The great deal they cannot take

The deal of the century for posturing to boot. They republicans have no game theoretic credibility. When it comes down to it, there are enough votes in both houses for a clean raise in the debt ceiling because, beyond the Great Tihad, Boehner, McConnell, and company get it that default is bad. Nothing should be conceded under these conditions.

It also might mean they get a better deal.

Republicans in government are like old men watching dirty movies. All the interest's gone the minute the action comes on, and they never leave the house.

"That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative."

Really, this should have been obvious years ago. You just have to switch your TV over to Fox News to see why our country is where it is today.

Uhm, no. Once a party has a majority in a house of congress, the fact that the people who voted for it were an "odd protest movement" or not, they have their hand on the tiller.

And they're aiming us over the precipice.

Here is an arguement to try on Tea-Party Congressmen:
Q: Do you support the idea of the Constitution?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you support comprimise with the Democrats?
A: No.
Q: Wasn't a lot of the Constitution created because of comprimises between the Federalists and the Antifederalists, two ideologically oppossed groups?
A: Err...Yes.
Q: So if you love the Constitution so much, why do you oppose the idea of comprimise.
A:.....

Someone needs to show the Republicans what happens when both sides use blackmail and won't back down.

I wholeheartedly dislike the Democrats, but since 1995, I have come to loathe the Republicans.

This is called moving the goalposts. Now, I think that is a perfectly fine negotiating strategy, as long as at the end, when it comes time to make a decision and cut a deal, the side doing the goalpost moving says "o.k., we'll take that last offer, which was WAY better than what we actually said we'd take at first".

If, instead, at the end, the goalpost moving side says "Well, we just CAN'T accept that last deal, because, well just because. And now time's up." That means they were either:

1) Just bats__t crazy the whole time, and cannot be negotiated with. They're just unmoored from reality. Or,
2) They've been lying, and never intended to agree to anything, and thought no deal and its consequences was always a better outcome than any possible deal.

I think BOTH 1) and 2) apply to the Tea Party faction of the Republican party, but not to Boehner and McConnell and the majority of the Republican leadership. I just don't know who, in the end, is the faction who is calling the shots right now. We'll see.

Anymore, this is all just depressing to me. Because the real world consequences of no deal would be very, very, very bad, and cause a lot of real hurt and pain to a lot of people, all unnecessarily.

The Dems strolled onto Capitol Hill and into the White House, wielding the 'mandate of the people'. They crushed through the Affordable Healthcare Act without compromise. Now the the Republicans are doing the same thing, so it's hard for either to demand compromise.

@csofan52: "The Dems strolled onto Capitol Hill and into the White House, wielding the 'mandate of the people'. They crushed through the Affordable Healthcare Act without compromise. "

Really? So they actually passed a single-payer system for universal health-care coverage? YEAH!!! Man, all this time I've been believing the lame-stream media that they only basically passed a big health-insurance extension bill that will probably make insurance companies more money and do little to control costs. Stupid me!

Gubmint should then try to collect more non-tax revenue :) Higher fines for employing "undocumented migrants", higher fees for this or that. It should "make sacrifices", make do with what it has or even with less, yet make more out of and for it. Similar to how the governed, who have no possibility of simply demanding "more revenue" out of the blue, have to do. Why not the gubmint?

Sometimes I have a very hard time believing in representative democracy. Just 2 years after that walking disaster exits the White House, the country still mired in a long hangover...what do we do? Hit the booze again.
Even if Republicans do succeed in bringing down the country, and destroying the bedrock of the World's economy in the hopes of squeezing out another tax cut for the rich, we'll probably try again with the same jokers 2-4 more years down the road. What have they got to loose? When the electorate isn't responsible enough to hold you responsible for your horrendous governance, what more can we really expect?

I have a question: are these cuts being touted the kind of cuts that were done before? Mainly, "We planned to spend $200 trillion dollars in military spending by 2040; we have now agreed to only spend $1 trillion, thus enacting $199 trillion in cuts!"

To be a little more serious, this is why I consider it a critical duty of U.S. citizens in 2011 to support any political opportunity to weaken our parties. I doubt the tea-party folks plus the liberal left together compose more than about 10% of us. They are entitled to their votes and to not be condescended to by their neighbors but no more so than the rest of us. Our votes count much less because the partisan primaries lock us into this elitism where it is not the richest, the bravest or the most likely to appear in print who run everything but the most sanctimonious with the most irritable natures and bowels.

So, fellow Americans, I ask your support. When an open primary law comes into the marketplace of ideas, donate to and vote for it. There's nothing in America that will get worse if the parties get weaker and their bases less basic.

@ pumpkindaddy,

There is actually a 3rd option you didn't list:
3) the other side is caving in repeatedly, so I'm going to continue making more and more demands.

pun.gent wrote: Jul 5th 2011 3:53 GMT "Someone needs to show the Republicans what happens when both sides use blackmail and won't back down."

Yeah, right. It certainly won't be the Democrats -- the only reason the GOP is being stubborn and asking for progressively more and more concessions is because the Democrats keep caving in to them.

Doug Pascover wrote: Jul 5th 2011 3:15 GMT
"Republicans in government are like old men watching dirty movies. All the interest's gone the minute the action comes on, and they never leave the house."

DP, I ask this with great trepidation: did you come up with this analogy from personal experience?

Lex, after I posted that I realized with great trepidation someone would ask me that.

DP, I do believe that is as artful a dodge as I have seen outside of Congress.

I ain't no big fan of the republican or the American right but to liberal friends across the pond:

For God's sake, stop whining, buck up and show some god damn courage. Of course the republicans play dirty, it is politics, that is what you do. If you can't deal with it, find some one who can and get out of the game.

A critical part of Brook's column: "The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary. This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers."

Usually Democrats want tax hikes that have negative effects beyond the tax itself. But eliminating deductions and credits have positive effects beyond the revenue itself. If what Brooks says is true, it really is a no-brainer and the Democrats should release the plan at some point so I can know which Republicans to punish. However, given the Democrats' historical love for distortionary taxes, I'm skeptical that what the Democrats are calling "closing loopholes" isn't really enacting new distortionary taxes.