That was House Speaker John Boehner's summation of
the fiscal cliff negotiations as of this time last week, in an interview on Fox
News Sunday.
Boehner said that plan proposed by President Obama
and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to avoid the fiscal cliff, which included
an end to Congress's control of the debt ceiling limit along with $1.6 trillion
in new revenue, was "a non-serious proposal;" particularly because,
as Boehner portrayed it, the proposal contained federal spending that
outweighed its proposed budget cuts.
Boehner, meanwhile, still refuses to even publicly
acknowledge Obama's longtime proposal of raising taxes on those making $250,000
a year from 35 to 39.6 percent and up by letting the top brackets of the Bush
tax cuts lapse. The House Speaker still stands by his proposal of what he says
could add up to $800 billion in new revenue by closing deductions and loopholes
primarily benefiting millionaires and billionaires.
"What's it matter where the revenue comes
from?" he has frequently rhetorically posed to the president and
Democrats. But if the source of the revenue really doesn't matter, they ask
Boehner and the Republicans in turn, why not just keep it simple, stupid, and
raise the top tax rates?
Besides, many Democrats doubt that closing those
deductions would raise anywhere near $800 billion. A White House estimate of
potential revenues brought in by Boehner's deductions-and-loopholes proposal
came in at around $450 billion, just over half of the $800 billion the Speaker
has bantered about.
American voters can trust that if the ending of
deductions and loopholes could bring $800 billion in new revenue, John Boehner
would not touch it with a ten foot pole.
Boehner's offer on revenue seems suspicious
particularly because he has refused to specify any particular deductions and/or
loopholes that he would close--much as Mitt Romney refused to do during the
presidential campaign, when he likewise opposed Obama's tax increase proposal
with a deductions-and-loopholes counterargument, but who, like Boehner, would
never list any specific deductions that he would cut.
There has been frequent Washington chatter in recent
days of a possible compromise by President Obama on his original proposal of
letting the top two brackets of the Bush tax cuts lapse back to the Clinton-era
39.6 percent on individuals making more than $250,000 per year.
Perhaps, say pundits and reporters, Obama will agree
to raising the tax rate to only, say, 37 percent instead of 39.6, and he will
give Boehner his Medicare age eligibility increase from 65 to 67, and all will
be peachy. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden were in front of reporters this week
talking about a "37 percent solution."
But what is more likely is that Obama will get his
39.6 percent income tax rate, regardless of whatever else happens. Obama is
well known to do exactly the opposite of what Joe Biden recommends (see
Afghanistan; Libya; bin Laden).
This would be one in a long line of renegade Obama
moves based on a unique vision--and based on the record so far it would likely
work out for the president. He feels his stand at 39.6 percent is a matter of
principle in a way that the septuagenarian Senate veteran compromiser Biden and
the also-septuagenarian House veteran compromiser Pelosi most likely do not.
Despite his painfully vague chatter on revenues,
however, Boehner is still calling unequivocally for more than $4 trillion in
very specific budget and spending cuts over the next ten years. While Obama has
tentatively agreed with the number in private, he certainly does not agree with
Boehner's proposal that as much as possible of that $4 trillion comes out of
Medicare and Medicaid, along with related and similar programs.
Obama, however, is unlikely to agree to such drastic
spending and budget cuts if it is not accompanied by major revenue increases as
well, along with allowing at least a portion of the $500 billion Defense
Department "sequestration" scheduled for January 2013 to go into
effect. John Boehner wants $4 trillion in cuts, but you can bet your ass not a
dollar of it would come from Defense if he had his way.
And, as Chris Wallace pointed out when he
interviewed Boehner on Fox Sunday, in the almost two years since the
Republicans took over the House and Boehner became Speaker in January 2011,
Obama and the Democrats have already agreed to--and implemented--more than $1
trillion in budget and spending cuts, without a single dollar of increased revenue.
The Democrats, in Wallace's words, have "already given."
The ultimate likelihood is that both sides cave, but
that the Republicans end up caving more. Obama probably will not win the
ability to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling without the consent of Congress.
Boehner has already publicly proclaimed congressional approval over the debt
ceiling to be his "leverage" over the president and the budget.
Obama has a specific incentive to fight Boehner on
this, however: the United States will hit its borrowing limit again in February
2013 after being previously agreed upon in August 2011 after a difficult and
uncertain summer of battling and negotiating.
Recent developments have shown that Obama and
congressional Republicans are capable of hashing out often bitter but solid
agreements in the midst of crisis: see the Bush tax cuts and unemployment
insurance compromise made at the end of 2010, or the last debt ceiling
agreement in summer 2011.
But it remains to be seen if Obama, who has never
been a hand-shaker and a social schmoozer a'la Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan,
and Bill Clinton--and Boehner, who has never found a compromise worth making
and never seen a ridiculously obstructive stand on principle he didn't
like--can find common ground before a crisis, as a method of averting it.
Obama managed once before to avert a crisis before
its full impact was felt: in early 2009, just after his inauguration, when he
passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known more commonly as the “stimulus.”
But then he had a Democratic majority in the House, as well as the Senate
(though he has that today as well). Obama had to negotiate only with Nancy
Pelosi, Harry Reid, and a few select Republican senators like Olympia Snowe and
Susan Collins.
Now, with a Republican House of Representatives in
the way, Obama's challenge is to find a way to avoid the fiscal cliff and
continue to bring down the budget deficit without nuking his relations with
Congress.
It will likely be the hardest thing he has done
since health care reform. He is more than capable and more than up to the task.
He does not bluff anymore. Republicans in these fiscal cliff negotiations who
think they have 2009 Obama on their hands will see very soon just how mistaken
they are.
About the author: Ian M. MacIsaac is a staff writer
for the Capital City Free Press. He is a history major at Auburn University,
and former co-editor of the AUMnibus, the official Auburn-Montgomery student
newspaper.
Copyright © Capital City Free Press
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