The entire political world right now is holding its collective breath over whether a deal will be struck between President Obama and the leadership of Congress to raise America's debt ceiling. The more honest observers of this process have noted the "Kabuki theater" nature of the proceedings, as they wisely discount the possibility that the deadline will be reached with no agreement in place. "This is all for show," the jaded pundits assure us, "there will be a deal." But this reasoning can be taken one step further: not only will there be a last-minute deal, but the deal will not happen until that last-minute -- and this is by design. While duelling press conferences amuse the public, behind the scenes the name of the game Obama and the Republicans are playing could rightly be called "The Big Stall."
Stalling helps both sides in this fight, in two major ways. The first is purely political, and the second is more practical. With the clock busily ticking away, everyone involved in this struggle is scoring political points with the public (or, at the very least, trying their hardest to do so). When a deal emerges at the last-minute, all the politicians in Congress will be able to go to their party's base and state: "We fought as hard as we could, and we got the best deal we possibly could have gotten." The very fact that the negotiations went down to the wire will bolster this assertion -- again, for both sides. Remember, right after this deal is struck, Congress will be going on vacation for a month, and both parties want to be able to face the voters with the claim that they didn't prematurely give in on their core party principles. If a deal is struck too early, then it will appear one side or the other caved too fast. Which means that both parties have a vested interest in pushing things to the very last instant.
Both President Obama and the leaders of Congress also have a more practical vested interest in stalling as long as they think is possible, as well. Because there is a hard and fast deadline (August 2), the longer the leadership stalls the negotiations and makes political hay over how hard they are fighting, the less time Congress is going to have to act at the end of the process.
Imagine if a deal had been agreed to by the Republicans and Obama last week, just for the sake of argument. Actually, that is the most apt phrase to describe this scenario, because argument is what would be happening right now, in a big way -- in both the House and Senate. If both houses of Congress knew that they had a leisurely three weeks or so to act, then they'd spend every minute of that time enjoying their own moment in the media spotlight, making as much political hay as they could possibly manage. Instead of seeing only John Boehner and Mitch McConnell vying with the president for the camera's attention, you would instead have the hundreds of Republicans in Congress all trying to be the loudest voice in the debate. To be fair, the same would be true on the Democratic side as well.
The longer Congress had to publicly posture and pontificate over the deal, the more time they'd have to tinker with the details. This could be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on what got tinkered with (and which perspective you saw it from, of course). But the more tinkering Congress did, the more of a possibility that the whole thing could blow up in their faces as one side or the other pushes things too far to ever actually pass both the House and the Senate. Instead of coming together at the last-minute, the whole shebang could fall apart at the last-minute, in other words.
Both Obama and the congressional leadership know this. Which is why they're going to continue stalling right up to the very last possible instant, and then present Congress with a "take it or leave it" deal. By leaving only the barest minimum of time for floor debate in both chambers, there will be not much opportunity for tinkering with whatever deal emerges from the negotiations. Everyone in Congress will have the opportunity to rant and rave in a floor speech that they can brag about over the August break, but there won't be time for much more than the usual grandstanding.
Of course, there will be lots of grumbling from both sides about the fact that the rank and file of Congress has been somewhat sidelined in the process, but this can easily be countered with the fact that nothing has stopped them from acting until now. Congress -- both the House and the Senate -- have done precisely nothing so far to solve the debt ceiling problem, so it's a little late for them to be complaining about the current schedule. They've had oodles of time to act on their own, and they have not done so. This won't stop them from complaining, however.
There's a rumor making the rounds that the House Republicans may actually attempt to enter the debate on their own, by bringing a bill to the floor and starting a big debate even as their own leadership is in negotiations with the White House. This could allow them to publicly make their case in detail, while the negotiators are still locked in a closed room hammering things out. The media would certainly go along for the ride, and the dynamic of the negotiations themselves might be changed as a result. But if this rumor is true, they're going to have to act extremely quickly -- and so far, they haven't shown any sign of actually doing so.
Instead, what is much more likely is The Big Stall will continue right up to the point where Congress has enough time to act -- but only enough time to act, and not enough time to tinker. Then the deal will be announced, and Congress will be on the hot seat. At this point, they'll be operating under the threat of Wall Street acting if they don't -- by downgrading the credit rating of the United States of America for the first time in history. Which Wall Street could do at any time (they're likely not going to wait until the absolute last-minute to do so). Tea Party rhetoric aside, the deal is likely going to pass both houses (most likely with bipartisan votes), and such catastrophe will be averted at the last-minute.
There's an old bumpersticker saying that "if it wasn't for the last-minute, nothing would ever get done," which bears repeating right now. But this time around, it will be by design. Neither President Obama nor the congressional leadership is going to allow Congress any more time than the absolute minimum necessary they require to pass a law. Until then, we've got at least one more week (possibly two) to sit back and watch The Big Stall.
Chris Weigant blogs at: 
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Become a fan of Chris on The Huffington Post
Follow Chris Weigant on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChrisWeigant
Adam Hanft: The Last Shuttle, the Endless Deficit, a Frozen Culture; a Meditation on Limits
Dean Baker: Budget Blowhards: Why the Budget Debate Is Destined to Become Ever More Painful
James K. Galbraith: Hawk Nation: A Guide to the Catastrophic Debt Ceiling Debate
Miles J. Zaremski: The Debt Ceiling and Health Care as a Right
Obama vs. Tiger? Never mind - The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency
Debt Ceiling Talks...Endless Game Of Give And Take? : NPR
RealClearPolitics - Debt Ceiling Talks Back to Square One
Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms ...
The debt-ceiling talks: 5 scenarios - Carrie Budoff Brown and ...
Obama to address debt-ceiling talks at news conference - 44 - The ...
It's like watching one of those teen drag-races where adolescent cockiness ends in death and disaster because the participants just can't understand that death can actually happen, and real life gets no 'gritty re-boot'.
But cutting entitlements as a way of reducing the deficit, though specious, is Obama's goal and the GOP's, because it is the goal of the plutocracy, which each serves as a means of procuring campaign cash, and because each believes the plutocracy' priorities are the right ones, or at least the ones toward which they must expend their careful attentions. Obama thinks this will make him attractive to independents and immune to GOP criticism over the cost of entitlements.
The fact that, if realized, this dream of austerity for those without political power to resist political predation will actually cause some to lose their health, to say nothing of health care, is evidently just the price such irrelevances must pay for the political ambitions of the president and the opposition.
I'll say this for certain:If the plot twist at the end involved savage cuts to Medicare,Social Security and Medicaid and you're right about this-then this callous conclusion was agreed to weeks ago and Boehner,Cantor and the President are going to laugh over this scam they played on us for their corporate masters for years to come.
And I'll do everything in my power to make sure he's not reelected. Why?You can't reward someone that double crosses you and smiles about it. They'll do it HARDER next time. You'd think the country would have learned that with Bush,but apparently not.
I hope it IS all a big show,though-because the alternative is just too disasterous. But I REALLY hope someone told the Tea Partiers that-if even a handful of them think it's for real and reject the deal at the last minute,all the principals involved are going to have ostrich egg on their faces.
Republicans seem to be very much like Southern Baptists in that you score points by being the "most faithful."
Boehner is not "of the faith".
Fancy meeting you here (instead of on my site...)!
The background story to all of this is a double-barrelled leadership struggle in the Republican Party. Boehner's got Canter at his back, and McConnell has DeMint. If either leader doesn't show enough purity, they may not be party leaders much longer (I could see a Tea Party revolt against either one of them, in either house, in a leadership battle).
Reading the tea leaves (couldn't resist), it seems like Boehner actually wanted a grand bargain with Obama, but his rank and file rejected it. But then, that may be what the PR wizards want me to think, who knows, at this point.
-CW
Coming from Mr. Boehner's district here in Ohio and having first met him in 1987, I can tell you that House Speaker is a much more public role for Boehner. He would much rather be out of the limelight. As you might have guessed, he's more of a traditional backroom dealmaker.
And you're right, I think McConnell fits more into this category as well. While DeMint and Cantor are the "true believers". What's interesting is how much power the "believers" have over the "non". I too really do believe that Boehner wanted the deal. And it would have been a heckuva deal for Republicans.
With one exception. They would have sacrificed their core "no new taxes" core belief. And here's where I think Cantor is the better politician than Boehner. He thinks long-term brand-building for his party vs. short term deal making. A lesson which might be of interest to progressives.
I personaly can not belive your constitunent's are even on your side of this problem now, and wish they had never voted for you in the first place. You are no different then all the rest of any one running for or holding office,all politicians are the same they spew what they think people want to hear and once in office you do what you want for your own gain and not the people. IF giant corp. can have tax breaks for JETS then give all of us tax breaks for just being citizens. WE NEED A ROBIN HOOD AND NOW
Considering the public overwhelmingly wants hands off Social Security, why would talk of slashing benefits be scoring political points?
Not to mention the part where they say 'Vote for me to protect SS etc' and then promptly renege, in hopes that you won't remember that when election time rolls around. And since the money-bound media pretty much controls what you remember, well...
Multi-national and other large US based corporations are sitting on trillions. Wall Street is as well. If the gov't defaults they would all suffer short term, but if this is a ploy ala Naomi Kleins "disaster capitalism" to usurp more power and money into mega-corporations and WS via privatization, then this could be the coup they have been waiting for. Explains them sitting on so much cash...
Sorry if I was unclear--I agree with you--I wasn't being a wise*ss just noting similar shock doctrine incidents.
Personally I dont think a default will happen, but it does fit the pattern of the Shock Doctrine. Have you seen the Shock Doctrine in print yet?
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.