I don't think he's kidding. I think he's being a damnfool.
Democrats and Republicans know, for sure, that if Obama had been on tap during the negotiations of the supercommittee, Obama would be blamed now for its apparent failure. And Democrats and Republicans both know that blaming him for not being there is the other side of the same coin. Dems aren't stupid about this and polls indicate Republican voters are wising up. The president's ratings are going up again, and Congress's ratings -- particularly those of Republican members -- continue to slide.
The 12-member, bipartisan supercommittee, which was established by the August debt-ceiling deal, is expected to announce Monday that is has not reached an agreement for $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. Both parties are pointing fingers for the stalemate and casting the other side as intransigent.
Members of the supercommittee are expected to announce the failure to strike a deal in a statement after the stock markets close. Major indexes like the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ dived Monday morning on reports that a deficit-reduction deal has not been reached, and some banks fear the U.S. will be hit with another credit downgrade due to a failure to reach a “grand bargain” on the deficit.
The Speaker’s office said Democrats never put a plan on the table that sufficiently addressed the growth of entitlement programs like Medicare, and notes that Republicans were willing to move toward a compromise by putting tax increases on the table. ...The Hill
The markets are reacting negatively to Congress's failure.
A bipartisan panel in Washington was expected to announce that its divisions were too great to settle on a plan to cut $1.2 trillion from government spending over 10 years, setting the stage for the “automatic” implementation of spending cuts in 2013.
“Fitch has warned that it will downgrade Uncle Sam’s AAA-rating if there is no agreement,” Holger Schmieding, an economist with Berenberg Bank in London, wrote in a note. “This sounds eerily familiar to the turmoil in late July and early August (U.S. debt ceiling debate, S.&P. downgrade), just ahead of the big drop in European equity prices in August.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, a broad measure of the market, fell 2.6 percent to 1,184.13 in morning trading. The Dow Jones industrial average was off 2.9 percent, or 338 points, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 2.7 percent. ...NYT
Congressional Republicans are scrambling. The latest polls (even Fox) show disapproval of Republicans in Congress far exceeds disapproval of Democrats.
Rank-and-file members of the House GOP are jumping on President Obama as the cause of the supercommittee failure, which will result in automatic cuts to military and domestic spending in 2013.
“He has stood by and done nothing to encourage bipartisanship among this committee. Instead, the President and this Administration would rather sit back and watch automatic cuts kick in that will be devastating to our military-ripping 600 billion dollars from Defense in 10 years. I am calling on President Obama to step up and be a leader and introduce legislation that will restore these automatic cuts to our military,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said in a statement Monday.
Democrats pushed back last week on calls for Obama to break the deadlock in the supercommittee negotiations.
“This is a joint congressional committee. It was set up like that. The president does not have a vote at this table,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), a Democratic member of the supercommittee. ...The Hill
