Ezra Klein published a revealing interview with Tom Coburn (R-crazytown). The whole thing is worth a read.
But get this:
EK: The Democrats’ view is that it’s fine to start thinking about debt and deficits but that’s it’s illegitimate to use default as the threat to force a deal. They say they’ll negotiate, but the structure of that negotiation can’t be “do what we want or the economy gets it.” Do you think they’re wrong?
This strikes me as a skillful way of framing the question tactically. Klein is getting away from the substantive issues (how good/bad is Obamacare, who is more passionate, etc.) and trying to solve for methodology -- is it appropriate, basically EVER, for a party to use the threat of catastrophic default as a way to do something.
Before you read Coborn's response, pause and consider how this question should be answered by an honorable elected official in a well-functioning democracy. Ahhh. Ok, now please proceed:
TC: Because nobody is negotiating at the table, and everyone is negotiating in the press. Jack Lew is saying all these things that can’t be done which isn’t necessarily true. The president doesn’t have the confidence of Congress that he’ll do what he says. The idea that you’ll raise the debt limit, and he’ll sit down and talk doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just partisan attack after partisan attack.
Got that?
Sure, the GOP could remove the threat of national ruin, or global economic collapse -- but then what motivation would the President have to do their bidding?
Or put another way:
If we're actually negotiating between two rational political positions -- things the President wants that we do not, and things we want that the President does not -- then it follows that we might have to accept some things not to our liking in reaching a deal!
But, if all we do is threaten to hold our breath until the country turns blue or the President relents, we give in nothing!
So it's not that the GOP wants so desperately to negotiate. They want capitulation.
Ezra runs with the prior sentence -- about Congress just not goshdarn knowing if the President will do what he says (ahemBULLSHIT) -- as the interview's lede, but I think my bolding is the bigger admission. I realize the list of places where high-ranking Republicans have all but admitted the hostage-taking was wrong, was their idea, was unprecedented, etc., is getting pretty long, but this one seems like a big one.
Tom Coburn is on the record saying that it just doesn't make sense to him why a President would want to work on solving our nation's structural problems unless the threat of catastrophe was being used to force him to the table.
These people really need to be sent packing.