More Notes on the Debt Ceiling “Negotiation”

If Obama didn’t want it to happen, if he didn’t want to “negotiate”, he would have:

1) raised the debt limit during the lame duck Congress.  He could have raised it enough to get him through 2 years.

2) Accepted the clean debt-ceiling bill, offered by McConnell, as noted by Stewart M.

3) simply refuse to negotiate.  “I cannot say what bills will or will not be paid if the US Congress does not increase the debt ceiling, but whether the debt ceiling is raised or not is a matter for Congress.”  I am quite sure that Wall Street and other corporations would bring the Republicans to heel so fast your head would spin.

This is all Kabuki.  Obama wants massive cuts.  He always has.  This “negotiation” is occurring because he wants it to, and would not occur if he did not want it to.

Further, if something like the Gang of Six suggestion passes, Obama will only win reelection if the Republicans nominate someone completely and utterly beyond the pale.  And maybe not even then.  Cuts of that magnitude will be to the economy what a nuclear bomb is to a city.