Wall Street Isn’t Falling For The GOP’s False Debt Ceiling Premise

September 27, 2013Danny Vinik 7 Comments

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has a great post today on the inherent contradiction of the Republican Party’s debt ceiling position. On the one hand, Republican leadership has said that the debt ceiling must be raised. The U.S. cannot default. On the other hand, they are demanding concessions from the president for doing something they know they have to do. As Sargent said on Twitter, “if Rs concede debt limit MUST go up to avert econ disaster for all, why are they entitled to something in return for it?” The answer is that they aren’t entitled to something in return. Here’s Sargent:

The second argument made by Republican sympathizers is that, okay, Republicans will raise the debt limit in the end, but they don’t want to, so it’s still a concession on their part. But why don’t they want to raise it, if they know it must happen to avert economic disaster? The only conceivable answer is that staking out a posture of reluctance to raise it gives them leverage to extract concessions.

This gets to the core truth about this debate: As long as it’s an open question whether Republicans are prepared to allow default, the claim that Republicans are threatening to do extensive harm to the country in order to extort concessions from Dems that a radical faction of their party is demanding is 100 percent right.

On the other hand, if it is not an open question that Republicans are prepared to allow default — that in the end, John Boehner will definitely raise the debt limit with support from Democrats when it comes down to it, because he knows it must happen — then why are we even having this discussion at all?

These are very important points. The media is fueling Boehner’s negotiating strategy by buying into the premise that Republicans are actually willing to breach the debt ceiling. It’s unclear how many House Republicans fall into that camp, but we know that Boehner isn’t one of them. As the speaker of the House, he can bring a bill to the floor that will raise the debt ceiling and it will pass with plenty of Democratic support. If Boehner holds true to what he said, there is no story here. The House will raise the debt ceiling. Period. Any talk about concessions or negotiations supports the House Republican’s false premise that we could actually breach the debt ceiling.

While the media may be falling for Boehner’s trick here, Wall Street isn’t. There’s been a lot of reporting on the fact that the bond markets are calm and investors don’t seem particularly worried about a default. That’s because they understand that Boehner will raise the debt ceiling. They read the coverage of the debt ceiling. They see Ezra Klein write that he’s “scared of the debt ceiling” and Jonathan Chait say that the “debt-ceiling showdown is the fight of Obama’s life.” They see congressmen worry that they don’t know how this will end. They see and read all of this.

And they don’t care.

They know there won’t be any negotiations and that Boehner will raise the debt ceiling eventually. There isn’t a freak out in the markets, because there is nothing to freak out about. Unlike the media, the market isn’t buying into this false Republican premise.

John Boehner is a Genius

September 27, 2013Danny Vinik 34 Comments

Turn the clock back a year. It’s the middle of the 2012 election and I tell you that President Obama will win a second term commandingly, Republicans will hold the House and Democrats will keep the Senate. On December 31, the Bush tax cuts expire and sequestration takes effect. Soon after that, we’ll hit the debt ceiling. President Obama also campaigned on raising taxes for those with incomes over $250,000, refuses to negotiate on the debt ceiling and everyone hates sequestration. Oh, and the Republican party will swing even further to the right in the aftermath of the election with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell facing a primary challenge and Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) becoming leaders of the party. Over the next 12 months, what do you think the course of economic and tax policy will be?

Here would’ve been my guess:

Taxes raised for all those with incomes over $250,000
Capital gains and dividends taxed at a much higher rate, if not as ordinary income
Estate tax rises back to 40%
Payroll tax cut extension
Sequestration is rolled back with limited if any replacement cuts
Debt ceiling raised without a fight

Here’s where we may be at in just a couple of days:

Taxes raised for individuals with incomes over $400,000 and families over $450,000
Capital gains and dividends taxed at 20% (rising from 15%)
Estate tax rises back to 40%
No payroll tax cut extension
Sequestration is on the brink of becoming permanent
Debt ceiling is shaping up to be a major fight

That’s a lot of victories for Republicans and it’s in large part due to John Boehner. He has repeatedly out negotiated President Obama because he and his caucus seem more willing to break through the fiscal cliff, shutdown the government and default on our debt. In fact, Boehner is not willing to do any of those things more than Democrats are. He brokered a last second fiscal cliff deal that was a pretty big victory for Republicans under the circumstances (only raised taxes on individual income over $400,000). Over the current continuing resolution battle, Boehner is now hoping his caucus will give up their desperate demand to defund Obamacare and pass a clean CR. It’s looking like we could be heading for a government shutdown – the least damaging of all the potential fiscal crises, but damaging nonetheless. In the end though, this will likely be a huge victory for Republicans, even if they don’t treat it as such! Sequestration will stay in effect and while many Republicans don’t like the defense cuts, they are more than happy with the other cuts to discretionary spending. By changing the conversation to focus on defunding Obamacare, Boehner and his colleagues have made sequestration permanent. The upcoming debt ceiling battle is a place where Republicans have leverage. They know the President doesn’t want to breach it – even if he said he won’t negotiate – and Americans want there to be a negotiation. How this shapes up is anyone’s guess, but Boehner has put his caucus in an excellent shape.

Of course, not all of this is Boehner’s doing. A lot of times, he’s gone with the flow and benefited thanks to the credible threats of his right flank to do crazy things. He’s had trouble passing a farm bill and immigration reform doesn’t have a chance in the House. But nothing was going to happen no matter who was speaker. In addition, despite repeatedly promising Tea Party Republicans that they would take on Obamacare and find a way to stop it, he has convinced them to back off and move to the next battle. Most importantly, he’s done so without losing his speakership. I expect he’ll do the same with the debt ceiling since Boehner knows we can’t breach it. But it’s going to be very hard for the President not to negotiate it all. If Boehner extracts any concessions from him, it will be a monumental victory.

So while everyone is saying that John Boehner is irresponsible and has lost control, I think he’s a genius. A lot of the time, he’s going with the flow of his caucus. But he’s also used their craziness as leverage to extract meaningful concession from President Obama and Senate Democrats. At the same time, he’s avoided any fiscal disaster while keeping his speakership. I still hold out hope that he’s going to find a way around a government shutdown. He may not have an exact plan, but he has a strategy:

Lie to his caucus, allow them to “take control” and make it seem as if disaster will strike
Use that desperation to subtly change the conversation to the upcoming disaster and extract concessions from Democrats
Go back to his caucus, say he got everything he could and convince them to vote to avoid the crisis at the last minute
Keep his speakership by allowing himself to seem weak and extract some concessions
Lather, rinse, repeat

It’s worked over and over again and allowed Republicans to swing policy to the right in situations where they have zero leverage. Boehner has stopped the base from causing a fiscal crisis and still kept his speakership. Call him irresponsible. Call him crazy. Call him reckless. Call him whatever you want, but John Boehner has been a brilliant speaker for the Republican Party and Democrats have underestimated him for far too long.

Boehner Can’t Betray The Tea Party

September 12, 2013Danny Vinik 3 Comments

Salon’s Brian Beutler is out with an article this morning advising House Speaker John Boehner to give up waging repeated fights over the government budget and debt ceiling and instead agree to fund both for a lengthy period of a time. These fights do nothing, but divide the Republican party and hurt its imagine nationally. So, Beutler’s logical advice to the Speaker is to no longer pass stopgap fixes and get them off his plate until at least the midterm elections.

This makes a lot of sense on political grounds for the Republican party. The GOP wouldn’t have to revisit every few months whether they’re going to bankrupt the government or allow it to default, both political losers for the party. As for the country, these nasty fights unnecessarily hold back the economy and crowd out other important Congressional legislation such as immigration and tax reform.

The problem with Beutler’s strategy is that it would probably cost Boehner his speakership. Beutler says that if Boehner is worried about this, he could make a deal with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that Democrats will support him if he’s challenged by his conservative base.

Speaker Boehner has no good options.

But this doesn’t actually accomplish much for the Speaker. He keeps his title while losing all of his power.

If the Speaker faces a rebellion from within his ranks and turns to Pelosi for help, it effectively makes her de-facto Speaker. As we’ve seen repeatedly, Tea Party Republicans aren’t going to sit idly by while the Speaker betrays their most deeply held interests: cutting government spending and defunding Obamacare. In reality, the House doesn’t have a chance of accomplishing either of those, but House Republicans don’t live in reality. They will see Boehner’s betrayal not as a practical solution to improve the image of the party, but as a validation of their not-to-secret belief that the Speaker is a RINO. And they won’t accept that.

Whoever rises up to challenge Boehner for his speakership – whether it be the Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, or someone well outside Republican leadership such as Justin Amash – will have the support from Tea Party groups around the country and many members of the Republican caucus. If Democrats come to Boehner’s aid and save his speakership, the Tea Party will not simply give up the fight. The Tea Party doesn’t give up fights, even ones they’ve lost repeatedly (see, Obamacare). They will continue to fight against everything Boehner does, if just to send a message to future speakers that the Tea Party is not to be messed with.

If Boehner hopes to accomplish anything else in this Congress, it will require large Democratic support and it will be up to Pelosi to provide that support. Anything Boehner wants to pass, he’ll have to run by the Minority Leader to see if she can whip the votes for it. That gives Pelosi all the power. That’s great for Democrats, but horrible for Republicans and even worse for Boehner. He’ll have no power in Congress and a Republican base that will never forgive him. That’s not a strategy the Speaker should pursue.