Banter Voices

The GOP’s Stuck Pig Problem

By Oliver Willis · December 04,2012

| 676 Views | Politics

The GOP has been very upset with President Obama over the last couple of days. They’re squealing like stuck pigs, mad that Obama apparently has learned a valuable lesson about governing alongside the GOP. His proposal on settling the fiscal cliff issue contained something previous Obama Administration offers to the GOP didn’t, during his first term so far: leverage.

For some reason – assuming the best of the right, I suppose – President Obama has negotiated with the GOP in a very silly manner. Previous Obama deals with the GOP on issues like the stimulus, health care reform, and the debt ceiling made the assumption that the GOP is an actual rational entity and not a giant ball of emotion powered by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

Under Obama’s faulty assumptions (and common sense, to be honest), the GOP would be capable of seeing some of their ideas included in liberal-leaning legislation because they lost the 2008 election and until 2010 didn’t have the House. In response, the GOP chose to effectively shut down the government and hope they could do enough damage to win the 2012 election.

That didn’t work, and now after admitting that Obama campaigned on a left-leaning platform of raising rich people’s taxes they can’t even go to the tired well of “but he campaigned as a moderate” that they went to with him before and with Clinton.

On Obama’s side, he seems to have realized that baking in the GOP’s previously endorsed positions just makes them turn against their own ideology in the hopes of holding up their prime directive: opposing Obama. So now, hopefully, he’s doing what you’re supposed to do while negotiating. You start with your strongest position then work towards a compromise. This ensures that the right will also give up things.

The whole reason we are facing the fiscal cliff is thanks to Tea Party intransigence surrounding the debt ceiling. If we go over it, it will have been because the GOP continues to value party and ideology over country, to the detriment of both quite frankly. As with the Gingrich shutdown of the 1990s, the GOP will be blamed for this, while Obama is likely to get the credit regardless of how middle class tax cuts end up being preserved.

They are stuck, and the President is not nearly as naive as he used to be. Squealing time.

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M2

D’oh! Use this

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/04/demint-government-doesnt-need-additional-revenues/
- Christopher Foxx
  
  From that link:
  
  House Speaker John Boehner said over the weekend he was “flabbergasted” by President Barack Obama’s proposal, while the president said Tuesday that the math behind the GOP plan “does not work.”
  
  That shows the differences between the two sides in a nutshell:
  One gives a generic “I don’t like it” criticism, and the other lists a specific, factual problem.
  One objects because the just don’t want to do what it calls for, and the other objects because it won’t actually work.
  (One acts like a bratty child…)
M2

More Republican fiscal responsibility. These are serious people.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/?hpt=hp_t1
M2

Yes, if only the President spent money on wars without a plan to pay for them, all would be dandy.

GOP Delusion: It’s what’s for breakfast.
- M2
  
  Oh, and I forgot to mention the delusion that nothing happened in 2008 that necessitated increased stimulus spending. Nope, just biz as usual that year, then Obama fucked it up.
  - oi ly
    
    Obama fucked up THE WHOLE WORLD!!
  - SaveFarris
    
    Yeah, but Obama fixed that (according to him, you, and everyone else here.)
    
    Why do we need to continue spending money to fix a problem that has already been solved, much less incur *additional* stimulus per Obama’s latest cliff offer?
SaveFarris

The whole reason we are facing the fiscal cliff is thanks to Tea Party intransigence surrounding the debt ceiling.

Well that … and the $6 trillion in deficit spending. If Obama merely continued Bush’s overspending without adding garguantan amounts of his own, we wouldn’t have had to raise the debt ceiling again until after his 2nd term ended.

There’s also the whole issue of Democrats filibustering the original Bush tax cuts, which is why they had to be passed through reconcilliation (and thus were forced to sunset after 10 years.) I mean it’s not like the Bush team called for their permanence during the campaign and then won re-election handily or anything.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Farris: to sunset after 10 years
  
  You mean it’s been known for a decade that the tax rates were going to change? Gosh, you’d think the GOP, what with there frequent complaints that businesses need less uncertainty, would have been glad something was known so clearly.
  
  Oh, that’s right. The only thing the GOP likes is saying “No”, even to their own proposals.
- Buzz Killington
  
  Gargantuan seems excessive in describing increased outlays of $3.1 trillion to $3.8 trillion.
- Zython
  
  Farris, if I address your comment, are you actually going to respond, or are you going to run away like last time?
  - enlightened liberal
    
    What do you think? On the other hand, it looks like the re-election of Bareefer 0Bongo has given this place a much needed cleansing.
    - Zython
      
      Yeah, the guy couldn’t even get the courage to say anything to my face. So I’ll just conclude this with:
      
      That’s what I fucking thought.
- enlightened liberal
  
  So you admit that the fiscal cliff is because of the Tea Party. Finally something is getting into that brain.
db

Oliver,

The current Republican Party doesn’t have any core ideas or policies. It’s simply a matter of opposition. President Obama can do no right. I’m not sure how you “negotiate” with that.

Banter Voices

The GOP’s Stuck Pig Problem

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