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Stewart: Did the President just quit?

Written By bross on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 | 10:22 AM

Well … yes, in fact, he did. National Journal includes this clip of Jon Stewart’s reaction to Barack Obama’s prime-time speech on Monday as part of its roundup of comic reactions, but it’s Stewart that gets most critical of Obama. Jimmy Kimmel might have had the funnier response, however:
Did the President quit? It’s hard to tell, since the President didn’t look like he was offering much in the first place. He’d insist on being the point man for negotiations, and then go public and scold Republicans for not compromising while never bothering to tell people the specifics of his own demands. Republicans made theirs excruciatingly clear, passing two bills in the House while the Senate followed Obama’s lead and produced nothing at all. In this strange national speech, Obama seems to have pushed himself away from the table, washing his hands of the crisis he helped stoke. That followed the collapse of his position on tax hikes, which Harry Reid abandoned, leaving Obama as the only one still talking about tax hikes.

Ironically, the path to a resolution may become more clear without Obama involved in the negotiations, as Congress can now focus on combining the Reid and Boehner plans once they pass in both chambers. Obama’s lack of leadership in this episode won’t be soon forgotten.

On that point, IBD’s editors agree:

Last Friday, at the end of his press conference on the debt, President Obama said: “I think if you want to be a leader, then you got to lead.” Too bad Obama isn’t taking his own advice.

It’s possible that Obama thinks talking about an issue is the same as leading on it. After all, in July alone, the president has held three press conferences and a town hall, delivered three press briefings, a radio address and a prime-time speech — all devoted to the debt ceiling negotiations.

But in the real world, leadership means standing in front of the parade and directing its course. All Obama has done since the debt crisis emerged more than two years ago is posture, issue platitudes and try to score political points from the tail end of the march.

10:22 AM | 0 comments

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10:17 AM | 0 comments

Perry pulls into statistical tie with Romney in Gallup poll

Of all the potential late entrants into the Republican nomination contest, the one who gives Mitt Romney the toughest fight is Rick Perry, according to the latest Gallup poll. If Perry, Sarah Palin, and Rudy Giuliani all get into the race, Perry comes in just two points behind Romney and ahead of Palin and Giuliani, while Michele Bachmann falls to fifth place — well within the margin of error:

Mitt Romney is the leader for the GOP nomination among the current field of official candidates, supported by 27% of Republicans, compared with 18% for Michele Bachmann. However, Rick Perry would essentially tie Romney, with Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani close behind, in a scenario in which all three of these undecided candidates entered the race.

Gallup asked respondents to choose among all 11 current and potential candidates, and then asked for their second and third choices. The second and third choices are used to simulate preferences when certain combinations of unannounced candidates are excluded from the race. Three such scenarios include the eight announced candidates plus one of the unannounced candidates. Palin, Perry, and Giuliani finish in no worse than a statistical tie for second place when each is pitted against the eight firm candidates.

If only Perry gets in the race, he starts off five points behind Romney — and five points ahead of Bachmann, who loses four points in the transaction. Palin comes in at 15 if alone, one point behind Bachmann in a statistical tie for second place, while Giuliani gets 14%, three behind Bachmann for third place, without Palin or Perry. Romney holds 23% in each model.

The numbers between conservatives and moderates/liberals are also interesting. Gallup didn’t run separate models for that breakdown as they did with the overall numbers, but if all three jump into the race, Perry ties Romney for the lead with conservatives at 18%. His support drops off considerably with moderates/liberals, finishing tied for fifth place with Bachmann. Giuliani wins that demographic at 16%, two points ahead of Romney and Palin. Somewhat surprisingly, Palin only scores 11% among conservatives, a fourth-place finish behind Romney, Perry, and Bachmann.

Needless to say, the other candidates in the field barely change positions with or without the three late entrants. All of them had better hope for lightning to strike in Ames in a couple of weeks, at the debate and then at the straw poll. Without some sort of breakout performance, an entry of any of the three maybes will swamp out any hope of getting the kind of media attention that will build momentum in the fall.

10:09 AM | 0 comments

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10:08 AM | 0 comments

CBO: Reid bill a bigger reduction in spending … barely

The Washington Times reports today that the duel of spending reduction bills may be won by Harry Reid. The CBO scored Reid’s proposal better than John Boehner’s on actual reductions in spending, although neither takes a machete to the budget. In fact, the difference is almost indistinguishable:

The Congressional Budget Office said the plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would raise the government’s borrowing limit by $2.7 trillion, and cut $2.2 trillion from future spending, chiefly by limiting the amount of money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. …

The CBO analysis could give momentum to Mr. Reid’s plan, though the GOP says spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was going to drop anyway, and so shouldn’t be considered as future savings. …

The CBO said the Senate bill’s discretionary spending cuts would result in $840 billion in lower authorized spending, and $750 billion in actual lower outlays over the next decade. The Senate bill also capped spending on the two wars at $450 billion over the next decade, which would mean spending authority is $1.2 trillion lower, and actual outlays would be $1 trillion lower.

Reid’s advertising his proposal as authorizing $2.2 trillion in cuts for a $2.7 trillion debt-ceiling increase, but most of those cuts would happen anyway. Reid counts dollars spent on the war at current rates as part of the savings when the drawdowns occur, savings that are already in place. Instead, his bill cuts in 10 years roughly half of the annual budget deficit, averaging $75 billion a year, which is roughly nineteen days of borrowing at current deficit rates.

That’s an improvement over Boehner’s bill, but not by much. Boehner would save $710 billion over the next decade, averaging $71 billion a year, which accounts for 17.3 days of borrowing at the current rate of deficit spending. That’s more of a distinction without a difference. Boehner’s bill would only authorize a $900 billion hike in the debt limit, however, which would force a new round of cuts before next year’s election. Unlike Reid’s proposal, Boehner assumes that the savings in war funding have already taken place.

Boehner promised to go back and rewrite the House bill to get more savings out of it. Given these figures, that shouldn’t be a terribly difficult task. However, at this point, it looks like the two chambers are close enough in figures and approaches to pass their bills and get a conference committee to deal with the differences, which is probably what will happen by the end of the week.

10:01 AM | 0 comments