Sometimes it is what it is...

[kentuck]

There are no deep chess moves or hidden strategy to embarrass the opponent.

The President wants a long-term deal. He does not want to have the Bush taxcuts as the central issue in next year's election. The Republican refuse to give up the Bush taxcuts. That is central to all the negotiations and everything the President spoke about today. That is the "grand plan".

Everybody wants to go to heaven and nobody wants to die.

Both Parties and the President are in survival mode. Every decision is political and connected to the next election. They are looking for political advantage and refuse to surrender their present positions. That is why Nancy Pelosi is loathe to give up the Medicare issue and why the Republicans refuse to surrender the Bush taxcuts.

We have gridlock, in the truest sense of the word. We are where we are and it is what it is...

.

[gateley]

1. I think O referred to it as a "divided government". nt

[JuniperLea]

2. There were a few choice word placements...

That made me grin. Using their words against them mainly... well played.

But yes, this is the bottom line.

People need to think hard on what NOT raising the debt ceiling would actually mean. If you think the financial disasters of the past four years have been horrific, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[Tippy]

3. Well as I see it...Obama has backed them into a cornor....

Yes it is a gamble but doing nothing is not an option.

[kentuck]

4. In the end, it is up to Congress to pass a debt ceiling bill...

The President does not have the authority.

[TomClash]

5. I'm not so sure

The Bush tax cuts won't be the central issue if they are not repealed. The $4 trillion deficit cut over ten years is a gambit. He sacrifices some social services cuts for repeal of some or all of the Bush tax cuts, big deficit cuts and an end to this debt ceiling nonsense. But if Boehner/McConnell and their cohorts don't accept and the Government shuts down, most swing voters won't blame the President because he compromised and the Republicans didn't.

Still, all such plans are a short term economic negatives.

[kentuck]

6. Read this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-abandons-efforts-to-reach-comprehensive-debt-reduction-deal/2011/07/09/gIQARUJ55H_story_1.html

<snips>
"Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked: Republican aides said he could not, in the end, reach agreement with the White House on a strategy to permit the Bush-era tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households to expire next year, as lawmakers undertook a thorough rewrite of the tax code.
...
In private negotiations with the White House last week, Boehner dangled a tax deal that he thought might bridge the divide. Republicans would immediately extend the Bush tax cuts for middle-class households, leaving the cuts that benefit the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers on track to expire next year. That would have been a huge win for Democrats, whose liberal base views ending tax cuts for the rich as a top priority — and one that Obama has failed to deliver."

[TomClash]

7. Maybe both are true

Not sure I'd want to be in Boehner's position.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. Political football game in overtime is what I'm seeing.

The Democrats won the coin toss and only scored a field goal. The Republicans took possession of the ball and they only scored a field goal to tie the game. Now both teams are in sudden death mode. It's all about who breaks the tie. It's not about representing the better interest of their constituents, or their country. It's who wins.

Meanwhile, we sit here wondering what will be left for us when they've finished.

[kentuck]

9. Good point.

It is a death match.

[spanone]

10. shut it down. fuck it. the republicans want to destroy america? go for it.

[kentuck]

11. They are in control of Congress..

They can do it if they wish. They have the power, not the President.

[TheKentuckian]

14. If he was of no consequence then they wouldn't be talking to him.

Or are we pretending 8th grade civics is how the government actually works. Granting 8th grade civics he still has the veto, any action requires his consent unless there is enough bipartisan support to overcome the President's pen.

There is also the Senate that used to be a superpower when we had the House.

Strange that the House IS Congress when the TeaPubliKlans hold it but anything less than a filibuster proof Senate all walking goose step and it is effectively divided government when we hold the House and generational majorities in the Senate.

Stranger yet was when Reagan and Poppy had full on Democratic Congresses with far smarter, sterner, and individually powerful members than today, they were in charge.

I've yet to see a government setup that the Republicans were not in charge since Carter and then in the shadow of Watergate they had box seats with mics patched into the house sound system.

[kentuck]

15. It was a strategic "mistake" by the President.

to get into a negotiation with this right-wing Congress. It was a mistake to even make this more of a "crisis" than jobs. It appears he may need some new blood in his Administration? His Republican advisers are not serving him well.

[Bandit]

12. The Bush* tax cuts were never on the table, they are scheduled to expire next year.

Supposedly Democrats will not allow them to be extended again.. There were other tax revenues on the table. Tax subsidies for the Oil Industry and Hedge Fund owners and Corporate Jet owners..These are tax payer subsidies that were not a part of the Bush* tax cuts...How Democrats dropped the ball on this is remarkable.

[kentuck]

13. They are now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-abandons-efforts-to-reach-comprehensive-debt-reduction-deal/2011/07/09/gIQARUJ55H_story_1.html

A couple of excerpts:

"Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked: Republican aides said he could not, in the end, reach agreement with the White House on a strategy to permit the Bush-era tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households to expire next year, as lawmakers undertook a thorough rewrite of the tax code.
...
In private negotiations with the White House last week, Boehner dangled a tax deal that he thought might bridge the divide. Republicans would immediately extend the Bush tax cuts for middle-class households, leaving the cuts that benefit the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers on track to expire next year. That would have been a huge win for Democrats, whose liberal base views ending tax cuts for the rich as a top priority — and one that Obama has failed to deliver."

[Shagbark Hickory]

16. So when he talked about changing the way things work in washington...

he failed to deliver?