Archive for negotiations
ViaGood grief, speaking of “nutty,” can Peggy Noonan sound any more sanctimonious? Her level of “concern” and condescension is only surpassed by her phony sincerity and inability to stick to facts.
Thankfully, Paul Krugman was there to counter all that with reality checks and reason.
NOONAN: I think it should be noted that we have a president. I think it should be noted that he should be sitting down and talking with those who would move — attempt to move forward on spending. I consider it unusual that this president can never make a deal with those folks.
KRUGMAN: But this is not something you negotiate over. You do not negotiate with hostage-takers. That’s the White House position. They’re right about that. You just don’t negotiate on this. You can negotiate on the sequester, you can negotiate on taxes, but not on someone who is threatening to blow up the world economy if he doesn’t get his way.
NOONAN: My goodness. That appeared to be the White House attitude on the fiscal cliff just a month or two ago.
KRUGMAN: It’s very different.
NOONAN: Why can nothing ever be worked out? We do have a president. We do have legislative leaders. We do what should be noted, have a spending crisis in America. It is not an eccentric thing to worry about the amount of spending that America does. The income, the outcome and the long-term promises.
KRUGMAN: This is really — this is a doomsday — this is really saying I will blow up the world unless you give me what I want. And you don’t negotiate on that.
***
NOONAN: Yes, two things I’d like to say, one is that people are buying guns like crazy now. Not because they’re nutty, not enough because they’re angry, but because I really think they fear their country is falling apart.
It’s defensive and it’s something that I think we all have to be talking about. There’s so much anxiety out in America. And they also fear their government.
Second thing, I guess connected to that, leave gun control and gun reform issues in the Congress of the United States, the president should not be issuing executive orders in this area. It would really be unwise and it will cause great problems, I would think. [...]
STEPHANOPOULOS: It seems that the White House believes that if the president doesn’t move quickly, nothing is going to happen.
KRUGMAN: That’s right. This is the moment. And he certainly has to be seen to be doing something. And by the way, it is crazy to be out there buying guns right now. People are afraid, you know, the reality of life in America is that it’s safer than it has been in decades.
If we walk out of this studio and walk through Manhattan, your chance of getting mugged are less than they have been since, I don’t know, 1960. I mean, this is a — so this is an odd thing, this is a mental state, not about the reality of America.
NOONAN: No, no, no…
KRUGMAN: The big revelation here has been we’ve realized — I didn’t know, that the NRA is no longer about gun owners. It’s actually representing the firearms industry. And that’s something we’ve learned. So…
O’Connor:
“So basically John Boehner became Nancy Pelosi without the charm?”
Gohmert:
“For the last two years. Let’s give him credit. There’s no facelift with John Boehner. He is who he is.”
The above clip is from GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert’s conversation with guest host Larry O’Connor on the Dennis Miller Show, courtesy of Think Progress.
This would be the same Louie Gohmert, a birther, who recently pushed a theory that President Obama helped oust Muammar Qaddafi “so that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood could take over Libya”; who wants to arm teachers with assault rifles; who said that the shootings that took place in the Aurora, Colo. movie theater were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter; who cast President Obama as an “evil emperor”; who joked about hitting “Nancy Pelosi” with a golf club; who lied at tea party rally: “I brought an abortion to show you”; who suggested that NYC 9/11 trials would be an “insane” gambit to create more jobs?…
You get the idea.
This man is an elected representative. Elected!
And because he represents those who voted for him (they did what again?), then clearly, many of his fellow Texans feel it’s acceptable to desperately resort to jokes about a fellow Congress member’s appearance.
Then again, she’s just, you know, a woman.
If President Obama would always be this tough, would continue the spine stiffitude, the swagger, the driving a hard bargain, we Dems would be in great shape. Or will this possible scenario burst the hardass bubble?
The Wall Street Journal posted a behind-the-scenes look at some of the fancy negotiation talkin’ between Obama and John Boehner, but it’s subscription only.
However, FiredUpInCAFollow at DKos has excerpts. So, here are excerpts of the excerpts. “John Boehner is, in fact, bad at his job.” Sources say Paul Ryan may replace him. This could be why:
Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.
At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”
“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.” [...]
The president repeatedly reminded Mr. Boehner of the election results: “You’re asking me to accept Mitt Romney’s tax plan. Why would I do that?” At another point, the speaker noted his GOP majority would also return next year. [...]
Mr. Boehner said he wanted a deal along the lines of what the two men had negotiated in the summer of 2011 in a fight over raising the debt ceiling. “You missed your opportunity on that,” the president told him.
Sounds like a president who knows he has a mandate. Let’s hope he keeps acting like he does.
More fun here.
This is definitely a slow dance.
WASHINGTON – A White House official says President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (BAY’-nur) are meeting at the White House to discuss the pending fiscal cliff and deficit reduction.
The meeting comes as Boehner is offering $1 trillion in higher tax revenue over 10 years and an increase in the top tax rate on people making more than $1 million a year.
The speaker also has offered a large enough extension in the government’s borrowing cap to fund the government for one year before the issue must be revisited – conditioned on the president agreeing to $1 trillion in cuts.
The offer was made Friday after a long impasse. It calls for about $450 billion in revenue from increasing the top rate on income over $1 million.
“What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war. … Obama does think there is still room for negotiations. It’s a very courageous thing to say in this atmosphere. In the end, this is what I think: Making foreign policy on Iran a serious issue in the US elections — what Romney has done, in itself — is a heavy blow to the ultimate interests of the United States and Israel,” - Efraim Halevy, former chief of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.
Nothing like seeing some GOP feathers ruffled, especially after all their obstruction and obsession over making President Obama a one term president.
President Obama will use this year’s State of the Union Address to draw a clear line between himself and congressional Republicans. He’s looking forward to a slew of television shots showing grim-faced GOP lawmakers reacting with stony silence to policy pitches he hopes will resonate with middle-class voters in an election year.
The White House has said in no uncertain terms that Obama’s path to another term will be cleared by open conflict with a Republican-controlled House that is deeply unpopular with voters, so observers expect a pugnacious Obama to take the lectern in his last State of the Union Address before the November election. [...]
This will give Obama an opportunity — with the lights and attention on him — to show that he’s the adult in the room, and as Democratic consultant Karen Finney put it, to show that “Republicans have been childish.
The White House denies that it will be a campaign speech, saying that the president’s focus will be policy. Oh, and there may be a mention of this (via Housing Wire):
President Obama could mention in the State of the Union address Tuesday new developments in the negotiation between mortgage servicers and government officials, according to two members of Congress. [...]
“There seems to be evidence that he may do something,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, in a conference call with reporters Monday, “and we hope ‘the something’ is launching a wider investigation.”
Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., said rumors were floating around Washington that the president may even announce the settlement, though he couldn’t confirm that. … Justin Ruben, executive director of the progressive group MoveOn.org, said Monday in a recent survey of previous Obama supporters, 60% said they would be unlikely to help him this November should the settlement become a “sweetheart deal for servicers.”
Let the pre-rancor begin….
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