Krugman That Bad Ceiling Feeling

[edhopper]

Agree with Krugman (no surprise) the deal isn't horrible, though the size of the vote in the Senate and House tells me Obama could have gotten a better deal (like $250,000 instead of $400,000) and won with a smaller margin.
But the real concern is what he will negotiate away in the Debt Ceiling and Sequester fights that are most definitely coming.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/that-bad-ceiling-feeling/

Now, given his evident antsiness to cut a deal in this case, how credible is his promise to hang tough over the debt ceiling, which is a much brighter red line? He may say that he absolutely, positively won’t negotiate over the ceiling — but nothing in his past behavior makes that believable.

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe the Treasury is secretly preparing to invoke the 14th amendment, or issue a trillion-dollar platinum coin, or direct that the whole budget gap be taken out of spending dear to Republicans. But I have to say that I now expect Obama to cave on the ceiling; and so, of course, do the Republicans, which means that the crisis is going to happen.

[Purveyor]

1. We haven't seen anything yet. The debt ceiling and sequester fights will make this last one

look like a 'cakewalk'.

Teabaggers are pissed and it is going to get very ugly, indeed.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Has Krugman ever cut a deal in his life?

When he sold real estate, did he draw a Line In the Sand on price only to concede and get less than he originally wanted?

His criticisms of the President on this deal are nitpicky and wrongheaded. The size of the vote tells us nothing about the potential for a $250K deal. The Republicans knew there would be give on that point, and not because of Obama. Schumer and Pelosi had both gone on record last spring saying $1 million would be acceptable; anything to avoid going off the cliff. If Obama dug in at $250K, Republicans could have pointed to those examples as evidence of WH inflexibility. By giving a little, Obama put massive pressure on Republicans to move his way, which they did. As for the cost of the supposed cave-in, it was a $9 billion per year hit, not worth the prospect of failure.

So now, having failed to demonstrate Obama's utter ineptitude as a deal maker, he moves on to a new set of hypotheticals. Tiresome.