WASHINGTON & SANTA FE, NM
(By
Michael Grunwald, Time) July 8, 2011 — The protagonists in the debt-limit
dealing are obviously President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, the
golfing buddies and party leaders. The Senate’s 60-vote threshold for
legislation — and the potential for random windbags to block a deal and crash
the global economy — means that Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell get attention as well.
But don’t forget House Minority Nancy Pelosi.
Boehner can’t pass a deal without Democratic votes; some members of his caucus,
including a certain crazy-eyed presidential candidate, have vowed to oppose any
deal to raise the debt ceiling. (Which is like refusing to pay a credit-card
bill regardless of the terms, but that’s a story for another day.) Pelosi has
been rolled in past deals, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be rolled again.
So what does Pelosi want?
In general, she wants what liberal Democrats usually want. She wants the rich to
pay more taxes. She wants to block drastic rollbacks of government services for
the poor and middle class. She wants cuts to spending to be as modest as
possible, and cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to be nonexistent.
And she would like Americans to know Republicans are holding the nation’s full
faith and credit hostage, protecting tax breaks for hedge fund managers and oil
companies, and fighting for the owners of private jets and yachts, all of which
happens to be true.
Pelosi also has a more personal goal: She wants to be Speaker again.
And she thinks that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s unpopular plan to squeeze
Medicare has provided the Democrats with a clear path back to the majority, a
chance to run as the defenders of Medicare against the Republican marauders. So
she really doesn’t want any bipartisan bargain, grand or otherwise, to include
Medicare cuts that can inoculate Republicans from this line of attack next fall.
There’s one other thing Pelosi wants. During last December’s lame-duck session,
Vice President Biden forged a deal with McConnell to extend the Bush tax cuts,
infuriating House Democrats who hadn’t even given up the majority yet. Then in
April, Obama reached a deal with Boehner to trim spending, a deal that required
House Democratic votes even though it lacked House Democratic input. And on
Wednesday, the White House started leaking about a possible mega-deal that would
include Medicare and Social Security, without giving Pelosi the courtesy of a
heads-up.
It would be interesting to know what Pelosi and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer
said to Obama when they marched over to the White House today, but it was
probably some version of: Hey! Don’t forget about us! There was also a bit of:
You can’t do this without us!
One problem for Pelosi and the House Democrats is that it’s hard to picture them
defying Obama, blocking a debt-ceiling deal and plunging the global economy into
chaos. It’s quite easy to picture congressional Republicans doing that; at times
they seem anxious to do that. That’s why Republicans have controlled these
negotiations; they’re making credible threats. And that’s why Pelosi keeps
getting rolled.
In the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the White House frequently
pressured Pelosi to defer to the Senate. During the debate over the stimulus,
she was furious when tens of billions of dollars for school construction and
other Democratic priorities got chopped out to appease three Senate Republicans.
But she wanted a stimulus, she wanted Obama to succeed, and Reid needed 60
votes.
During the debate over health care, she wasn’t thrilled about concessions she
had to make on abortion and the public option. But again, she was thrilled about
universal coverage, she supported Obama, and she knew how to count votes.
But reining in federal spending, unlike stimulating the economy or extending
health care to all Americans, is not a goal that Pelosi shares.
And her interests are no longer as aligned with Obama’s interests as they once
were; going into 2012, he wants to remind the country that he’s a reasonable man
who can work across the aisle, while she wants to tell the country that
Republicans are right-wing extremists who can’t work with anyone.
In the end, she’ll probably get rolled anyway.
But with the nation’s full faith and credit at stake, Obama better make sure he
can get away with it first.
