Obama prepares for surrender

 
"“The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a different approach, a cuts-only approach — an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all,” Mr. Obama said in his address. “And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scales, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about — cuts that place a greater burden on working families.”"  NY Times

-------------------------------------------

I have thought for some time that the present struggle in Washington would end in defeat for the president.  Now, I am certain that is true.  His speech on 25 July was merely an attempt to cover himself in anticipation of that defeat.  He hopes that "sound bites" from that address can be played back to a citzenry enraged by the triumph of moneyed interests.

His defeat was inevitable in a situation in which the Tea Party types have enough votes in the House to block any deal that they won't accept.  The constitution is clear.  Money bills must originate in the House and that is where the Tea Party is strong enough to make its will prevail.

Obama is the proprietor of the Executive Branch of the government.  That is where the money is disbursed and services are provided.  Without money he cannot do either.  Some debt service would be possible and some minimal services could be possible with ongoing revenues but the net result would not be government as Americans have come to know it.

Obama has to run the parts of the government that "do things."  It is clear now that the only way he will get the money to do his job is to surrender.  He might as well get on with it.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/us/politics/26fiscal.html?_r=1&ref=us

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

PL advocating surrender. So this is another "lost cause"?

I don't believe so but it is clear that the odds seem to be against the President. But hey I am a go down swinging type of person (at least in my dreams)!

[Nick]

Why so pessimistic? This is nothing another speech or two can't rectify...

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

He has already lost and will be a lame duck kicked around by the Tea Party and Wall street. It was splendid for the commander of the surrounded Old Guard at Waterloo to answer "merde" to a demand for surrender but it was pointless. Should Lee not have surrendered at Appomattox? Obama is finished. pl

[Charles]

What makes you think that Wall Street and "moneyed interests" are against Obama? Looking at 2008 contributions, Securities firms gave $15M to BO and 8.7M to JMc. JP Morgan was BO's biggest contributor from that sector and gave over 800k compared to JMc's biggest Wall Street contributor, Merrill, at 375k. It is the current administration who declared Wall Street firms "too big to fail" and made good their losses, decoupling the management from the risk and perpetuating bad behavior. The data makes the case that they got what they paid for.

To cut the data even more, Lawyers/Lobbyists gave 43M to BO and 11M to JMc, so a massive increase in government is not surprising either.

What data supports the idea that WS is in league with the Tea Party?

[bth]

Pres. Obama has not shared the pain with the public. Its been talked about, SS, medicare, govt. contracts, etc., going down, but it actually hasn't happened. Yet. When it does. I suspect the tenor of town hall meetings will change for House members.

[WP]

The Hamiltonians have won for now, but Jeffersonians still exist. The struggle is an eternal part of our polity. The extreme concentration of wealth being accumulated will have very negative consequences. Eventually, a new leader will arise who will mobilize the masses and it will not be pretty. We live in very interesting times.

[William R. Cumming]

THANKS PL! Note for the record that the largest source of contributions for President Obama in 2008 was small donations from John Q. Public but the bulk of his large donations were from Wall Street. So which way does Wall Street want this to end? Or does it?

[Jane]

This is more like a game of chicken. The Tea Party is more convincing in their threat that they are willing to see the country go down if they do not get their way while Obama, being viewed as reasonable, is not believed to have the bloody mindedness to veto whatever they send over. He is also suffering from the belief that he is incapable or unwilling to take reprisals on those who cross him politically. He is also suffering from his belief in rationality -- that because the position of the Tea Baggers is objectively harmful to the country they will pay a price and the polls and that they will realize this and act to avoid it. Since much of the Tea Party lives in fantasy land and besides the Republicans have to first face Republican primaries Obama's view of the probable political calculations of the Republican politicians is wildly off base.

The job of all the politicians is running the country and they are all currently failing.

[Bill H.]

You obviously aren't watching MSNBC, Patrick. They are hooting about the Republicans being washed up and crowing about the President's masterful manipulation of the situation. He is a shoo-in for reelection and Democrats have a good chance of retaking the House because of the way that Republicans have blundered on this issue.

And, we will have peace in our time and men walking on the moon within weeks, no doubt.

[highlander]

Obama is finished. pl

Obama was finished before he started.

In 40 plus years of involvement in political campaigns, his creation out of whole cloth, is the damndest thing I have observed. He is a pure fabrication of the ultra rich American secular Jewish establishment.

Strap in tightly, boys and girls. Because your pilot, Barry Obama is about to attempt his very first landing in anything with the United States of America!

[Patrick Lang]

Jane

"his belief in rationality" "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." pl

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

Highlander is right about who "fabricated Obama." Some of his "makers" are numbered among friends with whom i struggled for a two state solution in Palestine. Their reasoning being that without the separation I srael would not survive in the long run. They and Wall Street really own this man. pl

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

I am afraid you are right. Obama is no FDR.

Corporate press avoids asking why in the world would the radical House GOP vote to shut down the federal government. Wall Street Investors and Business Owners will take a hit. They donate money to the GOP and will be pissed.

Two reasons:

First, the House GOP are true believers. They know that Government is evil and that default will not crash the economy. To them this is communist propaganda.

Second, the USA is in the same boat as the PIIGS in Europe. The Oligarchs and Multi-National Companies have trillions of dollars of worthless derivative bets on their books. They are not willing to take a haircut. The Oligarchs are backing the GOP. They will crash the government first and scavenge any value left out of the wreckage. Russia in the 1990s replayed on a Grand Scale.

[Augustin L]

@charles

The tea party is only the visible emanation from oligarchs such as the Koch brothers,the modern day version of the Liberty league and the sentinels of the republic.

[Buzz Meeks]

When I first saw Obama compared to FDR I wanted to vomit. A punk Illinois state rep who profited from a sex "scandal" during his US Senate run that forced his opponent out of the race.

The fix was in from the start regarding this Wall Street pimp. I was asked to leave one of his state level citizens meetings when I brought up my concerns regarding his Goldman Sucks contributions and the heavy amount of dual-national Fifth Columnists operatives infesting his campaign staff during the 2008 campaign. Evidently I was both racist and anti-Semitic.

There were mentions of "socialism" posted here yesterday. Yes, corporate socialism/ leave no corporation behind/crony-capitalism on the way to Koch financed style fascism. Obama is not facing defeat, it is part of the plan. Remember, it only took one hundred years but Standard Oil is back in business as Exxon Mobile.

These entities have staying power and the power. But hey, the NFL is no longer locking out it's employees, ignore the man behind the curtain.

[Medicine Man]

As shallow and stupid as it sounds, Obama could have probably headed off this impasse (imminent defeat) at an earlier date if he'd actually stood up to his opponents and shown a little irrationality.

This bullshit narrative about being "the adult in the room" is what's put him here. A fiction entirely crafted as a re-election prop, in my opinion.

[Yellow Dog]

I guess I would ask what on earth makes you think that Republican's would accept Obama's surrender? That would look too much like compromise. Didn't Harry Reid offer $2.7T in cuts without revenue increases last weekend?

[Fred]

Should Lee not have surrendered at Appomattox? Obama is finished. pl

Lee was a man of honor; it is looking like Obama is not.

[Patrick Lang]

YD

I never said they would accept his surrender. Why should they? They will have hime where they want him without bothering to acknowledge his helplessness. pl

[Ramojus]

@pl and Highlander

"Highlander is right about who fabricated Obama."

I'm from Chicago. In fact Obama ran for the House of Representatives seat in my district and lost to the incumbent due, mainly, that he was "not black enough". The district was primarily African-American.

I would be very interested in hearing about the "fabricators" in more detail...perhaps a separate post?

I am curious

[GulfCoastLaddie]

Wait a minute. With all due respect the reason this thing isn't settled has little to nothing to do with Obama. Boehner can't control his own caucus. The teabaggers have already announced they will vote against their own leader's plan tomorrow.

While everything everyone said about Obama may be true what does all of this say about Boehner? Rather than a little compromise and seeking some Democratic votes he's going to let 80 or so zealots run the ship aground?

Yea, Obama's the problem.

[alnval]

Col. Lang:

I’m saddened by the intransigence and I’m upset about how it’s affecting the country. In my experience you call the other guy intransigent only when you’ve run out of options to change his behavior and have to recognize that you can’t do anything about it.

Obama’s been in this position for a while. I think that’s why he had Biden take point on the discussions to raise the debt ceiling. He knew he couldn’t do it himself. He must have known for sure that the jig was up when Cantor walked out of the Biden talks saying “no tax increases.” Even so, he soldiered on.

We all knew even before that that Obama’s ability to act as the country’s “proprietor” was in serious trouble when the Senate Minority Leader said in front of God and everybody that the Republicans’ primary goal was to make Obama a one term president. These were no idle words but were implemented on a daily basis by Senate Republicans where the threat of filibuster became a way of life and Senate approval of presidential appointments became almost as scarce as hen’s teeth. Notice how obviously and unabashedly the interests of the country were ignored in the interests of political party.

The argument that Obama did it to himself with his insistence on implementing national health care before dealing with jobs and the failing economy has some merit. As does his seeming inability even now to address the questionable financial practices of Wall Street and, even more important, the nation’s unemployment rate. (As an aside the markets have a better appreciation of how screwed up our major financial institutions are when they put a market cap of 100 billion on the Bank of America which reports having 200 billion in assets.)

There is no doubt that these issues still fester in the electorate and that their distress and outrage over the “Wall Street Bailout” and the problems of the jobs and the economy were major factors in giving the Republicans control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections.

I don’t see how the Boehner/Republican solution of solving the debt/deficit problem by cutting spending is going to do anything but make things worse. And, Obama may have fired his last shot last night when he appealed directly to the American people to call their representatives and tell them that. In a rational world that might work. Unfortunately, in a world where ideology rules even pressure from the electorate gets trumped by intransigence.

[Jane]

What happens to Republican electoral prospects if they get their way and the economy tanks further?

[J]

Colonel,

What do you make of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Ut)'s latest 'demand' -- 'Rewrite the Constitution' -- so says Sen. Lee.

Has he stepped over his bounds as a U.S. Senator? I think so, IMO I think he's a jerk for behaving this way with his 'demand'.

Mike Lee: I Want America’s ‘House To Come Down’ Unless Congress Votes To Rewrite Constitution
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/07/25/278811/lee-admits-he-is-an-extortionist/

[Lee A. Arnold]

If President Obama ought to veto any bill that does not raise revenues on the richest, and then invoke the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling anyway. Make them hopping mad, let them try to impeach, and run with it into the next election. This will turf out some Republicans. If the President caves, then no one will ever believe another word he says, and he will not win re-election