1.6.13: The Little Successes

 An usual day is upon us when it can be said that Newt Gingrich is making a lot of sense, at least when it comes to the debt ceiling.  Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would not take the threat of not raising the debt ceiling off the table.  As Senator-elect Angus King (I-ME) mentioned later in the program, if he had then the markets would go up two hundred points tomorrow.  How, Mr.  McConnell is much too seasoned to do something like that despite what Mr. Gingrich thinks.  Mr. McConnell is still in Congress and Mr. Gingrich is not.  First, the debt ceiling vote will happen in the House and even though Mr. McConnell had to come in and save the day for Mr. Boehner on the fiscal cliff, he won't needlessly take away any leverage that Mr. Boehner could use when dealing with the President.  It he has said something like that, would people have felt better?  Sure, but it's not smart politically which means that Mr. McConnell would never go there.  Mr. Gregory pressed him on it to no avail.

The message that Mr. McConnell wanted to send this morning is that the United States spends too much, almost 25% of GDP he mentioned.  According to Real Clear Markets it's at 25.3%.  Whether explicitly stated or not, and most did, everyone on the today's program agreed that the United States does spend too much.  If anything came out of the Simpson-Bowles interview, it was that they agreed with Mr. McConnell that this is the case most emphatically.  Mr. Bowles agreed with the Senator that means testing and eligibility age should be part of curtailing Medicare costs.  This column agrees with the former, but not the latter.  For means testing, why give someone benefits that they do not use that we understand.  However, raising the eligibility age keeps people on private insurance for two more years, which would increase the costs to insurance companies, hence increasing rates - disproportionately to the costs saved on the other side.  But at least, some concrete thoughts were put on the table unlike on the subject of tax loopholes, to which Republicans will not specify what to close.  And speaking of the table, everyone seems to use that phrase but until defense spending is seriously on the table then the statement is a false on.  When Ms. Fiorina, during the roundtable, mentions the simple facts, she doesn't even have the inclination in mind to mention defense spending.

The other tactic that Mr. McConnell didn't rule out, when mentioned, was a partial government shutdown.  What would that look like?  We would presume that House Republicans would suspend business while the Democratically-controlled Senate and the Executive would still function.  However, nothing would get done as nothing would be able to be brought to a vote.  This is essentially the 'it's-my-ball-and-I-don't-like-the-game-so-I'm-going-home' strategy.  And in this case, Mr. Gingrich was incorrect.  His government shutdown, during his speakership, didn't work... for Republicans that is.  It worked for President Clinton as it will for President Obama if the Republicans were to be so foolish.  Republicans seem to be a bit tone deaf when it comes to what the American public says about the job they're doing in the House, but a partial shutdown would make them look even more foolishly ineffective than they have been. 

The 113th Congress vs. the 112th?  "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" is how the line goes and a partial shutdown would not change that.  But Mr. McConnell seems to believe that it's a shame that this is the only leverage they have.  However, it isn't because as he said, he feels that revenue is now completely off the table.

The President will seek to further increase revenue (see: loopholes) when they start debating tax reform.  Given what the two sides are continually going for, revenue increases and spending cuts respectively, it will not be a revenue neutral deal as Mr. McConnell said.  The one fumble that Mr. McConnell made today was in his response on this latest fiscal cliff deal, in which he said there was no tax increase.  There was for the top one percent.  It's not that he's just ignoring the fact of the matter, but his sophomoric response saying that because the President of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, said it wasn't a tax increase, then it wasn't.  Give us a break.

What also drew distinct frustration today was the fact that Mr. Simpson and Mr. Bowles both said that the government couldn't get the difficult stuff done, and it was only minor relief when E.J. Dionne later countered it by saying that the tax rate increase was in fact difficult.  It was the first one the Republicans have voted for in over 20 years... that's how easy it was to get done.  However, the frustration resides in  constant, pointless back and back forth to the brink that keeps stalling the economy.  Having this fight every three months is exhausting and exasperating to say the least, which speaks to Senator-elect King's point is that the overall structural problem is that the American people have lost confidence in the government to get anything done.

Even though the President isn't blameless, he has made concessions and the contention from Ms. Fiorina that he hasn't lead, and that this is the biggest problem is ridiculous.  The President to his credit, has proposed some major concessions in the grand bargain and Republicans rejected it.  Does the President campaign too much when he doesn't have to, absolutely.  But he has to do this because all he has is to take his case to the American people with whom he has built trust.  Where he hasn't built the trust is with his colleagues.  And to be frank, it's too late for him to start building those relationships.   And then there's the other notion that why should he have had built those relationships given the animosity and the intransience from Republicans.

On each, here are two examples signaled by Senator McConnell.  The animosity for the President runs so deep that when he nominates Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator, current conservative politicians don't like the pick.  Why?  Because President Barack Obama was the one who did the nominating.  And even worse is the intransience, which will be the order on how to proceed for Republicans when it comes to new gun regulations.  Mr. McConnell said that he didn't want to comment until he saw the vice-president's committee's recommendations.  This is to say that the Republican party will not be proactive in the debate and only say what they are not willing to do in the face of the Administration's ideas.

The concept of 'little successes building up to a big good,' which has happened in Congress recently believe it or not is the optimistic notion that you can take away from today's program.  What would be helpful is that instead of congressional Republicans only saying that the president needs to lead, they should try and propose something that give a little consideration of the other side.  That little something would be huge.

Round Table:  Freshman Senator from Maine Angus King (I-ME), former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), former head of HP and Vice Chair of the NRSC Carly Fiorina, and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.