COMMENTARY | House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, walked out of the debt ceiling negotiations on Friday for the second time in two weeks. With a government shutdown looming and federal default on loans imminent, Boehner said that the abrupt ending to the meetings did not come down to a clash in personality, but to one of direction for the country.
"A deal was never reached, and was never really close," Boehner wrote in a letter to his Republican colleagues, according to the New York Times. He admitted, "In the end, we couldn't connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country."
The disconnect comes in two very different forms: tax break eliminations and entitlement alterations. In the former, Republicans have held steadfast to not negotiating away (truthfully, not allowing negotiation at all about) the continuation of the Bush tax breaks won in congressional battle in December. In the latter, Republicans have demanded not only massive spending cuts to entitlement programs but alterations in them, especially Medicare and Social Security.
But in the end, besides offering the carrot of raising the debt ceiling, that legal limit whereby the U.S. Treasury can no longer borrow money -- without congressional approval, i.e. lifting the debt ceiling -- in which to continue federal operations or secure and make payment on American debt and obligations, the Republicans have brought to the negotiations only their willingness to sit down and negotiate massive spending cuts to federal fiscal and future spending in an effort to reduce the national fiscal deficit and, by extension, the national debt.
At the same time, congressional Democrats have placed over $1 trillion in fiscal discretionary spending cuts. President Obama has also placed on the negotiating table the unpopular proposal of cuts to Social Security and Medicate to the tune of $650 billion (a plan that will affect the programs over a period of years).
But where is the "vision" in allowing for federal default? Although it is true that government spending has been exorbitant and that alterations of various kinds need to be made, offering only one's cooperation on a vote is not actually negotiating. It is demanding. It is a my-way-or-no-way, all-or-nothing ultimatum where Republicans either get what they want without giving anything in return or the debt ceiling remains static.
It is playing with economic catastrophe as the U.S. defaults on its debts, makes it more difficult to get future loans at beneficial interest rates, damages the economy and economic integrity, possibly extending in a cascade effect throughout the world, destabilizing everything from trade to monetary securities as financial institutions and governments raise the price of doing business with a nation that refuses to honor its debt obligations.
There does seem to be a difference in vision for the country's future -- if only in the way that the government spends its revenue. The Democrats are offering compromise in the form of massive spending cuts, even going so far as to partially sacrifice their sacred cows of Social Security and Medicare.
They ask for the future expiration of tax breaks on the nation's most wealthy and the elimination of various corporate tax loopholes. Republicans are offering nothing (even refusing the possibility of raising revenues -- which would also decrease the amount of fiscal deficit -- from entering the negotiations) but to raise the debt limit and only if their demands for more concessions are met.
Republicans pay lip service to the potential economic catastrophe of a government default and a federal shutdown, saying they want to avert it, then do nothing to work against making certain it does not happen. Boehner's walkout is the third such. Besides his two walkaways, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's walkout in June over the introduction of tax break eliminations paved the way for Boehner's future walkouts.
It appears that the Republican vision (via Boehner and a majority of conservative legislators) for the country is clouded by adherence to the protection of the wealthy and corporate interests, not to mention radical alterations to social entitlement programs that help sustain the young and the elderly, the poor and the less fortunate.
Their vision does not appear to incorporate the idea that defunding and dismantling federal programs during an economic downturn (or even an economy that is barely struggling in a positive direction) only eliminates part of the support system from the economy that has kept it where it is, the elimination of which can only be disadvantageous to future economic growth. Their vision does not seem to include the long-term detrimental ramifications of a federal default and the possibility of America losing its place at the pinnacle of international economic and monetary systems.
The Republican vision does not include compromise of any kind. It is the vision of brinksmanship. The Democrats will either be forced to cave completely to the demands of the GOP or also risk default.
And if Democrats do give in to Republican demands, agree to slash spending, cut popular social entitlement programs, and alter even more popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, all without getting Republicans to at least concede to some Democratic demands or find compromise somewhere, their collective political future is in jeopardy.
Perhaps that is exactly the vision for America that Boehner and his intransigent colleagues are truly holding out for.
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