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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sat Feb 23, 2013, 10:15 AM Feb 2013

GOP blame game self-destructs


Party's attempt to pin looming, across-the-board cuts on Obama makes striking a deal virtually impossible

BY JONATHAN BERNSTEIN


The big GOP talking point about sequestration, the looming across-the-board budget cuts, was a simple one: It was all Barack Obama’s idea in the first place, and therefore his fault. There’s been a lot of discussion of how honest this idea was (not particularly), and how effective it’s likely to be if sequestration actually happens (not especially), and even why they likely settled on it (because if there’s one thing that everyone in the Republican Party can agree on it would be bashing Barack Obama). But what I don’t think anyone has pointed out is what’s really wrong with this talking point: It actively undermines any current negotiations. Again.

That’s because Republicans are doing everything possible to remind Barack Obama, and other Democrats, that Republicans are at least as interested in using negotiations as an opportunity to generate material for future ad campaigns as they are in striking deals.

Go back, for a minute, to the negotiations that produced the Budget Control Act and produced the sequester that is now scheduled to go into effect in a few days. Recall that Republicans were demanding huge spending cuts, and refusing to raise the debt limit unless they got them. The White House was willing to agree on the size of deficit cuts, and both sides were willing to agree to put off the debate for a while on how exactly to do deficit reduction. The problem was that Republicans wanted some assurances that when negotiations started up again the default would be cuts, not status quo; the White House suggested automatic cuts by a certain date unless the deficit cuts were deep enough.

Claiming now that this constitutes “Obama’s sequester” isn’t just a stretch. The debate over whether Obama was “really” the author of it isn’t very interesting.

more
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/23/gops_blame_game_spells_doom/
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Wounded Bear

(58,440 posts)
2. "But what I don’t think anyone has pointed out is what’s really wrong with this talking point:"
Sat Feb 23, 2013, 12:48 PM
Feb 2013
But what I don’t think anyone has pointed out is what’s really wrong with this talking point: It actively undermines any current negotiations. Again.


I'm not sure that this is what is "wrong" with the talking point in Republican eyes. After all, they don't want to negotiate. If anybody thinks otherwise after so many years, they are self delusional. Undermining the negotiations is exactly what they're trying to do.

The Republicans are in full 'my way or highway' mode and are willing, some might say eager, to crash the economy to prove their point. After all, crashing the economy would, in their minds at least, validate their belief that Obama's economic policies don't work. Right now, their biggest concern is that there are signs of recovery out there that they must squelch in order to prove their point.

Proud Liberal Dem

(24,355 posts)
3. They hate the sequester and are trying to blame it on President Obama
Sat Feb 23, 2013, 01:07 PM
Feb 2013

but they're unwilling to pass a bill and have just left it up to the Senate to do something- that will be DOA in the House anyway. Seems kind of hypocritical/incoherent to me (but that's Republicans for ya). Prediction: The sequester is going to happen and Congress will be forced back to the table within the next month to try to clean up the mess once people start noticing how much of a clusterf**k it is. It's a full-on game of "chicken". The only question remains is whom is going to blamed for the resulting collision/pile-up.

Sunlei

(22,651 posts)
4. GOP use intimidation, fear of cuts in pursuit of their political aims- GOP are economic terrorists.
Sat Feb 23, 2013, 01:42 PM
Feb 2013

ter·ror·ism
/ˈterəˌrizəm/Noun
The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.


GOP- everyone knows by now, you have no interest in actually working FOR ALL AMERICANS.

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