Watch This for 22 Seconds and You'll See Why Obama Can't Give an Inch

[FourScore]

Watch This for 22 Seconds and You'll See Why Obama Can't Give an Inch
BY JONATHAN COHN @citizencohn

The key exchange takes all of 22 seconds, starting at about 12:25 in the video above. It goes like this:

STEPHANOPOULOS: What the president says is he believes that the consequences of negotiating again over a debt limit and re-creating a cycle of crises are worse.

BOEHNER: Every president in modern history has negotiated over a debt limit. Debt limits have been used to force big policy changes in Washington. And guess what, George? They're going to be used again.

Boehner is wrong on the history. Congress has increased the debt limit in the course of passing other legislation—the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a nice review of recent legislation—and sometimes one or the other party made a big fuss about it. But, as Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein explain in their acclaimed book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, until recently officials in neither party seriously threatened to let the government default on expenses it had already incurred:

Pyrotechnics and symbols aside, on every occasion on which the government needed to raise the debt ceiling, the key actors in Washington, including presidents and congressional leaders, knew that almost nobody—until now—had any intention of precipitating a default. Leaders of the president’s party told us privately on the eve of more than one ostensibly nail-biting vote, including in 2002, that they knew in advance that their counterpart’s members, along with some of their own antsy colleagues, were willing to switch if it looked as if the debt limit vote might actually fail with the deadline looming.

Eventually, the authors note, leaders from the two parties started invoking what became known as the Gephardt rule (named for Richard Gephardt, former Democratic leader in the House). Under the Gephardt rule, the debt limit went up just as soon as the budget resolution passed. But Republicans repealed the Gephardt rule in 2011, right after taking power. A few months later, they were threatening to allow default if Obama didn’t meet their demands.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115033/boehner-abc-still-demanding-debt-ceiling-negotiations?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=margin&utm_campaign=mostpopular

[Faryn Balyncd]

1. K and R.

[ffr]

2. Republiks like him make me want to hurl!

[TomCADem]

3. K&R! Boehner Basically Admits That He Is Going To Do This Again...

...and its anyone's guess what the hard right will demand. At a certain point, you have to choose between default or democracy and that point is now unless we want to accept the Republican agenda now in order to buy just a few weeks of peace.

[2naSalit]

4. That's the name of their game. n/t

[robinlynne]

5. They want to cut social security. That is what they want. (imo)

[Vanje]

8. Absolutely! nt

[doc03]

6. Did you see at the beginning where he wouldn't give the president

any credit for the capture of that terrorist. He gave all the credit to the military and intelligence but couldn't say the president.

[tofuandbeer]

12. +1

[Triana]

7. The goddamned GOP/Tealiban mofos love to rewrite history, hoping..

...no one will notice or remember.

[Cha]

9. Boner is Lying on the Debt Limit history.. fixed it.

[JDPriestly]

10. So, the truth comes out. The Republicans want to cut benefits from Social Security and Medicare

now that the Baby Boomers who paid into the system for years and years and funded the government with their first dollars earned are retiring.

That's what this is all about. Wow!

That's what the Republicans are really doing.

Raise taxes on the 1%. Raise taxes on imports. Raise taxes on very large inheritances.

But leave Social Security and Medicare alone.

My Medicare deductibles for 2014 have skyrocketed already.

The baby boomers are not a wealthy generation to begin with. The 1% took all the gain from our work.

Wow! The truth comes out.

Boehner wants to cut the rug out from under the Baby Boomers.

How underhanded can you get.

[blue14u]

15. For them to bitterly

go out and hurt their constituents who have supported them

all these years is breathtaking.... What must their supporters

really be thinking of them now? Its mind boggling to say the least!

This is shameful, and a real low blow to the very people who counted

on them when they finally get to retire after paying in all their lives....

Makes me sick to my stomach!!!

[Contrary1]

11. Drunk again...

or would that be still drunk?

[tofuandbeer]

13. Liar

[snot]

14. I don't need to see ANYTHING to know that Obama shouldn't give an inch.

And I mean that in the most uncategorical way possible.

[Laelth]

16. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[IronLionZion]

17. Never trust orange people. nt

[StrictlyRockers]

18. Do NOT negotiate with terrorists.

Do what I say or I will drown our government in a bathtub! And he says, out loud in no uncertain terms, that they will do this again and again if this works.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. The comments on YouTube are a hoot...

There's one guy that claims his premiums tripled after the Supreme Court decision.