Well, it looks like we have avoided a catastrophe by cleverly opting for a lower- level calamity instead.
I guess that’s progress of a kind.
I wish I could say our long national nightmare is over. But I fear it’s just beginning. The entirely self-made debt-ceiling crisis is, I suspect, a virus that will not be easily contained. In fact, I’m expecting sequels soon enough. Look for “America Takes Itself Hostage, Part Deux” at a Congress near you.
And like most Americans, I can’t wait for the Super Committee to begin its Gang o’ 12 negotiations. I’ve already got my bet down on a 6-6 Democratic vs. Republican stalemate, at which point all manner of ugly cuts go into effect. Unless they don’t. This is, after all, a political arrangement, meaning, despite my little wager, all bets are actually off.
It’s all pretty disturbing. What has happened here — even beyond the president getting rolled by the House’s Tea Party contingent — is that Washington has proved, to everyone’s shock, that as low as its reputation has fallen, there was room for it to move lower still.
They may have broken a few laws of physics in the process — and possibly some other laws as well — but there it is. It’s only a matter of time before there’s a Republican president and a Democratic House and things play out again.
Default would have been an unforgivable catastrophe. Cutting back on unemployment insurance benefits during a jobs crisis in order to save a few tax loopholes is just plain unforgivable. In fact, it’s unforgivable that we’ve had this fight over debt when the real issue right now is jobs.
It wasn’t easy getting to this place. First, Obama wasn’t sufficiently prescient to tie his Bush-tax-cut surrender to a commitment to raise the debt ceiling. The anti-tax-hike-for- the-rich guys would have agreed to basically anything at that point short of putting Barack Obama’s likeness on Mount Rushmore. Obama also failed to make the case that this piece of legislative blackmail, in which America could actually default during an economic crisis, was unpatriotic.
We got here, too, because John Boehner somehow thought he could swing his caucus toward a grand bargain. And then there’s the anti-economics course being taught in the House, wherein you are able to take a big slice out of a $14 trillion deficit without raising tax revenues.
Obama finally caved when he realized that the other guys playing chicken were actually willing to crash the family car.
That’s how we arrived in this place. I wish I knew where we were going — and I’m hoping it’s not to a car repair body shop.
It all depends on the trigger, the new Washington term of art. The Super Committee needs to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts and or revenues by a November deadline. If it fails to meet that goal or if Congress doesn’t approve its plan, the trigger gets pulled. The hope is that although we seemed perfectly willing to shoot ourselves in the foot, we might be more cautious if more significant body parts are at risk.
While the all-cuts, no-revenue plan is a clear Republican victory, the trigger is the one place where the Democrats seem to have crafted an advantage. The thinking is Republicans will give up a lot before they allow a $600 billion cut in defense spending.
But maybe that’s wishful thinking. Republicans had the choice of putting defense or tax hikes at risk with the trigger, and now we see which one they picked.
There’s another Democratic advantage, which is that the Bush tax cuts expire in December of next year. That means Obama will still be president whether or not he’s re-elected — and he has already vowed to end tax cuts for those making more than $250,000.
I talked to Mark Udall Monday. He doesn’t like the bill, but he’ll vote for it because he doesn’t see any option. He hopes to get the Gang o’ Six going again, taking on tax reform and entitlements. But I don’t know how many grand bargains you can work at one time.
The budget votes come up again in October. We could see the Super Committee meeting to save Washington even as Washington is once again under threat of being shut down. Don’t bet against it.
Harry Reid said the debt-ceiling bill was “remarkable” — personally, I’d go with “remarkably bad” — but he also noted, “People on the right are upset. People on the left are upset. People in the middle are upset.”
That makes sense. If you’re not upset, you haven’t been paying attention.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
