{"id":70788,"date":"2013-10-07T14:55:36","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T18:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=70788"},"modified":"2013-10-07T14:55:36","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T18:55:36","slug":"the-morning-plum-john-boehner-doesnt-really-want-to-negotiate-with-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-morning-plum-john-boehner-doesnt-really-want-to-negotiate-with-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"John Boehner doesn\u2019t really want to ‘negotiate\u2019 with Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Greg Sargent | Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n

With the government shutdown dragging into Week Two, and the debt limit deadline creeping closer, Republicans continue to insist the cause of our current governing crisis is that Obama and Democrats refuse to negotiate with them. On ABC News yesterday<\/a>, John Boehner repeated this talking point again and again.<\/p>\n

Yet in the process,\u00a0Boehner revealed what this\u00a0invitation to \u201cnegotiate\u201d\u00a0really means. He implicitly confirmed Republicans will only<\/em> negotiate in a context in which Republicans can employ the looming threat of disaster for the country as a way to unilaterally increase their leverage, and will not<\/em> negotiate without being granted this leverage. Here\u2019s the key exchange, with ABC\u2019s George Stephanopoulos<\/a>:<\/p>\n

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Democrats, including Senate Democrat Harry Reid, has said he\u2019s more than willing to have a conference, more than willing to have a negotiation, but not under the threat of a government shutdown, not under the threat of a default.<\/em><\/p>\n

BOEHNER:\u00a0 So it\u2019s my way or the highway.\u00a0 That\u2019s what he\u2019s saying.\u00a0 Complete surrender and then we\u2019ll talk to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is an extremely important and revealing moment. Boehner is explicitly saying that the Democrats\u2019 refusal to negotiate in a context where the threat of widespread harm to the country gives Republicans leverage\u00a0\u2013 and their insistence on negotiating outside this context \u2014 represents a demand for\u00a0\u201dcomplete surrender\u201d by Republicans, and hence is a non-starter. But in this scenario, Republicans would not be giving up anything, other than the very leverage Republicans presume the threat of widespread harm to the country grants them. For Republicans, agreeing to negotiate without this unilateral\u00a0leverage would itself be surrender!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indeed, later in the interview, Boehner agreed not raising the debt limit would mean widespread economic damage:<\/p>\n

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Treasury Department put out a report just the other day, where they said it would be unprecedented and catastrophic, that would be the impact of failing to pass a debt limit.\u00a0 They\u2019re going to say, credit markets could freeze.\u00a0 The value of the dollar could plummet.\u00a0 U.S. interest rates could skyrocket.\u00a0 The negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse. Do you agree with that assessment?<\/em><\/p>\n

BOEHNER:\u00a0 I do.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Stephanopoulos also asked Boehner what concessions Republicans would be willing to make in this \u201cnegotiation\u201d he\u2019s requesting. Boehner couldn\u2019t name any, and indeed, he even ruled out conceding anything on new revenues.<\/p>\n

A lot of folks have been willing to accept Boehner\u2019s demand for \u201cnegotiations\u201d at face value. But let\u2019s be clear on what he is really asking for here. Boehner is actually ruling out<\/em> any negotiations in which Republicans don\u2019t enjoy the leverage that the threat of a massive economic meltdown confers upon them.\u00a0And he\u2019s also saying Republicans will make no<\/em> concessions of their own in them.<\/p>\n

Some will argue that agreeing to raise the debt limit constitutes a \u201cconcession\u201d on the part of at least some conservative Republicans. But why<\/em> is it a concession if Boehner concedes it must happen\u00a0to avert widespread disaster for the country? As Boehner himself\u00a0admits, it is the giving up of presumed leverage<\/em> itself<\/em> that constitutes surrender for Republicans. He\u2019s insisting on this leverage as a condition<\/em> for any negotiations.<\/p>\n

If this is an invitation to \u201cnegotiate,\u201d the word has simply lost all meaning. Really, it\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be too much to ask for folks to reckon with the objective reality of the GOP position here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Greg Sargent | Washington Post With the government shutdown dragging into Week Two, and the debt limit deadline creeping closer, Republicans continue to insist the cause of our current governing crisis is that Obama and Democrats refuse to negotiate with them. On ABC News yesterday, John Boehner repeated this talking point again and again. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}