By Susan Duclos
Keith Hennessey, lecturer at Stanford's schools of Business and Law and former director of the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush, has a must read piece over at Wall Street Journal, where he explains in detail just how much leverage Republicans actually have in the fiscal cliff negotiations and how Barack Obama has overplayed his hand.
I will highlight the points here, but click over to read the details and explanations of those points for a better understanding of why Hennessey recommends that Republicans call Obama's bluff.
• The president's veto threat is a bluff. Without a new law, tax
increases and spending cuts will likely increase unemployment to 9% and
might trigger a new recession. Even if he could shift all the political
blame for such a legislative failure onto congressional Republicans, Mr.
Obama cannot afford to risk a new recession that would irreparably
damage his second term. He can neither veto a budget-deal bill that
Congress sends to him, nor can he allow Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid to tie a bill up in the Senate. He can, however, try to bluff
Republicans into giving away the store.
• The president's proposal for more spending and taxation puts him to
the left of many in his own party, and Democrats up for re-election are
not lemmings looking to follow Sen. Patty Murray, who has welcomed a
plunge over the fiscal cliff. Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Mary
Landrieu oppose the president's proposal to increase the estate tax.
Sen. Chuck Schumer has defined "rich" at $1 million of income, much
higher than the president's $250,000.
• Republicans can communicate more effectively by changing their
tone. They can replace the wild-eyed threats of 2011 with steady
negotiation and logical arguments. They can be insistent but not
unyielding, firm but flexible. They can explain their policy views to
voters and visibly demonstrate that they are trying to reach agreement
with a counterparty still stuck in campaign mode. They can argue with
their party leaders in private rather than weaken their leaders' hand
with public statements that embolden the left and make it harder to
reach agreement.
• Republicans must be willing to oppose
bad policy even if it hurts their popularity. Agreeing to higher taxes
is a major concession, and if the president is reasonable, Republicans
need to be willing to move further to close a deal. But members of
Congress have no obligation to vote for more than a trillion dollars in
tax increases without significant spending cuts just because someone
else won an election.
• Republicans can leave the debt limit out of this bill. It's a shame
that small debt-limit increases must be used as a tool to force future
fiscal negotiations. But until the Senate returns to passing annual
budgets, frequent debt-limit votes are the only method available to
force a recalcitrant Democratic Party to address entitlement spending
problems.
• Finally, Republicans underestimate their
ability to win the fiscal-policy argument in the public arena. If
everyone's taxes go up, voters will instinctively blame the party of
higher taxes. Mr. Obama has spent two years hammering the country about
the fairness of redistribution—but Republicans have inoculated
themselves against additional demagoguery by conceding and proposing
that the rich pay more.
Related:
Video - Speaker John Boehner on Fisal Cliff Negotiations With Obama: ' We're Nowhere. Period. Nowhere'
The Conservative Case For Cliff Jumping With Obama
Bush Tax Cut Chart Disproves Obama's Lies
Republicans Revenue Options Would Bring More Revenue Than Obama's Tax The Rich Death Trap
Obama's Hostages And The 93% Of employees Caught In Obama's Tax The Rich Death Trap
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