by David Finkel
October 17, 2013
It took some serious ruling class intervention to finally present John Boehner with an instruction he couldn’t refuse: get the Reid-McConnell Senate deal to the House floor for a straight vote to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. You can tell the Tea Party that you know where they’re coming from, and they need to crawl back under it – and if you’re soon-to-be SPINO (“Speaker in Name Only”), that’s tomorrow’s problem. We run this damn country, and we don’t care enough about “Obamacare,” one way or the other, or about your Speakership for that matter, to risk our ill-gotten trillions over it.
If anything, the surprise is that the message took so long to get through. Only after The New York Times reported that the Business Roundtable and other corporate heavies are so upset with the Tea Party that they might start funding primary challenges against them, and after the global financial press and leaders of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund opined that the United States Congress was going out of its mind and getting ready to destroy the world economy along with its own, did the logjam that we’ve discussed previously (“The Shutdown Showdown“) break up.
The Reid-McConnell deal passed the Senate with 81 votes, and the House by 285-144 with 198 Democratic votes, while 87 Republicans voted “yes” and 144 “no.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, calling his party’s debacle a “great lost opportunity,” stated: “If we had been focused on the rollout of Obamacare and its confusion, public support would have diminished. Instead, our numbers have gone down, Obamacare has mysteriously gone up, and other than that, this has been great.”
The main Democratic concession was to tighten “verification” processes to qualify for low-income people to receive subsidized health coverage. That adds one more layer of bureaucratic hassle to the Affordable Care Act’s hopeless complexities, which (as Senator Graham recognizes) are ultimately more likely to bring down “Obamacare” than would Republican obstruction of the program.
Photo by Doug Mills, NYT.
So that was the political collision, ending in victory for Obama and the Democrats at least until mid-December when a longer-term deal is supposed to be hammered out. And right now is when collision turns to collusion. As we’ve previously noted, the Democrats couldn’t surrender on the Affordable Care Act because that would have effectively ended the Obama presidency. But when it comes to the rest of the budget, the sign is already hung up: “Everything must go.”
A budget deal is supposed to be in place by December 13, a month before the next shutdown deadline. The main features of the deal-to-come have been quietly put in place, as outlined by leftwing labor economist Jack Rasmus (“Austerity American Style”). The preview of coming attractions over the next decade includes: a trillion dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare; a major reduction in the corporate tax rate – which is what big business really wants, not defunding Obamacare; and big cuts in middle-income tax credits and exemptions, and in spending on education, transportation, and other programs that don’t feed the military.
We won’t repeat the gory details here. In the meantime, the “sequester” cuts remain locked in, sucking the bloodstream of the economic recovery in much the same way as the government shutdown did, except in slow motion. As the new negotiations proceed, the Republicans will have all the more pretext to demand more cuts and block new revenues. Look for more pressure (from elements of both parties) to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline – and if you’re expecting the Obama administration to do anything to halt the plague of fracking for natural gas, you must be breathing the methane.
Yes, corporate and finance capital finally had to call the Republican leadership to order when a potential massive financial meltdown loomed. But never forget that the capitalist class is united around an austerity drive that sets the agenda for the entire political system. If you thought partisan gridlock sucked, just wait till we taste the poisoned fruits of capitalist “bipartisanship.”
Comments
One response to “Collision and Collusion”
Agree with your analysis. So where is the weak point in their strategy? What is the point of attack which can begin to challenge the labor bureaucrats’ ceaseless pandering to the Democrats.
The cuts will strike hardest at the black community. Perhaps a reappearance of the Black Panther Party, one devoid of macho militarist posing and sexism, but with a mass organising perspective, is the first step in that direction.
The contradiction between the reality facing the working and poor people, under siege by the ruling class, and their continuing support for the Democrats, and the impotence of the socialist left to resolve it means there is a space for bold initiatives.