Clean up on Aisle 111

The results of the ‘Slurpee Summit’ couldn’t be more clear. Republicans have no intention of cooperating with anything that the President will put forward.  Obama has two choices.  Be the Democrat he was elected to be or switch parties.  Gridlock is not on the horizon.  It’s been here and will only worsen.  Obama hasn’t even been able to get the senators from Maine to break away from their right wing colleagues on important issues in the past.  How will this improve with worse ones on their way in?  Incoming Republican Senators like Rand Paul from Kentucky and Mark Kirk from Illinois are giving interviews and they aren’t pretty.

Steven Benen’s Political Animal at The Washington Monthly analyzes a recent AP item from last night that was released about the time we started our discussion on the Slurpee Summit. Benen says this.

ALL 42 SENATE REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE HOSTAGE PLAN…. The AP had an item late last night, noting that Senate Republicans were circulating a letter, “quietly collecting signatures” on a plan to “block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending.”

This morning, the Senate GOP leadership unveiled their letter — signed by literally all 42 members of the Republican caucus — declaring their intention to hold the chamber hostage until the tax policy debate is resolved.

“[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.”

In practical terms, this means that the Senate Republican caucus will join arms and kill literally every piece of legislation in the lame-duck session — New START, funding U.S. troops, the DREAM Act, etc. — until the government is fully funded and they’re satisfied with the outcome of the debate on tax policy.

What on earth does that last sentence imply? (I bolded it.)   Already, the fall out is being felt in the discussion over DADT which Secretary Gates asked Congress to repeal.  Are the Republicans really ready to hold the military hostage over taxes to the uber-Wealthy?  It sure seems that way.

Just hours after Democrats and Republicans agreed to bargain on tax cuts, and fewer hours still after Defense Secretary Robert Gates implored Congress to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this year, word leaked that Republicans aren’t really interested in any of it — a major repudiation of Gates’ authority.

All of this hostility began just hours after the President announced that he was ‘encouraged’ by meeting with House leaders on both sides.  It included this:

“Today we had the beginning of a new dialogue that I hope — and I’m sure most Americans hope — will help break through the noise and produce real gains,” the president said after a two-hour session that included Democratic Congressional leaders as well. “And as we all agreed, that should begin today because there’s some things we need to get done in the weeks before Congress leaves town for the holidays.”

Read the Republicans’ letter to Henry Reid here and see if you can find any hint of reality in the statement above.

David Leonhardt at the NYT believes that Democrats have been given next to no options now.

Democrats have left themselves in a tough spot on the Bush tax cuts. After delaying the issue until after the election and then being trounced in that election, they find themselves with little leverage.

If they cannot come up with a plan that can win 60 votes in the Senate, which means at least two Republican votes, Republicans can filibuster any bill. All of the tax cuts would then expire on Dec. 31. When the new Republican House majority arrives in January, it will be able to make its first order of business a retroactive tax cut — forcing President Obama and Senate Democrats to choose between a purely Republican plan and an across-the-board tax increase.

So the big question is whether Democratic leaders can come up with any compromise that centrist Democrats and a couple of Republican senators — Scott Brown, who represents liberal Massachusetts? George Voinovich of Ohio, who is retiring? — are willing to accept.

Reid responded earlier today.

“My Republican colleagues…know that the true effect of this letter is to prevent the Senate from acting on many important issues that have bipartisan support. With this letter, they have simply put in writing the political strategy that the Republicans pursued this entire Congress: Namely, obstruct, delay action on critical matters, and then blame the Democrats for not addressing the needs of American people. Very cynical, but very obvious. Very transparent.”

I’d say it’s more than that Harry.  It’s a drop dead letter if there ever was one.