Eric, don't call my bluff."
Of course, each side is trying to show its respective base that it came out on top when it comes to the debt deal, a relatively controversial product that was decried by the most liberal and most conservative members of both parties.
"We believe that this agreement was not a victory for one party, but for the American people," Cutter wrote. "If Congress did not act and allowed the United States to default on its obligations, the results would have been catastrophic for our economy and for millions of Americans still digging out from the last recession."
I don’t think he forced them. Folding faster than superman on laundry day is the Boehneer/McConnell crew’s default behavior.
He also didn't win by having the debt ceiling raised until after the election - because of the wrangling, based in large part on the Obozo's demand for tax increases, now the debt and deficit are imprinted on the nation's mind, and, even if it's not debated again, people know the parties' positions.
When McConnell unilaterally surrendered a month ago, it was all over, except the crying. DumBO had nothing to do with it.
When the liberals cannot manage to claim a victory and instead actually claim everyone was a winner, you can be sure they got their asses kicked and kicked very badly and they know it.
Repubs back down despite:
PRINCETON, NJ — Americans are more likely to oppose (46%) than favor (39%) the agreement President Obama and Congress reached to raise the federal debt ceiling. Majorities of Democrats and liberals favor the agreement, while conservatives and Republicans largely oppose it
Read more: http://www.gallup.com/poll/148802/Americans-Oppose-Favor-Debt-Ceiling-Agreement.aspx#ixzz1U4hYiid7
"The president stood firm and forced Republicans to back down, preventing them from using the prospect of default as leverage again in six months" by giving them everything else they wanted.
So he won, not one battle, but a skirmish...lost the war, but still claims victory?
Stunning hubris...
Well, at least the WH is taking ownership of the financial debacle that is about to descend on us.
“I don’t think we got everything we claim we did, but I do think this whole debate would have been over weeks ago if the Obozo hadn’t demanded tax increases. So he lost big on that.”
The GOP “caved” because it was not focused on the main thing that Obama wanted and needed.
One way or another, either by new taxes OR “debt ceiling” increases, the core thing Obama wanted and needed was to be able to keep spending essentially as he has been spending, WITHOUT actual Congressional, detailed, Executive budget negotiations and debate IN BOTH HOUSE.
The Senate has had no official budget legislation, counter to House proposals, in two years.
The “spending reductions” in the just passed bill are reductions in “the baseline”, and the projected “baseline”, not in ACTUAL SPENDING. The “baseline” assumes automatic increases in many areas.
Reducing or slowing those “baseline” increases, marked by the WH and the CBO as “spending cuts” DO NOT CUT the amounts Obama is now spending in any area.
NOTHING enacted so far is or will cut OBAMA’S ACTUAL expenditures, except possibly by a mere $7 billion.
The key to Obama avoiding those reductions were (1) a Senate that refused to deliberate, (2) a GOP caught up in the right thing - the long term issues of our debt, and eventual slowing of THE BASELINE, (3) a totally stalled phony “negotiation” process that would insure that the only thing that would get any vote that counted would be a last-minute, do-or-die, take-it-or-leave-it or YOU create disaster bill. That was the objective of Obama and reid all along. And what did they need from THAT bill. They needed that it NOT alter Obama’s own spending during his term to 2012.
And in that last-minute bill, Obama did not get his hands tied on his ACTUAL SPENDING for the rest of his term. He won, because he won the only thing he really needed.
He will continue the phony public relations war over “cuts” that are not in fact cutting his actual spending. That purpose is not to restore spending he has never lost, but to try to pave the way for spending increases AFTER 2012.
A GOP that “did not back down” would have forced actual cuts in actual (not “baseline budgeting”) expenditures NOW AND NEXT YEAR; and by that I mean deep cuts, department by department directed cuts in discretionary spending.
He never cared about tax increases, he only cared about being able to spend more money. He never cared before where the money came from, taxes or deficits, and he doesn't care now. Being able to spend more money on his constituent special interest groups has always been his only goal.
Obama won 100% of what he wanted. Republicans got 0.
He’s right to a large degree.
In my opinion, nothing is more revealing than the EGO IN CHIEF’s “don’t call my bluff, Eric” comment. In any other situation where he isn’t the president, the dipsh!t gets his skinny little ass kicked.
He is a contemptable little pr!ck that NEVER “brings the two sides together,” like the media claims he can magically do.
Pu**y boys ALL lie and obama is the queen of all of the PB’s.
LLS
Untrue.
What Obama wanted was a deal which wasn't broken up into 2 stages.
He's pretending otherwise by claiming that it goes past the election, but he'll still have to continue engaging in discussion of cuts for the 2nd stage during election season.
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