Jonny Dymond has a piece out pretending to analyze the recent joint-statement from Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. They’re understandably “gloomy” about Congress’s chances of making any kind of useful deal to avoid the US heading over the fiscal cliff after the ill-begotten debt agreement from last year expires. I say Dymond is pretending to analyze it because what he’s really doing is laying out a few White House talking points.
Fiscal cliff: Simpson and Bowles gloomy on deal chances
Dymond explains that everyone is really worried about what might happen if the intransigent Republicans don’t cooperate. Okay, he doesn’t say it exactly like that, but that’s the main point of his article. The worst problem with this piece is where he mentions that these guys were the head of the President’s Simpson-Bowles Commission in 2010, which came up with a plan (actually more like one with a set of options) to reduce the deficit and avoid having to go to the wall on the debt ceiling, as it were.
It wasn’t a bad plan, plenty of good things in there but, as Dymond says, it was never adopted. Except he doesn’t say why not. If it was so great that everyone is now hanging on their every word, why wasn’t it adopted? All you really learn from the Beeboid is that “disagreement” is bad, m’kay. So long as Congress (read: nasty Republicans, even though the Democrats controlled both houses for two years and the Senate for all four) doesn’t come to some agreement, we know whom to blame. In case anyone misses the point, Dymond closes with a quote from Bowles (Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff):
But from Mr Bowles comes a cold dose of Washington realism, and what seems to be the prime driver of his pessimism.
“There’s been no punishment,” he says, “for intransigence in this town.”
If I had a nickel for every time I saw that word used in this context…..
So why was this plan never passed? Because the President blew them off for purely ideological reasons. Dymond either doesn’t know that, or doesn’t think it’s important enough to mention. This is very curious as it’s the entire reason the two men made the press conference, and the entire reason Dymond was sent to do the report. But because mentioning that would make The Obamessiah look bad, or even remotely responsible for any problem, Dymond doesn’t mention it.
Sadly, I’m more inclined to believe that Dymond didn’t know. It would fit the mould.
David, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m concluding that the role of the Republican party for the next 4 years is to oppose everything that Mr Obama and his cohorts propose. And that’s it. No cooperation, no consensus, no equivocating, no bargaining, no compromise. If not, then the USA will move even further into a socialist state. Make Mr Obama’s second term 4 years as a lame duck President, for the benefit of the Nation. No?
And it’s equally the job of the Democrats and the President not to compromise, and to send the country over the edge so they can blame the Republicans for eternity. The President’s goal is not to fix the economy but to destroy the Right. It’s all about “transformation”, and now that He doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected, we’ll see His real desires out in the open. After all, He has more “flexibility” now.
Maybe food stamps should replace the dollar.
They already have for 13% of the country, and counting. It’ll pass 25% by the time He’s through.
I see there’s an interesting idea brewing in some parts of the debate. The notion being that virtually whatever happens the subsequent failure will be placed at the door of the intransigent republicans.
As a result some are suggesting that the GOP simply let the Democrats have what they want in its entirety. The suggestion I have seen is to copy the President’s favourite activity and simply vote “Present”.
The idea being to let the Democrats and the liberal media that support them own it all. Let them have precisely what they want.
Of course it is a “let the whole thing burn” but the argument goes that if it’s going to burn anyway let everyone see precisely whose to blame for it.
It would be nice if that were the case, but if they haven’t blamed the President and the Democrats for anything in the last four years, they’re not likely to start for another four. And even then there will be other excuses. The thing is, this election was won not on the economy but on a very divisive kind of identity politics. That won’t change.