GOP'S CIVIL WAR SABOTAGES OBAMA TALKS

GOP FACADE

The facade that the Republican Party is a coherent entity participating in the Country’s future is becoming more and more each day, just that – a facade. Ostensibly their position is that the future of the Country depends on cutting spending and not getting any more revenue from taxes, nor closing loopholes in taxation such as, corporate jets, investing in tax havens both for individuals and corporations nor stopping senseless subsidies to entities such as oil companies. Also, besides “entitlement” spending their objections extend to spending money to repair the country’s infrastructure thereby creating jobs. The only expenditure they agree upon is more money for defense and that should come from cutting back on “entitlements” such as health care, social security, education and police and the like.

The real truth is that they have no agreed upon rational modern day fiscal policy at all other than to filibuster and do nothing. They cannot agree on anything internally so therefore they cannot negotiate with Obama. They just can pretend that they could negotiate if it wasn’t for Obama’s obstinacy.

GOP ON THE FISCAL CRISIS

The answer, the GOP thus maintain, lies in spending cuts across the board and adding no new revenue. (Code for leave the rich, (the makers), alone and take the money away from the rest who are   freeloaders, (the takers). The new Ryan budget has been characterized as denuding Medicare to give tax breaks for the billionaires and has raised eyebrows amongst several Congressional Republicans. The Republicans have successfully achieved some of their cuts by refusing to negotiate on the “sequester”. The latter was a draconian stratagem, agreed upon by both parties if a deal on fiscal policy was not achieved by March 31st, 2013, then an automatic $85 billion in spending cuts would come into effect. The purpose of both sides agreeing to the sequester was that these cuts were so off the wall that both sides would be forced to come to the negotiating table to avoid them. The Republicans could not come to the table as the Party is split in two and no consensus could be obtained as to their negotiation position.


Their ostensible rationale for obtaining no additional revenue is that they, the Republicans have already conceded on that issue. This they did by agreeing to increase the maximum income tax to 39% from 35% for any income earned above $400,000 a year!

The Republicans claim that Obama offers no cuts to social programs. This is patently false, as he has offered, inter – alia, a means test for Medicare and a formula to decrease the annual increments of Social Security. The latter deal alone would save 130 billion dollars. He has again offered spending cuts that will impact on the social safety net. These offers have caused consternation among the liberal wing of the Democratic Party but Obama has insisted that there has to be compromise. (Obama, in his enthusiasm to obtain consensus on a deal better see to it that he has Reid and Pelosi onsides).

Now not even the Republicans can believe their own rhetoric. Behind it all is the life and death internal battle for control of the Party that is responsible for the paralysis of the GOP and it’s dismal performance in the public arena. All that they can do is just block anything that the administration is trying to do and sabotage, one way or another, any legislation that the administration wants to offer.

None of this is doing the Republican Party, whoever they are and whatever they stand for, any good, but they seem powerless to do anything else. Every opinion poll shows, that if no fiscal deal is cut then the public will believe it will be the Republicans’ fault.

Under normal circumstances the leader(s) of the Republican Party would negotiate a compromise on expenditure and taxation and everything else. The problem is that there is no – one in the Republican Party, that has the majority backing of the party, to effectively negotiate.  Hence we are subjected to an ersatz debate. The pretense is that there can be a true debate but the two sides sound like the dialogue from a Kafka play.

So the GOP cannot negotiate because it is embroiled in a Civil War .

SUNKEN LEVEL OF DEBATE

To illustrate the level to which the debate has degenerated as a result of this impasse, Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, is cheered when he says it is a waste of time negotiating with the President and for his gratuitous advice to the Senate to get off it’s arse and send the House legislation. The House has passed virtually no legislation this session and Boehner cannot really move till he has a passed Senate Act before him. An example of the inept and inane Republican performance in the Senate is their fatuous weeks long delay of the confirmation of Obama’s Secretary of Defense. The latter is a former Republican, who Obama is elevating into his cabinet and in a saner world the move would have been hailed as a bi-partisan gesture.

Between the Senate and the House of Representatives it took them 18 months to pass the Violence Against Women Act with the majority of Republicans in the House voting against the Act! What are these people thinking?

THE PARTIES IN THE GOP CIVILWAR.

Broadly speaking there are the Tea Party and the “Establishment”, the latter being the “Old” GOP adherents that made what originally constituted the Republican Party.  It is fair to say that both these factions claim to be conservative but it is even fairer to say that the Tea party are by the far more radical and the “establishment” are more moderate. At the moment the leadership of the Republican Party, - in the Senate, (McConnell), and the House, (Boehner), their latest Presidential candidate, (Romney), and the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, (Pierce), are all “Establishment” members. However, they are all there by the grace of the Tea Party.

* The Tea Party

The Tea Party as a Party is a relatively new entity, as an official Party that is. In January 2011 Jay H Ell blogged,  “The Tea Party, The New Congress and Palin – All You Ever Needed to Know”, celebrating the coming out party of the Tea Party. It was common cause that they had been responsible for mobilizing the Republican base that had resulted in the GOP taking over the House of Representatives in 2010. Besides giving the low down of who and what the Tea Party was, Jay H. Ell posed the questions:

“Are they just a passing phenomenon or will they have a profound impact on the future? Are they going to take over the, GOP, blend with it, or go it alone? “

All these questions have been answered. The Tea Party is here to stay and is having a profound impact on the future. Many believe, that for practical purposes, they are the Party. If they have not taken over the Party completely they are controlling its agenda and have for the moment changed the face and direction of the GOP. Although they have not yet won the war they have won key battles and it is they who are responsible for changing the dialogue in Washington today as they dominate the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. They are the central faction in the Republican Party, have their own caucus and identity to the extent that there are now two official replies to the President’s State of the Union address, the “official” one and the Tea Party one.

While there are shades of opinion in the Tea Party their line is pretty straight – no taxes, no regulations and “individual responsibility”, code for get rid of entitlements. Added to that are their social policies on abortion, gays, women’s rights, immigration and guns and the like that are out of sync with the way the country is going.

In the 2012 election the Tea Party lost some of its influence and were blamed for allowing the Democrats to retain and increase its representation in the Senate. Most significantly it became patently clear that Romney by adapting the Tea Party rhetoric was soundly beaten. A reality that no one in the Tea Party or “Establishment” seem to have internalized to this date.

* The Establishment.

The Establishment is just that and while their key precepts on taxation, regulations and entitlements are the same as the Tea Party they have always been open for compromise and debate. While the Republican Party Platform represents the Tea Party’s social policy, the Establishment disowns it more and more.  The Establishment realizes more and more that they will never ever win back the White House with Tea Party policies. Ironically, they are to blame for the Tea Party emergence. Karl Rove, the Godfather of the Establishment, unashamedly used them to get the mediocre Bush elected twice to the White House. Rove saw to it in that in every State in the Presidential elections, there were referenda on social issues on the ballot that would bring the base out. Once George W. was elected he ignored these issues other than on stem cell research where he was on the wrong side of history.

So the best the establishment can offer is “moderation”.  The Establishment has not learned that that is not enough in a changing USA and changing world. Nobody is really interested in a nebulous paternalistic kinder Party. That was Bush 43 and his name is mud.

THE WAR

The Establishment’s Karl Rove has fired the first official shots of the civil war by declaring that his moneyed PAC, American Crossroads, is going to use its resources to fight the Republican Primaries to see to it that “acceptable” candidates are elected to run against the Democrats. This resulted in Tea Party apologists calling Rove a Nazi trying to subvert the choice of the Republican voters.

In truth this fight has been there ever since the Tea Party became a viable entity. The Establishment was furious at the Senate Tea Party candidates that the Republican Primaries chose. The Establishment believed that these “no hope” candidates were responsible for the Democrats increasing their Senate majority in 2013 and for the loss of Republican House Seats.

The Tea Party has been unrepentant to say the least. Their current leader Joe Demint resigned from the Senate to head the prestigious moneyed conservative Heritage Foundation. His first statement was to say that he would rather have 30 Conservative Republican Senators than 60 Republican Senators who believed in “nothing”.

Reince Priebus the Republican National Chairman is busily moving the Party into the twenty first century, that is the information and Internet twenty first century, and talking to minorities and women!

Another “meaningful” effort by the Republicans to gain traction is to change the voting laws in the States making it harder for the poor, the elderly and minorities to be able to vote. In pursuit of this objective should the Supreme Court overturn a protection in the Civil Rights Voting Provisions it would help them no end.

For the rest, the 2016 Republican Presidential contenders are steadfastly positioning themselves more and more to the right. Rand Paul and Paul Ryan are there already, Marc Rubrio is not far behind and Jed Bush jumped into the race with two right feet. Romney made a return at the Conservative Political Action Conference, (CPAC), and reinforced the delusion – that it was the way the message was delivered not the message itself that was to blame. The only viable Republican candidate, Chris Christie, was “insulted” by CPAC by not being even being invited.

The first major public signs of a split occured in the Senate when McCain  and Lindsay, who consider themselves the establishment, lambasted Paul Rand for his filibuster of the newly appointed CIA Director, Brennan. This was a bit rich because those two were in the forefront of the delay of appointment of Obama's new Scretary of Defence Hagel but there is no doubt that the purpose of the exercise was to distance themselves from the Tea Party leader in the Senate.  

REALITY

The only reality is that the Tea Party cannot win a Presidential election on their own and the Establishment cannot elect a candidate that has not major Tea Party support.  Likewise any position the Establishment takes has to have Tea Party backing.  This explains why nothing is happening. The Republican leadership, who are all establishment members, rather than face a threat to remove them, do nothing. That is exactly what the Tea Party wants. Also Republican members of the legislature, that usually can be counted upon to be “reasonable” are worried about a Primary threat if they deviate from the line. The Tea Party members themselves don’t give a hoot that they are way out of line of public opinion because they are usually in gerrymandered constituencies that guarantee re election.

So until this all sorts it out, so that we can get a Grand “New” Party, paralysis will remain. 

OBAMA TRYING TO BREAK THE DEADLOCK

Obama will do whatever he can on the stump to get the electorate to pressure Congress. The sequester cuts as they dig in will, ironically, help him to make the point that this is where Republican gridlock is leading us. Obama is also, finally, working the phones talking to Republicans whom he could compromise with. He is meeting with legislators and guess who he had to dinner - a dozen Republican Senators, incidentally only one of whom is up for re - election in 2014. He had lunch with Paul Ryan and is meeting all the caucuses on the hill. The Republicans are so pleased that the President is talking to them and all along we thought that they wouldn't been seen dead with him!

 Number one priority on the Obama agenda is winning back the House of Representatives in 2014 so he can proceed with his electoral mandate. If the Democrats succeed they will be actually doing the Republicans a favor because they will have to finally decide who and what they are. All the portents are that the GOP will become a right wing enclave. Or maybe this kumbaya with Obama will help the GOP create cohesive defensible policies on fiscal and social issues that will unite the GOP. 

If, however, the Tea Party win the GOP Civil War the country will have the greatest division since the Civil War between North and South .