Americans Still Don’t Understand the Debt Ceiling

October 1, 2013Danny Vinik 2 Comments

I don’t mean understand it in terms of what it actually is (though I don’t think they understand that either). They don’t understand the consequences of it. Breaching the debt ceiling would be catastrophic, causing irreversible long-term effects on our debt and economy. That’s not hyperbole. The market doesn’t believe that we will breach the debt ceiling, because it would be too idiotic for John Boehner to allow that to happen. The current government shutdown is a drag on our economy and harms many different aspects of people’s daily lives. But a default is many orders of magnitude worse. Yet, a new Quinnipiac Poll today suggests that Americans are a bit confused about which is more dangerous: breaching the debt ceiling or a government shutdown.

Raising the debt ceiling is non-negotiable.

The poll finds that by 72% to 22% margin, Americans do not want Congress to shut down the federal government over Obamacare. That’s good. However, a smaller margin (64% to 27%) do not want Congress to default over Obamacare. It’s good that in both cases Americans understand that it’s not acceptable to use a fiscal crisis as leverage to extort the opposite party. But these polls demonstrate that more Americans are OK with that extortion when the hostage is the debt ceiling than when it is government funding,

That’s backwards and needs to change. Part of the reason for this may be because this poll was conducted over the weekend, right before a government shutdown, while a possible default is still a few weeks away. Nevertheless, the media must do a better job explaining the consequences of a default to the American people. There should be no pretense that there will be negotiations over the debt ceiling. That’s not how this works. President Obama screwed up in 2011 by negotiating over it, but that was an outlier. It did not set a precedent.

Speaker Boehner will raise the debt ceiling, because if he doesn’t, it will go down as one of the single worst actions a legislator has done in the history of the United States. Once again, that’s not hyperbole. We need to stop treating this as a back-and-forth game, trying to guess what the speaker will do, and start calling it what it is: a foregone conclusion. Boehner will raise the debt ceiling, because it would be apocalyptic not to. The American people need to know that as well.

It’s Time for Pelosi and House Dems to Support Boehner

September 30, 2013Danny Vinik 6 Comments

The one thing that is severely limiting John Boehner’s ability to negotiate and compromise with Senate Democrats over the budget and pass a clean debt ceiling increase is the threat of losing his speakership. Hard-line conservatives refuse to accept the political reality that Obamacare is the law of the land and are rejecting any budget deal that does not either defund or delay it. It’s an absurd negotiating position and President Obama will never agree to it. That puts us at a stalemate.

There is likely sufficient Democratic support in the House to pass a clean continuing resolution while keeping the sequester if Boehner chooses to bring such a bill to the floor. It probably would break the Hastert Rule (meaning it would not receive majority Republican support), but it would also prevent a government shutdown. However, if Boehner does that, his speakership would almost certainly be over. Here’s Buzzfeed’s Kate Nocera reporting:

“The House needs to completely defund Obamacare, not one penny to Obamacare. If so groups would reluctantly live with a one year no funding deal, but has to fully defund all aspects of Obamacare. Delay without defund or if House funds it in any capacity, then all hell is going to break loose,” said a conservative strategist who was on the call.

The strategist said a one-year delay of funding was “as far as these groups are willing to go.”

…

“If the House does not stick to its guns on this, there will be a major problem with the conservative and tea party base,” the strategist said.

This gives Boehner no maneuvering room. His options are to either defy the tea party base and lose his speakership or shutdown the government.

But there is one way for Boehner to ensure that he keeps his speakership even if he passes a bill that causes a Tea Party revolt: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democrats should publicly commit to supporting Boehner if he brings up a clean CR and his base challenges him. This gives Boehner political cover to avoid a government shutdown while also demonstrating an ability to work with House Democrats. The Tea Party would go absolutely nuts, but who cares? Congress isn’t going to accomplish anything until after 2014 anyways.

As for Boehner’s personal incentives, if he really is going to retire after 2014, then right now he is looking to improve his legacy. He is (wrongly) considered an ineffective speaker who has accomplished very little. A government shutdown would only make his resume look worse. But avoiding a government shutdown while keeping the sequester would be a Republican victory that he could be proud of. He would undoubtedly take pleasure in reducing the power of the Tea Party as well. Even if he isn’t planning on retiring, a government shutdown increases the odds that Democrats take back the House which would end Boehner’s speakership in 2014 anyways. Avoiding a shutdown is in his personal interest no matter his future plans.

The biggest issue here is that relying on Democratic support makes Boehner a lame-duck speaker. If he still wanted to accomplish anything during the rest of this Congress, he would face such animosity from his base that he would have to rely on Democratic support. That’s a big problem for him. A few weeks ago, I wrote that it was basically too big of a problem to make it worth betraying the Tea Party. Now, the math has changed. Immigration reform is on life-support and Tea Party opposition to any CR that doesn’t defund or delay Obamacare has left Boehner with no good options. Avoiding a government shutdown with a clean CR would be good politics for the Republican Party and also good for the economy. The challenge is to make it politically feasible for Boehner to do. Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have the ability to do just that and it’s time they did so.

P.S. This would also ensure that we didn’t breach the debt ceiling as Pelosi and Boehner should make a similar deal over that. In fact, its much more important that Pelosi put her support behind Boehner in the debt ceiling standoff so that he feels safe raising the debt ceiling without any concessions from the president. That’s absolutely vital.

Boehner’s Weakness Doesn’t Make Him Ineffective

September 30, 2013Danny Vinik 2 Comments

John Boehner has not been a mean machine as speaker.

One of the most common adjectives used to describe Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is weak. A quick google search will find you numerous examples of different pundits from both sides of the aisle criticizing Boehner for not having control of his caucus. The problem is that all of these pundits are conflating “weakness” with “ineffectiveness.” Boehner is a weak speaker, but that doesn’t make him ineffective. On the contrary, a weak speaker is exactly what Republicans need right now.

To understand this, imagine the counterfactual where Boehner is a strong speaker, ruling his caucus with an iron grip and dealing out strict punishments for breaking ranks within the party. Disloyal members receive crappy committee assignments and no money from the party in their next campaign. How do you imagine this would play out with the far right? Do you think they would fall in line and become loyal soldiers? Of course not! These members believe they were sent to Washington to stop “business as usual.” The more that they buck the party, the more that they believe they are listening to their constituents. Being ostracized from is a great way to attract conservative donors and produces great talking points in a potential primary. These members take great pleasure in defying him and it’s often good politics for them to do so.

This mindset has eliminated all of Boehner’s weapons. That doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have still punished disloyal members, but that would have created an even deeper divide within the GOP. It would’ve openly and publicly pitted Boehner and the House leadership versus a small, but substantial and vocal group of Republican Congressmen. It would have been a mess for the party. FreedomWorks and Club for Growth would almost certainly have sided with the intransigents and Boehner would have likely had to turn to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for support to keep his speakership.

That’s what would’ve happened if Boehner attempted to be a strong speaker. The House would have accomplished as little as it has today and budget battles would have been even more intense with a full-out civil war in the Republican party undermining trust and disrupting any negotiations. A battle over who would be speaker would have complicated things as well.

Instead, Boehner has chosen to be weak. It’s pretty clear that Boehner would have failed mightily if he had attempted to be a strong speaker, but that doesn’t mean the choice was easy. The media coverage Boehner has received has been almost universally negative. Being weak has meant being ineffective. But all of that coverage fails to take into account the larger political context that Boehner is working within. Nevertheless, Boehner has accepted it all and continued to balance the crazy demands of hard-line conservatives with the political reality that Americans blame the Republican party for these fiscal crises. On top of that, he knows that each of these crises is damaging the economy and reduces American confidence in their elected officials. It’s an almost impossible situation to deal with, but Boehner has navigated it so far by allowing himself to be weak. Don’t confuse that with him being ineffective and don’t ignore the larger realities of our current political system. It’s unfair to judge him by doing so.