GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST
It continues to go overlooked in the Beltway argument over Obamacare, but one of the most fundamental factors shaping the politics of all of this is that disapproval of the Affordable Care Act does not necessarily translate into support for Republican efforts to undermine or sabotage the law.
Republicans and conservatives constantly justify either their repeated votes to repeal the law, or their threats of destructive confrontations to defund or delay it, by citing public dissatisfaction with it as proof the public supports their efforts. Yet there’s little to no polling evidence to suggest one translates into support for the other. Indeed, there’s evidence the opposite is true.
Today’s new Pew Research poll again drives this home with striking clarity. It finds 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, versus only 42 percent who approve. This mirrors a new NBC/WSJ poll finding pluralities think the law is a bad idea and will be more damaging than not. No question: Obamacare polls terribly.
But the Pew poll finds something else that’s just as important: There’s virtually no public support for efforts to undermine the law:
The 53% of the public who disapprove of the law are divided over what they would like elected officials who oppose the law to do now that the law has begun to take effect. About half of disapprovers (27% of the public overall) say these lawmakers “should do what they can to make the law work as well as possible,” but nearly as many (23% of the public) say these officials “should do what they can to make the law fail.”
Yet it is this small minority that is largely shaping the contours of the GOP posture heading into this fall’s fiscal fights. The more “moderate” and “reasonable” Republican position — the one held by GOP leaders — is that there should be no government shutdown to defund Obamacare; that an effort to delay Obamacare should be tied somehow to the debt limit fight; and that Republicans should keep working to repeal the law. Yet even this position represents an effort to placate a small minority of the American people. Republicans are caught in a struggle between two arguments that both are designed, to varying degrees, to minister to this small minority’s obsession.
Meanwhile, large majorities overall either support the law or oppose it but want lawmakers to try to make it work. Simply put, the zeal to prevent the law from functioning as well as possible is well outside the American mainstream. To some degree this mirrors the situation within the House of Representatives itself. A majority of Members would vote tomorrow to fund the government without any defund-Obamacare rider attached, or to raise the debt limit without any Obamacare delay attached. But because House GOP leaders are loathe to allow a vote on anything unless a majority of House Republicans approves of it, the result is that — if today’s Pew poll has it right — the delusional preoccupations of a small minority of the American people are having an outsized
impact on, well, our entire political situation, with potential economic chaos looming as a result.
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SEAN SULLIVAN WASHINGTON POST
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: House Republican leaders craft a legislative plan they think can win passage, only to be rebuffed by conservative members expressing outrage at the idea. Then, it’s back to the drawing board.
GOP leadership was forced to put off a vote on a plan offered by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) because it lacked sufficient support from Republicans. The proposal would fund the government through mid-December and contains a provision to defund Obamcare.
But the Democratic-controlled Senate could vote down the Obamacare provision and send the rest of it on to the president for his approval. That alienated enough House Republicans to delay the vote and send leaders, well, back to the drawing board in search of a workable deal.
But what’s workable depends upon whom you ask. Some conservatives see the fall fiscal debates as the last best chance to shred Obamacare. And they’re willing to do it at all costs, even if it means temporarily shuttering the government, which would be the result of passing something the president won’t sign.
A new CNN/ORC International poll shows that 51 percent of Americans say Republicans in Congress would be more responsible for a shutdown, compared to just 33 percent who would hold Obama more accountable. As the face of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill, it’s not hard to see why Boehner wants to avoid that scenario.
With the GOP Conference split into factions, key fiscal deadlines looming, and no obvious long-term remedies for the deep divisions, the question is this: How long will leadership continue down the path it is on, trying time and again to walk the fine line between satisfying the political right and coming up with legislation that can pass Congress?
The answer is probably the foreseeable future, because the alternatives look even worse for Boehner.
Boehner could also try to pass legislation with moderate Republican support and the backing of most Democrats. But such a move would trigger an outright revolt among House Republicans degrees more severe that what the speaker currently faces.
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JONATHAN BERNSTEIN WASHINGTON POST
Barack Obama pledged again that he “will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States” — that is, over the debt limit. Remember that until Republicans took control of the House in 2011, the debt limit had never been used to force significant substantive changes — because, after all, both sides ultimately support raising the debt limit, so it’s a lousy negotiating chip. On the other hand, it’s long been accepted that the debt limit vote is one that Members of Congress don’t like to take, and so finding some symbolic fig leaf (or bundling it with other legislation) does have a long history.
However, Noam Scheiber makes the case, in a piece generating some chatter today, for why there will be a government shutdown this time. His basic take is that Obama has every incentive to hold the line even if it results in a shutdown, because he no longer has to worry about reelection and the hit to the economy a shutdown it would entail. Scheiber also says John Boehner might have an incentive to allow a shutdown — in order to jar conservative Republicans to their senses and force them to accept the reality of their own limited negotiating leverage.
But make no mistake, the incentives are still heavily for Boehner to cut a deal and avoid a shutdown at all costs.
It’s true that the big change since 2011 and 2012 is that the president, without an upcoming election, is probably more inclined to take the short-term economic hit that a shutdown would cause. On the other hand, while Boehner has been a pretty good Speaker and has successfully helped Republicans avoid their worst impulses, I don’t really agree that this time Boehner’s incentive is to accept a shutdown.
Why? Because the key think to know about a shutdown is that it will end. Maybe after a day; maybe after a month. It will end, and it will end with something that both Boehner (and mainstream conservatives) and Obama (and mainstream liberals) can live with. And at that point, there is nothing more certain in this world than that radical “conservatives” will believe that if only Boehner and Congressional Republicans had held out a little while longer, Obama would have surrendered and Republicans would have won a total victory.
So a shutdown (or a debt limit breach) has to end with Boehner (supposedly) selling out conservatives, and doing it with far more press coverage and attention than he would get from (again, supposedly) selling them out before a shutdown by cutting a deal. That’s a disaster for him — and, on the other side of the Capitol, for Mitch McConnell — and one he’ll work hard to avoid.
Between Obama being more likely to fight through a shutdown, and more Republicans in Congress who don’t remember 1995-1996, it’s certainly very possible that a shutdown is coming. Or even a debt limit breach. But it’s absolutely in Boehner’s interests to do all he can to avoid either. If either happens, it will be only because Boehner struggled but failed to avert such an outcome. Bottom line: Expect Barack Obama to be a tougher negotiator this time around and expect Boehner to do all he can to cut a deal to avoid disaster.