The downsides, and one up

Yesterday, Ezra Klein cited a Marco Rubio tweet--"Report that #GOP insisting on changes to social security as part of #fiscalcliff false. BTW those changes are supported by @barackobama"--which Klein correctly identified as splendid evidence of Republicans' breathtaking hypocrisy and gutless stance and neverending political quandary. He summarized their plight with no small amount of sarcasm: 

Today’s Republican Party thinks the key problem America faces is out-of-control entitlement spending. But cutting entitlement spending is unpopular and the GOP’s coalition relies heavily on seniors. And so they don’t want to propose entitlement cuts. If possible, they’d even like to attack President Obama for proposing entitlement cuts. But they also want to see entitlements cut and will refuse to solve the fiscal cliff or raise the debt ceiling unless there are entitlement cuts.

All true, and perfectly logical, as well as perfectly lethal--if you're a Republican. Which makes the fourth sentence--sort of dropped in by Klein without further comment--so indescribably baffling: "If possible, they’d even like to attack President Obama for proposing entitlement cuts." But there is no "if possible," there's only whenever, since President Obama quite recently did just that: he converted the merely possible into the tantalizingly embraceable for wannabe, safety-net-slashing Republicans.

Some observers have got themselves hung up on the merits (or demerits) of a "chained CPI," which itself is an altogether negligible skirmish within the broader strategic context. The unsurrenderable issue at stake is that of offering for negotiation the nation's most successful social-insurance program in the midst of fiscal talks which inherently have nothing to do with the insurance program and in turn the insurance program has nothing to do with our fiscal troubles at the heart of the talks. Which is to say, to dangle an umbelliferous irrelevancy such as a chained CPI--whatever its stand-alone merits--isn't a sign of presidential "reasonableness": it's a flashing, iridescent, explosive sign of negotiable cowardice.

As is moving $200,000 in the other guys' direction on a $250,000 tax deal (i.e., a move of nearly 100 percent), or marooning two top cabinet nominations.

Those other guys? They've smelled the fear, whose profoundly inexcusable element is its utterly inappropriate timing. With every passing day, a second-term presidency loses irreplaceable political capital. And yet the Obama administration just squandered a boatload of it, right out of the gate.

The upside? It's still early. There's plenty of time to alter course. And grow a couple.

Comments

[wtf]

It's not cowardice or caving when you do something you want and Obama WANTS to cut entitlements. He's been saying that since before he was President and he repeated it in the 1st debate with Mitt Romney when he said he and Romney had essentially the same position on Social Security. The fiscal cliff and debt ceiling dramas are all crises manufactured in part by Obama to enable the cutting of entitlements so the feds can have more cash to hand over to the rich.

It will be interesting to see what Pete Petersen-connected boards Michelle joins starting in 2017...

[Betsy]

But PBO does not want to cut BENEFITS in these so-called "entitlements."

[Betsy]

PM, You seem to be really reactive these past days and forgetting the President's long game. Sad and disappointing and uncharacteristic. I miss your usually spot-on analysis. Now you are writing like Ed Shultz, et.al.

[Anonymous]

Betsy, you're wrong. PM isn't writing like Ed Shultz. It's more like Cenk Uger.

[Beulahmo]

LOL! Yep. Watching them do everything they can to avoid proposing what they SAY they want to do has been enormously entertaining as well as maddening.

I just have to say that I've been experiencing the oddest mixture of dread, grim amusement, and unnerving schadenfreude over the last year. Those feelings have been intensifying lately, and I don't know how much longer I can take it before resorting to heavy drinking. :-\

[Peter G]

Okay now we have a clear view of the deal. Midle class tax cuts? Check. Extension to unemployment insurance? Check. Increased capital gains tax. Check. Cuts to social programs? Nope. Boy I sure wish I could get beaten like this in a negotiation. Forced to get almost everything I want and giving up next to nothing. Want to bet the debt ceiling negotiations include further tax increases or the Republicans wind up holding a malodorous bag just like old Newt did?