Republicans are winning the shutdown fight, and Democrats know it.
People turning on the news this week came away with the knowledge
that it was about Obamacare and kept hearing that Democrats wouldn’t
negotiate. They also learned that for some reason the President didn’t
want Word War II veterans to tour their own memorial, and Harry Reid
won’t turn the funding on for cancer clinical trials at the NIH. Oh,
and the rollout for Obamacare is one big glitch.
Late yesterday came word that the Amber Alert system has been shut
down, but Barack Obama’s federally funded golf course remains open.
Catholics are openly fretting that priests on military bases could get
arrested for performing mass — at the very least they are prohibited
from doing so.
The President had to invite Congressional Leaders to talk, Harry Reid
had to sit down with Dana Bash of CNN to explain himself, the shutdown
coverage overall started to recede by Friday, and the Democrats began to
shift the conversation to the debt limit.
The polls are shifting against the Democrats. They will continue to
shift as more and more Americans realize that this fight is
fundamentally about the letter they just received informing them of
massive premium increases.
But the problem is that the expiration of the debt limit is on
October 17th (or thereabouts, as the President manipulates it) and both
Democrats and Republican Leadership have an incentive to merge a “grand
bargain” to increase the debt limit with a continuing resolution that
funds Obamacare. Both sides get to change the conversation–one to
protect an unpopular law and the other to minimize political risk by
reverting back to the norm–and get past two critical leverage points
with a blend of GOP and Democrat votes.
The result will be no substantial changes to Obamacare. It will be
funded in its entirety. Sure, they will repeal the medical device tax
and maybe add the Vitter language to have the illusion that Congress is
going to live under Obamacare. Nothing real though.
Don’t believe me? Listen to the reporting. Its all grand bargain and debt limit. The negotiations do not include Obamacare.
So the question is do we want to stop Obamacare or do we want to stop
the debt ceiling increase? My view is that we cannot do both at the
same time. We might dare to dream, but the debt ceiling will be
increased one way or the other.
Right now the GOP is holding up very well in the press and public
opinion because it is clear they want negotiations. The GOP keeps
passing legislation to fund departments of government. It has put the
Democrats in an awkward position.
But the moment the GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, we are
going to have problems. Remember, the last time you and I wanted the GOP
to fight on the debt ceiling, the attacks from our own side were particularly vicious.
They’ve been vicious over the shutdown too, but now that we are here,
the water ain’t so bad and only a few ankle biting yappers continue to
take shots at conservatives from the GOP side.
It will not be so with the debt ceiling. And the GOP will no longer
seem very reasonable. The debt ceiling fight will become an impediment
to undermining Obamacare.
It is what Republican leaders want. They are hoping for us to be
recalcitrant and angry over the debt ceiling increase. They want to
appear to shove us off by raising it. They know they can’t fight us on
Obamacare because the public hates Obamacare. But they know they can on
the debt ceiling because of the specter of default.
(Click link below to read more)
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- Judy Chaffee
- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.
Monday, October 7, 2013
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