It’s A Great Day For American Political Institutions

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have officially unveiled their agreement to reopen the government and prevent us from breaching the debt ceiling. Speaker John Boehner has finally surrendered and will allow a vote on the bill; it is all but certain to pass with mostly Democratic support. Hurrah! We have avoided committing financial suicide, even if it took us until the 11th hour to strike a deal.

As the House bill fell apart yesterday afternoon, many people began wondering if a default was a real possibility. Fitch put the country on “Credit Watch Negative,” citing the debt-ceiling brinksmanship that has cast doubt on the ability of the federal government to uphold the full faith and credit of the United States.

Ezra Klein has argued recently that confidence in our political institutions may be a bubble ready to burst. In today’s Wonkbook, he cited the Fitch analysis and maintained that our political system is fundamentally broken:

Here’s why it does matter: Fitch is right. Does anyone really want to argue with this statement? “Although Fitch continues to believe that the debt ceiling will be raised soon, the political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. default.”

Fitch and S&P aren’t saying anything that the rest of the country doesn’t believe. They’re not even saying anything that Wall Street doesn’t believe. Everyone knows that American politics has become a game of Calvinball played with live ammunition. The question facing traders is when to finally bet that this is the day when someone doesn’t make it out alive.

What you see with the Fitch and S&P calls is that the market price on the U.S. political system doesn’t reflect what market participants are coming to believe about it: that a once capable and reliable system is now dysfunctional and unpredictable.

Derek Thompson says this repeated debt ceiling brinksmanship is “like Groundhog Day, but 720x longer and completely horrible.Neil Irwin and Matt Yglesias argue that we’ll be doing this all over again in a few months.

They’re all wrong.

Today is the best day for America’s political institutions in a long time. We have permanently disarmed the financial nuclear bomb known as the debt ceiling

Why do I say permanently? Because the McConnell-Reid deal confirms that Boehner and GOP House leadership were bluffing the entire time. President Obama has called for a clean CR and clean debt ceiling hike for weeks. The final deal is a clean CR, a clean debt ceiling hike and enforcement of existing law in Obamacare (income verification). If Boehner and Co. were willing to cause an international financial crisis, they surely wouldn’t accept this deal. The fact that they’re surrendering reveals that they will never let us default.

Whenever we hit the debt ceiling next, Boehner will have no credibility to threaten a U.S. default if Republicans do not get what they want. President Obama can refuse to negotiate again with the full knowledge that the speaker will cave at the last minute. The world now knows that Boehner will not let us breach the debt ceiling

This is what Democrats have been fighting for this entire time. They have created a new governing norm that eliminates any possibility that the United States won’t pay its bills. Our government may have a number of problems, but for the first time in Obama’s presidency, we can confidently say that the debt ceiling cannot be used as an extortion device. That’s a massive victory for our political institutions.

The End of Debt-Ceiling Hostage Taking








Being Honest with the Tea Party Doesn’t Work

One of the main criticisms of House Republican leaders, particularly Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), the past two weeks is that they lied to the Tea Party about what they could actually accomplish during these fiscal fights. It’s not particularly surprising that Obama isn’t negotiating or that Republicans are being overwhelmingly blamed for the shutdown. The thinking goes that if only Boehner had informed his members at the beginning that they had no chance in these fiscal fights, then it would be easy to cut a deal right now. But why?

What makes anyone think that the Tea Party would be less intransigent if Boehner and Co. hadn’t overpromised at the beginning?

Here’s a counterfactual: On September 28, Boehner holds a meeting with all his members and tells them the truth. President Obama really isn’t going to budge. He’ll allow a government shutdown and may even allow a default if necessary, because he believes these fights are about more than Obamacare. He believes they are about not setting the precedent for the minority party to use the budget and debt ceiling as leverage to extract policy concessions from the majority. Boehner says he doesn’t agree, but that’s the president’s stance and he’s not going to budge. He also tells them that it’s highly likely that Americans will blame Republicans for any shutdown or default and it could potentially risk their House majority in the midterm elections. Boehner even tells them that a default would be catastrophic and they can’t allow it to happen.

How do the Tea Party members react to that? Do they listen, synthesize everything the speaker said and agree to fight another day? Not at all.

That’s because, as Business Insider’s Josh Barro put it, they are living on another planet. Polling doesn’t mean anything. Breaching the debt ceiling wouldn’t be that bad. President Obama caved in 2011 so he’s bound to this time too.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. But these conservative members don’t care. They are on a blind crusade against Obamacare and will do everything in their power to stop it. It doesn’t matter what Boehner tells them. His words affect their mood, not their perception of reality.

If Boehner says that the president will cave and they have a real shot at taking down Obamacare, they cheer and support the speaker. That’s exactly what they want to hear.

If he tells them the truth like I outlined above, they sit in silence and find ways to undermine him. They simply won’t believe what the speaker says.

Being honest with these conservative members doesn’t work, because they simply don’t believe it.

Some journalists think that Boehner raised their expectations over these fiscal fights and that the intense Tea Party opposition is a result of their expectations not being met. But the Tea Party expected to stop Obamacare, no matter what the speaker said. Boehner just convinced them that he believed that they could stop Obamacare. That may have stoked their enthusiasm, but it didn’t change their expectations or their willingness to do anything to stop the law.

From Boehner’s perspective, this lie kept his party unified for a little bit longer while he searched for any way out. The Tea Party was always going to be furious by whatever deal he cuts, because it won’t substantially undermine Obamacare. If he had told them that at the beginning, he would’ve immediately split his party in half and put himself in an even worse negotiating position. Lying to them kept his members united and gave him time to work out a deal. It didn’t stoke their anger or increase their opposition to the eventual deal. That was coming no matter what.