How the Right turned a budget debate upside down

Today’s Washington Post has a multi-chapter series on the Republican resurgence, going all the way back before President Obama’s election and culminating in the just-ended fight over raising the debt ceiling. The story is a long tale of how we ended up with the debt deal.

The deal that Boehner and Obama reached obviously didn’t contain enough spending cuts (or enough certain and “real” spending cuts) to put bond-rating agencies at ease. But for conservatives who haven’t been following such things very long and are prone to bash Boehner without nuance, it is worth retelling out the broad point of this Post story: Two powerful forces — a long-term conservative strategy of candidate recruitment and the grassroots fervor of the Tea Parties — have completely changed the nature of the debate in Washington.

Having been here a decade now, I have to confess that I feel like I’ve been transported to an alternate universe this year. In the universe I know, spending must increase every year and no one takes seriously the idea of budget cuts. That’s been one of Newton’s Laws as long as I can remember.

So, a few takeaways from the piece: First, an administration official on the White House’s first big mistake of not taking care of the debt ceiling back when Democrats still controlled Congress:

“There was no market for doing the debt limit in December,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was describing internal discussions. “Neither the Democrats or Republicans were ready to deal with it. . . . You can’t force action.”

On John Boehner’s “Hendaia-esque” position between Obama and the Tea Party — “Sorry, I’d love to help, but I can’t even make my own trains run on time.”

Twice during the battle over the 2011 budget, White House officials believed both sides had settled on a figure for spending cuts. Twice, they said, Boehner backed away after consulting with his caucus….Cantor and Boehner both emphasized that the new hard-liners were a “different breed,” an “extreme force that could not be controlled.” The [White House] official added: “I, for one, was never sure whether they were using this as a negotiating tactic or expressing genuine frustration.”

And more on that from a GOP leadership perspective, from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.:

“Would Democrats have ever agreed if they thought the new freshman class was going to roll over? No. The freshmen made our hand so much stronger,” he said in an interview. “You had a fear of how far they would go. I’m sure the president looks back, too, and was fearful. But in negotiations, isn’t that the best thing?”

More on that from a Tea Party perspective, from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah:

Chaffetz, who voted against both Boehner’s first proposal and the final bill, said he was well aware of how the leadership had used his and others’ willingness to let a default happen as a negotiating chip, and said he didn’t mind at all. “We weren’t kidding around, either,” he said. “We would have taken it down.”

How the Right turned a budget debate upside down

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