Speaker Boehner on the Slammer

As default looms in the horizon, the macabre dance that is the deficit reduction talks has hit a crescendo with President Obama calling the bluff of the Republicans, while Speaker John Boehner and majority leader Eric Canter are at daggers drawn.  Quite recently, Speaker Boehner has indicated that, left to him alone, the nation would not be risking default to protect the wealthiest two percent of Americans. He was obviously alluding to the position of the tea-party caucus of his party personified in majority leader, Eric Canter who believes the interests of wealthy Americans must be protected at all cost, even if that means walking over the carcasses of the poor and the elderly.

When two weeks ago House majority leader and some members of his party abandoned the negotiating talks with the vice president, Senator Joe Biden, he made it clear that he would only negotiate with the president.  This grand standing made political observers sympathetic to the cause of the left nervous for good reason. President Obama has not been a great negotiator, and Eric Canter and the Republican Party would once again arm-twist him to cave in to their desire of solving the nation’s budget and deficit issues on the back of the middleclass, the poor, and the elderly.

If Speaker Boehner had gone to the talks with the President hoping to get him to capitulate, he was the one who left with his tail in-between his legs mesmerized.  President Obama had offered to make significant cuts to the federal government and the social safety nets: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans totaling $100 billion every year spread over 10. Speaker Boehner and the Republican Party rejected this offer even when it is clear that under the President’s offer, cuts on government spending would have amounted to over $200 billion annually, much more than revenue from sealing of tax loopholes, and unnecessary subsidies in the system. Now all eyes are on President Obama to see whether his newfound negotiating prowess is a fluke or an inherent part of his characteristics he chooses to suppress until now.