Via daily kos, Rep. Raul Grijalva says:

This deal trades peoples’ livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals, and I will not support it. Progressives have been organizing for months to oppose any scheme that cuts Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, and it now seems clear that even these bedrock pillars of the American success story are on the chopping block. Even if this deal were not as bad as it is, this would be enough for me to fight against its passage.

While there are conflicting reports about the outlines of the debt ceiling deal being negotiated, I thought the most important factor was not reported on - who is expected to vote for this deal. Is House Speaker John Boehner cutting a deal counting on heavy Dem support and limited GOP support? Or is he applying a "majority of the majority" rule? I assume thew Senate is peeling off enough GOP votes for cloture but it will be an all Dem voting affair for passage.

If this is a "majority of the majority" deal, then expect the worst. If not, expect a little better. But it is all terrible.

Digby discusses the new Pew Poll findings on what Americans believe will help grow the economy:

I realize that the president has been more nuanced than the Republicans on the benefits of the massive spending cuts and contractionary nature of this whole debate. [. . .] But it is still the case that most Americans have come to believe that fixing the deficit will lead to jobs.

There's not much the President can do now to revive the economy. The GOP House will block any worthwhile initiative. But avoiding doing harm would be nice. Of course the President must do what's necessary to raise the debt ceiling but he should try to fashion a deal that does the least harm to the economy. Cutting the deficit now will be very harmful. Despite what Americans might think. And in November 2012, no one is going to be thinking about whether they were right or wrong about deficit reduction spurring economic growth. They'll look at the results and blame the guy in charge. Unless the guy in charge can blame someone else. Unlike the Obama team, and as the Pew poll demonstrates, "Independents" will not be won over by "reasonableness." Good policy is good politics. And not horrible policy is better than horrible policy politically. Yes, it remains "the economy, stupid."

Speaking for me only

Suppose that GOP House leadership won't allow a vote on a debt ceiling plan that can pass the Senate (imagine something like the Reid Plan with two votes.) I can imagine a bill that will lose all but say 25 House Republicans and getting all the House Dems passing in the House and the Senate. But what if House GOP leadership doesn't allow a vote on such a measure? How does that play politically? I'd like to think disastrously for Republicans, but I'm not sure.

The reason for my hesitation is that the GOP is making a flashing sign out of this cockamamie Balanced Budget Amendment. Let's be clear, there is zero chance of passage of such an amendment. It requires 2/3 votes in both houses of Congress. That's 290 in the House and 67 in the Senate. Not gonna happen. But no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the Beltway Media. They might treat this as "reasonable" and then, given such signalling, the electorate might think 'what's wrong with that idea?' After all, didn't President Obama say the government is like a household and has to balance its budget? What's wrong with a balanced budget amendment then? In the short term, I could see the GOP not losing that debate. Of course in the long run, nobody is going to care, except with regard to the consequences in the economy. Thoughts?

Speaking for me only

Robert Kuttner:

This may sound churlish at such a moment, but in addition to blaming the recklessness of today’s Republican party, the man who deserves substantial blame for this impending economic doomsday is Barack Obama. For two and a half years, he has been all but training the Republicans, Pavlov fashion, to keep rejecting compromise. He has done this by rewarding them with a treat every time they up the ante or move the goal posts. [. . ] if the Republicans, like Europe’s leaders of 1914, miscalculate and create disaster, the responsibility will partly be theirs but also partly our overly eager-to-please president.

His words, not mine. I will say this, now is not the time for Obama to get tough. The failure to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic. But Obama's failures in December are very much a cause of today's debt ceiling crisis.

Ezra predicts:

[W]e’re looking at [a debt ceiling] deal with no new revenue, significant new spending cuts, a spending-cut based enforcement mechanism for further deficit reduction, a series of debt-ceiling votes designed to embarrass Democrats, and a vote on a balanced budget amendment that’s also designed to embarrass Democrats. It’s a pretty good deal for Republicans, but it’s also a deal that observers expect a substantial number of Democrats could vote for.

That's a win for the GOP. And it is a loss for the President. Why? It helps the President not at all politically (no voter gives a crap about the debt ceiling) and is not good for the economy in the short and medium term (and thus not good in the long term either.)

It is an amazing thing that in the middle of the worst economic times since the Depression, this is what our federal government is doing. This is a bigger failure of our ruling elites than the Iraq Debacle.

Speaking for me only

Reading the apologias for the bad bargaining by Democrats, I've come to the point that I can see only two alternatives: (1) either Bill Clinton was the greatest political bargainer in recent memory, or (2) a lot of people do not understand bargaining. Consider this Matt Yglesias post:

I’ve been in a few conversations with various people this week citing one strategy or another that they claim could have produced a “clean” debt ceiling increase and avoided the current legislative crisis. I basically agree with all these theories. Obama could have gotten a debt ceiling increase built into the December 2010 tax deal [. . .] But I’m not sure this is a case of bad negotiating strategy or good negotiating strategy.

We’ve seen so much mockery of “11-dimensional chess” that I think people have gotten unduly reluctant to credit the idea that there’s a bit of regular old chess happening here where you have to think one or two moves ahead. [. . . R]easonable people can disagree as to whether having the fight now is better than having the fight then, but I don’t think it’s by any means crazy for the White House to suppose that the current timing is more favorable to the progressive side or crazy to believe that they did, in fact, see two moves ahead and decide they preferred this outcome.

I do not know how a reasonable person could see it Yglesias' way. Not raising the debt ceiling is the most dramatic doomsday point that could be imagined. Failure to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic in the short and medium term and likely the long term. Indeed, the President will end up by caving at the end, and rightly so. This is not the moment for brinksmanship. More . . .

Krugman writes:

There’s actually a simple way to resolve the debt ceiling crisis: non-crazy Republican leaders could support something like the Reid plan — which is, let’s be clear, a huge victory for the right and defeat for progressives — and pass it with limited GOP support and overwhelming Democratic support. Situation resolved. This would, however, probably be the end of these Republicans’ political careers. And the answer is, so? [. . . T]ak[ing] the action I’ve just described means that they are risking America’s future rather than pay a price in their personal political careers. That’s cowardice on an epic scale, even if it’s the kind of behavior we take for granted nowadays.

This is kind of silly from Krugman. Pols have always acted first and foremost in their own political interests. The key for the electorate is to make them act in ways that are beneficial to the Nation. There are 2 ways out of this mess now - (1) carve a solution that allows pols, politically, to act to raise the debt ceiling; or (2) make not raising the debt ceiling the worst political choice.

I think not even the Tea Partiers really care about raising the debt ceiling, even when the President is a Democrat. This is the biggest political paper tiger of all time. But Boehner thinks he needs one more concession. And he'll get it - they will break up the Reid Plan into 2 votes, so that Boehner can claim a win. This is all very predictable imo.

Speaking for me only

While Speaker John Boehner rolled out a debt ceiling proposal, it's not clear that he has the votes in the House to pass it. Here's the proposal:

House Republican leaders pushed for a vote Wednesday on a two-step plan that would allow the federal debt limit to immediately be raised by about $1 trillion and tie a second increase next year to the ability of a new joint Congressional committee to produce more deficit reduction.

Boehner's the Speaker, why do they need to "push for a vote?" Here's the more interesting question to me, does Boehner have the votes to pass it? I saw Cantor was with him, but did Cantor bring the Tea Party votes? (Not Bachmann for sure.) I assume Dems will vote en masse against it.

Speaking for me only

This road was paved by the hopeless and the hungry
This road was paved by the winds of change
Walking beside the guilty and the innocent
How will you raise your hand when they call your name?

We weren't born to follow
Come on and get up off your knees
When life is a bitter pill to swallow
You've got to stand up for what you believe

This is not the time for giving up or giving in. This is not the time to capitulate to Republicans. This is the time to do the right thing by the people you took an oath to represent. Spare us your later apologies, they will fall on deaf ears.

Not sure what this is supposed to mean - Boehner Says GOP Prepared to Act Alone on Debt Deal. How can the GOP act alone? At the least, Harry Reid has to do something and so does President Obama. Boehner says "“I and my Republican colleagues in the House are prepared to move on our own.” And do what? Pass a clean debt ceilng bill? Obviously no. They already passed Cap, Cut and Something Or Other. Are they gonna repass it?

Not sure what Boehner is talking about.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias points us to this post from Erick Erickson of Red State (Disclosure: I had frequent personal interactions with Erickson in the past and in my experience, on a personal level, Erickson was a nice, decent guy. The public Erickson is of course, another matter):

Secular leftists and Islamists are both of this world. Christians may be traveling through, but we are most definitely not of the world. In fact, Christ commands us to throw off our ties to this world. But the things of this world love this world and hate the things of God. That’s why secular leftism can embrace both activist homosexuals and activist muslims when the latter would, when true to their faith, be happy to kill the former.

(Emphasis supplied.) In that post, Erickson is writing about the Oslo terrorist attack. I for one don't see the terrorist attack as representative of Christianity. And I don't believe we need to look to Christianity to try and understand the Oslo terrorist attack. Similarly, terrorism in the name of Islam is not, in my view, informed by the religion of Islam (I'm not expert in Islam so I certainly could be wrong.) More . . .