Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has blinked. His proposal late yesterday afternoon to give President Obama the power to raise the Federal Debt Ceiling -- without the previously demanded budget cuts -- is the beginning of the Republican collapse in their stand off with the president and Democrats.
The exact terms of surrender have yet to be negotiated, but there is little question that the Republican forces are have begun to break into a full retreat from their demands that they would only vote to increase the debt ceiling if Democrats agreed to a comparable cuts in spending -- with not a dime of increased tax revenue from the wealthy.
Why has the battle turned?
First, the Republican position demanding massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other critical middle class programs -- without a dime of new revenue from millionaires, billionaires, oil companies and CEO's who fly around in corporate jets -- simply won't sell to ordinary American voters.
Since the passage of their budget that would end Medicare, Republican members of Congress have faced angry crowds at town meetings across the country. At the same time President Obama called the Republican's bluff in challenging them to make a "grand bargain" to bring down the deficit that would include increased taxes on the rich. The Republicans wouldn't budge when it came to raising taxes on the wealthy. Together, citizen outrage and the President's strategy gave Democrats the high political ground.
Second, Wall Street and the CEO class finally reached out and yanked McConnell's leash. As the debt ceiling deadline drew near the CEO's, that are the real base of the Republican Party, basically told the party leadership that they were not about to allow them to sink the economy and their portfolios just to pander to the Tea Party.
Yesterday what the Washington Post called a "sprawling" coalition of Wall Street and Main Street business leaders "sent an unmistakable message to lawmakers Tuesday: Enough squabbling. Get the debt ceiling raised."
This was a "remember who you work for" moment. The Republican Party exists to advance the interests of Wall Street and American big business. Now the CEO class is as interested as can be in cutting taxes for the rich and reducing the size of the public sector. But they're not at all interested in risking another great Recession or worse. The Republican position from the beginning was that if Democrats didn't agree to their demands, they would pull the pin the grenade and blow everyone -- including their Wall Street masters -- to smithereens. So after allowing the Republican leadership adequate time to bark, growl and posture, big business has decided it is time for some obedience training.
Finally, we just got a glimpse of the complete anarchy in the Republican Party. There is a huge fissure between the Wall Street/CEO Party regulars and the Tea Party insurgents that never got the memo about who paid for all those campaign commercials that put them in Congress and have decided to pander to the social conservative, "big government-hating" rank and file.
This division is played out in the power struggle that has erupted between House Speaker John Boehner and second-in-command Eric Cantor. And the division is exacerbated by a fleet of want-to-be Presidential candidates competing every day over who can cram more right wing nostrums into a single sentence.
There is a good case to be made that this conflict will break out into open civil war in the House Republican Caucus and a coup against Boehner. If not, the debt ceiling battle will likely leave Boehner politically emasculated.
The default crisis is far from over, but last night the tide of the battle decisively turned.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in the firm Democracy Partners. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.
Follow Robert Creamer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rbcreamer
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Letting Obama raise the debt ceiling is a salvage maneuver that they hope will be useful as a political campaign sound bite: "We said no, but Obama increased the debt anyway!"
I'm sure the TEA party will fall for it.
The Republicans went bold and the President went bolder and called their bluff.
The Republicans tied spending cuts to the debt ceiling and the President said "fine,
let's party on that."
Now we have the President backing down from $4 trillion and the Republicans
don't want to even discuss his new $1.4 trillion offer from the White House. They
want to talk about light bulbs.
What a difference a week makes. I think Reid's jockeying for a 'clean' debt
ceiling increase in given McConnell's proposal a little hug.
As for the Prez candidates --- easy to be loud when you've got no skin the game --- meaningless.
Obama has the upper hand no. Smacking them down simply isn't good enough for this fascist bunch. You have to keep your foot on their throat until they stop moving.
If they're serious, they should start by restricting their advertising dollars from FOX and radio propaganda sermons by Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck and the like.
However, I certainly agree that it is way past time for us to get out the middle east and let those people take care of themselves.
Maybe because McConnell thinks this battle is worth losing, even BEST to lose, in order to win the war. The recovery has stalled, the economy is ALREADY heading into double-dip, and what shrewd Republican wants to get blamed for THAT in 2012?
The economy is still going to stink next year, and the blame game will be in full swing. Since there is little real will in either party to get to work and actually fix things, we can expect a full year of political power plays. That includes playing it safe at times and picking your battles wisely.
Yes, Republicans are split in strategy, but they are hardly in chaos. McConnell just blinked and did so with full deliberation. It is a power move, not a panic move. His move will very likely prevail and odds are it will pay off.
Great post.
Fanned and faved
American voters again. Unfortunately, they will convince some that this was their plan to dump the problem in Obama's lap. It's just spin and only spin.