Spengler makes the case for the McConnell plan:
President Barack Obama’s best hope of re-election lies in provoking Republicans to force the United States into technical default, engineering a brief but severe financial crisis in order to appear as crisis-manager-in-chief. The Tea Party movement may be marching into a political ambush, in which Obama will be able to portray the born-again budget-cutters as irresponsible fanatics who threaten to tip America into a new depression. The now unpopular president then would assume the role of national savior in time of crisis.
[…]
In that event, the Obama administration would declare an emergency, summon bankers to Washington for crisis-management sessions, slash every form of spending except for coupon payments on Treasuries, and so forth. Markets would swoon over the uncertainty. And the president would be on television denouncing the lunatics who brought things to this point. Congress would pass emergency legislation, markets would snap back, and Obama would declare himself a national savior.
Obama, meanwhile, would play the populist against the banks, demanding tougher government controls, consumer protection, and perhaps even the right to dictate that banks make loans to the Democrats’ pet projects in the name of job-creation (just as the Clinton administration forced banks into the subprime market, supposedly to help poor people buy homes).
No good crisis should go to waste, Rahm Emanuel said. As Stanley Kurtz documented in his 2011 book Radical-in-Chief [2], Obama is a socialist of pure pedigree, trained by socialists from his university days and promoted by a nexus of socialist foundations in Chicago throughout his political career. He passed up an opportunity to nationalize American banks in March 2009, when Paul Krugman, Simon Johnson and other leftist economists urged him to do so. Evidently he thought that a compromise with Wall Street would benefit the economy and improve his chances of re-election. That did not pan out, and Obama has nothing to lose by running against Wall Street. A new financial crisis would give him the opportunity to do so.
If I were an Obama speechwriter, here’s what I would put on the teleprompter after a federal default, as stock markets tanked and individuals cashed out their money market funds:
My fellow Americans, the Republican party has been in the pocket of the big banks for too long. After the last Republican administration led the country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, you elected me to restore the balance in favor of working people. Now the Republicans have pushed America into yet another crisis, and again we are faced with the danger of depression.
In consultation with the Federal Reserve and world leaders, I have taken emergency measures that ensure that the irresponsibility of big financial institutions and their Republican friends will not harm your job, your pension or your bank account. And I am sending Congress a set of emergency reform measures to ensure that the banks put the needs of ordinary people ahead of their own fat bonuses.
The economy will continue to bounce along the bottom, but Obama will have someone to blame other than himself.
Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) has the right idea: put the onus on Obama. The fact is that the American people elected a president who occulted his leftist proclivities, and then, with buyer’s remorse, returned a Republican House and a near-majority in the Senate. The American political system does not allow for a clean victory by either side: it can produce either a crisis or a compromise. In a crisis the executive authority holds all the aces, because only the executive can act to alleviate the crisis.
The Republicans, rather than shutting down the government, should say something like this:
President Obama has doubled the national debt. If we do nothing, the national debt will rise by another $3 trillion, even if you elect a Republican president in 2012 on a program of fiscal responsibility. You the people elected a Republican majority in the House in order to stop this from happening. We have offered a workable plan to the President, but he demands things that we know our constituents don't want – tax increases to fund white-elephant pet projects like high-speed rail. He is threatening to shut down the government in order to get a tax increase. The trouble is that he's the president, and he can do it. So we are offering him authority to continue borrowing. The 2012 election will be a referendum on this country's economic future. It's tragic that we have to lose an opportunity to staunch the bleeding right now, but that's how our constitutional system works.
The Republicans would then have a year and a half to run against Obama’s irresponsibility – his incompetent economic management, his demands for tax increases, his failure to address the deficit. The big problem is restoring growth. Reducing the budget deficit won’t help much – not when the Treasury can borrow 10-year money at only 3%, and homebuyers as well as blue-chip corporations can borrow for just a percentage point more.
Ok. But why not just give the Republican speech, replacing “So we are offering him the authority to continue borrowing” with “But we were elected to stop this fiscal insanity. It’s time to speak candidly: The President and the Democrats are holding all of us hostage. President Obama seems to be threatening to let the entire economic system break down and go into crisis so that he can step in and enact ’emergency measures’ that will give the central government more power. His motives are purely political: he’s hoping that he can blame Republicans for the pain you all will feel should the system crash. But know this: even should a deal not get done — and the President is insisting on yet more new spending and tax increases, neither of which helps the economy or will bring back jobs, in order to reach an agreement — we have the revenues to pay the service on our debt and still continue funding social security, medicare, border security, the military, and just about every essential service. So any crisis that occurs will be one of his making. As Republicans, we control only the House of Representatives right now. Through the House, we have proposed a way forward to cap spending by the Federal Government and bring about a balanced budget. For their part, the Democrats have not even offered a budget in over 2 years, much less a plan to avoid economic disaster. So the ball is squarely in their court. We have done what you elected us to do. The President has decided his prospects for reelection increase if he can govern over a crisis of his own making. We not only find that irresponsible and cynical, but we find it reprehensible.”
In short, now is the time to make the truth your political weapon. That involves selling the narrative.
Sure, it’s easier just to wash your hands of it all and give Obama a blank check so that he doesn’t crash the markets and then try to anoint himself President for Life. But easier is not what we’re looking for here.
It’s time to do the right thing. On a gut level, Americans recognize that you can’t pay your debts by voting yourself more credit to use to pay down your debts. So. Make the case and let the political chips fall where they may.
(h/t Dave O’C)
The truth?
/Washington, D.C.
Btw, both in this post and the one a couple down you make one of my favorite “Jeff points”.
All of the games they play aren’t actually pragmatic. We can tell this because it hasn’t been working.
Every GOP member should be saying this and saying it often. And every conservative blog and pundit should be saying it too.
If they are not saying it, then they are not really conservative.
Which is sort of illuminating too. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I would say that the Rethugs! need to give the speech Jeff fleshed out here when they pass their own plan, as is expected tomorrow. That might be the only time they’d get in the media eye to do so.
Because Coburn is putting up an even more ambitious plan of his own this afternoon, around 2:30, where he’s expected to lay out some serious spending cuts, but also increase tax revenue by around a trillion over 10 years by loophole elimination and code simplification, as well as cut a trillion more from defense over the same period.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that the last element makes me a bit nervous; you know, China and such…
We’ll have to wait and see. But I believe that as part of the announcement Coburn is expected to voice his dissatisfaction with the McConnell-Reid “plan B”.
where is bumblefuck’s proposal exactly? What he should do is he should send it to congress for so they can vote on it I think.
Here you go happyfeet. I think they did that one already.
That is one that has been “asked and answered” already so to speak sdferr. I’m trying to get an answer as to what is his current proposal here.
“Americans recognize that you can’t pay your debts by voting yourself more credit to use to pay down your debts”
I think Americans understand that, I just don’t think they care. I’m about ten days off of a good manic, so bear with me as I drag the world down.
I agree with your last sentence. Make the point, keep making the point and then make the point again and maybe the message will hit bedrock. It sounds right, it’s what I try to do as a parent, but I don’t see it ever getting anyone elected.
Generalizing from my experience; Americans who go into debt look for ways to get out of debt that have as little effect on their lifestyle as possible. Can’t make the minimum on the MasterCard? Get a Visa with a teaser rate and transfer the balance. Can’t afford to fix your car? Sign and drive a lease. Can’t afford your rent? Break the sink and file a complaint against the landlord. Can’t afford your house? Line of credit? SBA loan? Default! Haven’t paid your taxes? Call Ronnie Deustch!
Shit. Listen to who advertises on your local talk radio station. “Debt Crashers, we’ll settle your debts for pennies on the dollar!” “We’ll make ’em stop calling you at work!” “Got over 40k in debt? We’ll fix it!” This is on the stations that “conservatives” listen to. Shouldn’t be any money in it for these companies. They should be underwriting NPR. They should be advertising to the freelance writer who will only drink $12 beer and thinks he “deserves” a $400 pen, $4000 Powerbook, $80 sandals and wants the rest of us to pay $3 for a goddam light bulb… but they’re not.
It’s depressing as hell. It’s the same shit the Democrats pull, just on a more personal level.
Sorry I see you said they did it already. My bad reading habits.
It seems to me geoffb, though I haven’t looked at his every statement to verify my surmise, but anyhow, that Dr. K’s constant question focuses on what Obama would definitively specify with regard to entitlements, which I take Dr. K to mean Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, whereas Dr. K already assumes Obama would cut other components of the total budget to the bone, as for instance, zeroing out defense, if only Obama could do that with impunity.
I further assume that nothing VP Biden might say or write down even will be honored by Obama when it comes down to it, or at least, that’s the vibe I get from Cantor’s comments about the White House session he attended last week and for which the Democrats decided to vilify him. That is, Cantor watched carefully agreed to definitive numbers from the Biden talks disappear before his very eyes when Obama stepped in. Hennessey seems to have disregarded this phenomenon.
NPR listeners are rich rich rich!
rich and white
rich and white and liberal
you sponsor NPR if you’re BMW or you sell insurance or you have an art movie to pimp
yes I meant why doesn’t he send his current proposal over for a vote – that way we could find out what’s in it
Sure, still, but never pass up an opportunity for comedy is the going thing. Who wants to weep all the time?
It is really surprising that Spengler can start off so well, describing the real Obama so clearly, then somehow jump to Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) has the right idea. Spengler sees Jeff’s McConnell trap. Fantastic! When you see you are being ambushed, you set up a counter-ambush. You don’t walk away, taunting the other side that you saw them. Especially when you have superior fire-power (truth vs. lies in root cause of economic problems).
good point to every thing there is a season for example cherries and laughter and weeping and diet mountain dew but not equities or residential housing
I’m coming to the conclusion that the “Obama Debt Plan” is a step up from the Obamacare plan. In that one we were informed that they had to pass the bill to find out what was in it. Which was true but at least there was a 2000+ page monstrosity to pore at.
With the “Obama Debt Plan” it will have to be passed as a titled but otherwise blank page of paper which he will fill in later so at that time we will know what is in it. The Reid/McConnell plan comes closest now to this.
so second quarter growth was a lot slower than first quarter growth which was a lot slower than 2010 fourth quarter growth
but it could be even worse than the Golman douchebags predict
I think the number one thing bumblefuck needs from the artificial debt ceiling crisis is someone to blame for driving the economy back into recession. Even more than he wants money to squander he wants someone to blame for this mess he made.
*Goldman* douchebags I mean
Goldman Douchesacks.
Did I really have to see this?
Obama is a pure political animal, overstuffed with Marxism, malice, and hate (unless you are a Marxist), and totally devoid of reality.
“DOH! Why is YOUR money not MINE, you selfish pig”?
“I don’t have to do shit, but when you bust your hump 18 hours a day – MOST OF THAT IS MINE, YOU SELFISH ASSHOLE! I am too fucking lazy to take care of myself, so YOU FUCKING TAKE CARE OF ME!’
It absolutely beyond belief…
The former, given the supine nature of many of it’s denizens, perhaps. It would still be quite a (figurative if not literal) coup for the media to shut up every member of the TEA party caucus. (Which begs the question of, if Spengler believes this to be possible, what pretense does he entertain that there is any viable means to stop Obama?)
The later, not a chance. Too many of the individuals who comprise said markets, many of those already having demonstrated a decided unwillingness to do anything that might reward Obama, would recognize the yoke being laid down upon their shoulders and would respond accordingly.
The seniors at Goldman Sachs may relish the thought of becoming the -kinder, gentler, smiley faced – economic pet of the Progressive left, but enough others will not. And with no actual storm troopers out on the streets to eliminate the recalcitrant this putsch would collapse under it’s own weight.
i don’t fear godzilla
it’s them damn japanese earthquakes!
i’m putting on my bike helmet