oldfart
Older than dirt
The smart money says the political standoff will get resolved this weekend along certain lines.
This would involve a deal that would not alter the BCA next sequester round due about January 15, would provide a CR through about the same date, and raise the debt ceiling at least through January 15; folding all three negotiations into one. As lots of folks (called citizens) are disgusted with the process, there will be an effort to design a process to resolve all three issues well before February and have just one last showdown. The Republicans will probably get one or two face-saving items, possibly a one year delay on the tax on medical devices, either in the Senate bill (where the negotiation will take place) or reserved for Boehner to add in the House.
There is a possibility of a more expansive deal short of a Grand Bargain (there simply is no time to do the GB by Friday), and while I wouldn't bet very much on it emerging, it would be better than simply kicking the can down the road. It would have one or more of the following features:
1. On the table would be a law declaring the debt limit to be whatever Treasury deems necessary, taking Congress out of the loop. Exercising both the Article I authorities of determining the budget (revenue and spending) and a borrowing power, which have become inconsistent, is clearly beyond Congress. Happily it does not require a constitutional amendment, just a law, for Congress to declare that when it appropriates money and sets the tax laws, that automatically sets a debt ceiling to be computed by Treasury/CBO. This would be a big win for the administration, solves a real problem, and gets rid of "hostage-taking" (in the default sense, but not the shutdown sense) permanently. Obviously the Republicans would want something pretty substantial in exchange for this and the Tea Party types would not go along.
2. Sequestration and budget mechanisms would once again be aligned so there was one budget and not two. This would be a minor win for the administration and a major win for common sense. The Tea Party again would not go along, but they have already decided to oppose anything that keeps the government running anyway. Traditional conservatives of both parties should be indifferent to the change of process.
3. Congress could agree to eliminate the need for continuing resolutions by statute by automatically taking a percentage (97%?) of the prior year appropriations with very narrow exclusions (courts, law enforcement, investigatory bodies such as Inspectors-General, statistical operations, and disbursement processing) as the amounts to be budgeted until a regular budget is approved. Again, a big one for the administration, et cet op cit.
Now the problem is what could be offered to get one or more of these concessions? Thinking outside the box, I would go for a constitutional "fiscal responsibility" amendment that would limit tax revenues and spending as a percentage of "full-employment" GDP (23%?) in times of peace and require a Congressional "super-majority" to exceed those limits. This sows the seeds for some really nasty future situations, but I don't think those scenarios work well with our current law anyway.
I cringe as I say it, but this should be coupled with another commission and super-committee to tweak entitlement programs, overhaul the tax code, and possibly reform the budget process. I see no way of allaying the fears of some that this would be just empty promises, but that is going to have to be acceptable. There is absolutely no way they can obtain a better guarantee regarding tax reform or entitlement reform.
A group of conservatives have instigated a constitutional crisis and I think that a constitutional solution is in order. The alternative for them is to lose all of the issues for a generation and let Maoist guerrillas write the next tax code, destroying the Republican Party in the process. If you hold out for everything, you risk getting nothing. And nothing except their own political destruction is what they will get if they burn the house down without obeying the First Rule of Arson (map a way out before lighting the match). That's not politics, that's reality and if you live in an alternate reality you get to subsist on alternative reality starvation.
This would involve a deal that would not alter the BCA next sequester round due about January 15, would provide a CR through about the same date, and raise the debt ceiling at least through January 15; folding all three negotiations into one. As lots of folks (called citizens) are disgusted with the process, there will be an effort to design a process to resolve all three issues well before February and have just one last showdown. The Republicans will probably get one or two face-saving items, possibly a one year delay on the tax on medical devices, either in the Senate bill (where the negotiation will take place) or reserved for Boehner to add in the House.
There is a possibility of a more expansive deal short of a Grand Bargain (there simply is no time to do the GB by Friday), and while I wouldn't bet very much on it emerging, it would be better than simply kicking the can down the road. It would have one or more of the following features:
1. On the table would be a law declaring the debt limit to be whatever Treasury deems necessary, taking Congress out of the loop. Exercising both the Article I authorities of determining the budget (revenue and spending) and a borrowing power, which have become inconsistent, is clearly beyond Congress. Happily it does not require a constitutional amendment, just a law, for Congress to declare that when it appropriates money and sets the tax laws, that automatically sets a debt ceiling to be computed by Treasury/CBO. This would be a big win for the administration, solves a real problem, and gets rid of "hostage-taking" (in the default sense, but not the shutdown sense) permanently. Obviously the Republicans would want something pretty substantial in exchange for this and the Tea Party types would not go along.
2. Sequestration and budget mechanisms would once again be aligned so there was one budget and not two. This would be a minor win for the administration and a major win for common sense. The Tea Party again would not go along, but they have already decided to oppose anything that keeps the government running anyway. Traditional conservatives of both parties should be indifferent to the change of process.
3. Congress could agree to eliminate the need for continuing resolutions by statute by automatically taking a percentage (97%?) of the prior year appropriations with very narrow exclusions (courts, law enforcement, investigatory bodies such as Inspectors-General, statistical operations, and disbursement processing) as the amounts to be budgeted until a regular budget is approved. Again, a big one for the administration, et cet op cit.
Now the problem is what could be offered to get one or more of these concessions? Thinking outside the box, I would go for a constitutional "fiscal responsibility" amendment that would limit tax revenues and spending as a percentage of "full-employment" GDP (23%?) in times of peace and require a Congressional "super-majority" to exceed those limits. This sows the seeds for some really nasty future situations, but I don't think those scenarios work well with our current law anyway.
I cringe as I say it, but this should be coupled with another commission and super-committee to tweak entitlement programs, overhaul the tax code, and possibly reform the budget process. I see no way of allaying the fears of some that this would be just empty promises, but that is going to have to be acceptable. There is absolutely no way they can obtain a better guarantee regarding tax reform or entitlement reform.
A group of conservatives have instigated a constitutional crisis and I think that a constitutional solution is in order. The alternative for them is to lose all of the issues for a generation and let Maoist guerrillas write the next tax code, destroying the Republican Party in the process. If you hold out for everything, you risk getting nothing. And nothing except their own political destruction is what they will get if they burn the house down without obeying the First Rule of Arson (map a way out before lighting the match). That's not politics, that's reality and if you live in an alternate reality you get to subsist on alternative reality starvation.
