I offer you an honorable compromise. Give us the fuel and just walk away.

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments
Speaker John Boehner addresses the House.

Speaker John Boehner addresses the House.

Even as Congressional Republicans insist they are willing to negotiate—as if the other side had any demands—the federal shutdown drags on. Although previous reports from anonymous moderates held that John Boehner was determined to pass a clean debt ceiling increase, the Washington Post reported yesterday that he is willing to risk default. “That’s the path we’re on,” Boehner said on ABC’s This Week, unless President Obama offers some undetermined concessions on the Affordable Care Act or federal spending. Page 2 of the same article contains this paragraph:

Some Republicans argue that missing [routine Social Security payments] would not amount to a governmental default. They say that would occur only if the Treasury Department fails to make interest payments to investors.

It’s good to see the GOP’s priorities remain intact.

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Only public opinion or John Boehner can save us now

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 0 Comment
Tea Party protesters distill their platform to its core message.

Tea Party protesters distill their platform to its core message.

Yesterday, we quoted Rep. Steve King (R–IA) in his confidence that “the American people will weigh in” as the government shutdown continues. The public opinion train is pulling into the station now, and it’s loaded with unrendered hog fat for the hopeful children of Republicantown. First of all, Republicantown is Atlanta. Second, the collected pundits of these United States seem to agree that what conservatives in the house are doing is awful, and the President should not give in to their demands. Andrew Sullivan, himself a card-carrying conservative, considers it an attack on American government itself. But that’s typical liberal media bias. Over at Forbes, whose pro-wealth stance makes it a natural ally of the GOP, House Republicans are merely dumb.

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Friday links! Compromise or I’ll murder us all edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment
Would this man do something merely to aggrandize himself?

Would this man do something merely to aggrandize himself?

Come on, America: let’s stop all this fighting and fussing. Let’s put aside the disagreements, the system we developed to arbitrate our national will through representatives and votes, and compromise by giving me what I want. When you disagree, you have to compromise eventually. That’s what mature people do. We should definitely compromise in this case, because otherwise I’m going to destroy us all. Our factories will lie ruined atop our schools. Our children will earn pennies a day performing on the internet for the Chinese. The Koch brothers will divide our corpses between them to burn for fuel. Today is Friday, and everything is going to be fine, provided you just compromise. If you don’t, I’m going to murder everybody.

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House Republicans mull shutdown

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 3 Comments
"So the priest says—hang on. If you want to hear the rest of the joke, give me ten dollars right now."

“So the priest says—hang on. If you want to hear the rest of the joke, give me ten dollars right now.”

According to a Politico report that has scared hell out of the nation and briefly thrown me into agreement with Ross Douthat, a substantial number of House Republicans are considering refusing to raise the debt ceiling. The plan is to use the threat of default and/or federal shutdown to force Obama to agree to spending cuts—cuts he has repeatedly refused to make. That part of the story should be eerily familiar from last year, when maneuvering over the debt ceiling ended in the downgrade of the credit of the United States. Everyone agreed that was a disaster, both for the union and for the Republican caucus. This year, though, will be totally different. Alarming quote after the jump.

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Cliff deal did little to reduce spending

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 4 Comments
One of the people who will either pay the debt or be harvested for amino acids by the Chinese

One of the people who will either pay the debt or be harvested for amino acids by the Chinese

That fat kid is just a tease; today’s Combat! is in fact mostly about charts and graphs. My brother sent me this wonky Wonkbook post about the deficit reductions achieved by the fiscal cliff deal. Both parties made a big noise about what they had accomplished, but in fact the spending cuts implicated in that agreement were paltry compared to those enacted by Congress in fiscal year 2011. About half of them came from the Budget Control Act, better known as the debt ceiling deal, better known as the time Congressional Republicans held a annual formality hostage and ultimately downgraded the credit of the United States. They did save a lot of money, though. Now who’s the party of intransigent theoreticians?

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