News Analysis: A ?Unique Opportunity? on the Debt Ceiling, Lost

News Analysis

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: July 25, 2011

WASHINGTON ? Leaders of both parties have said for months that the need to raise the nation?s borrowing limit offered a ?unique opportunity? for a bipartisan deal that would constrain the mounting federal debt.

Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times

The debate over what Speaker John A. Boehner called the ?different visions for our country? he and President Obama represent is likely to define next year's elections, and the blame game.

• Parties Head to Showdown as Obama Warns of a ?Crisis? (July 26, 2011)

• Times Topic: Federal Debt Limit (Debt Ceiling) & Deficit Talks

Instead, it is shaping up to be a lost opportunity.

Whatever deal Congress and President Obama devise in this final week to allow the government to keep paying its bills after Aug. 2 and avert an economy-rattling default, it almost certainly will fall short of the compromise that Mr. Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, nearly struck last week ? before details of the negotiations leaked, opponents in both parties protested and Mr. Boehner left the table.

The difference between that attempted ?grand bargain? and what Congress is coming up with is not just a matter of dollars. Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner did tentatively agree to more than $3 trillion in savings over 10 years ? at least hundreds of billions more than is called for in the fallback plans now bandied about in Congress to clear the way for a vote to increase the $14.3 trillion borrowing ceiling by next Tuesday.

But the more significant difference is in where the savings would come from. The Congressional proposals mainly seek caps on annual spending for domestic and military programs and no additional revenues.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner tentatively agreed to raise $800 billion in revenues after 2013 by overhauling the tax code and getting significant future savings from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ? the entitlement programs whose growth as the population ages is driving long-term projections of unsustainable debt. While Republicans rebelled at the idea of tax increases, the package?s total spending cuts exceeded new revenues by more than three to one.

The Obama-Boehner package still could serve as the basis for a bigger and more comprehensive debt-reduction deal. But that probably would not be before the 2012 elections, people in both parties say, given House Republicans? unyielding stand against higher taxes.

More likely, they say, the debate over what Mr. Boehner called their ?different visions for our country? will define next year?s elections, along with the blame game if the two parties remain at loggerheads. How it plays out could determine both Mr. Boehner?s future as speaker and Mr. Obama?s as president.

Each believed his party would benefit politically by a comprehensive deal, not least by easing many Americans? pox-on-both-your-houses frustration with Washington gridlock ? a threat to incumbents ? and by avoiding blame for an economic crisis.

And while Mr. Obama also seeks to appeal to independent voters who make the difference in presidential elections, many Democrats complain he is too willing to compromise, potentially disillusioning their party?s voters and muddying the case against Republicans for proposing much deeper entitlement program cuts. Mr. Boehner?s problem is that some otherwise persuadable Republicans worry less about the general election than party primaries, and fear they could draw a conservative rival by supporting a deal with Mr. Obama.

?If that means more to you than getting a plan and stabilizing this economy, you?ve really got to wonder why you?re there,? said Alan K. Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader who was a co-chairman of the bipartisan fiscal commission Mr. Obama set up last year.

A package like the one Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner were discussing would be the most ambitious deficit-reduction effort in memory. Former Republican lawmakers who fought in the deficit-cutting wars of the 1980s and 1990s, including Mr. Simpson, express puzzlement or dismay at House Republicans? willingness to let the tax issue stop them from taking Mr. Obama?s offers on reducing entitlement spending, especially since the new revenues would flow from an overhaul of the tax code that would lower most rates.

?If I were there,? said Mickey Edwards, a House Republican leader in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, ?I would say, ?My God, declare victory.?�?

Inside NYTimes.com

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/us/politics/26deal.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

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