Noam Scheiber: “I think the president made a huge mistake by negotiating over what he’d previously said was non-negotiable (namely, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000). Then the White House compounded that mistake by sending Biden to ‘close’ the deal when Harry Reid appeared to give up on it. As a practical matter, this signaled to Republicans that the White House wouldn’t walk away from the bargaining table, allowing the GOP to keep extracting concessions into the absolute final hours before the deadline.”
Paul Krugman: “Anyone looking at these negotiations, especially given Obama’s previous
behavior, can’t help but reach one main conclusion: whenever the
president says that there’s an issue on which he absolutely, positively
won’t give ground, you can count on him, you know, giving way — and
soon, too. The idea that you should only make promises and threats you
intend to make good on doesn’t seem to be one that this particular
president can grasp.”
Ryan Lizza: “My view is more charitable to the White House. Obama approached this
phase of the fiscal wars as the fight over revenue and (seemingly) has
reached a reasonable compromise. With a slew of previously temporary
pieces of the tax code now locked in, the White House insists it will go
into the next phase of negotiations with a stronger hand. Republicans
will be stripped of the political power of calling for tax cuts, and
instead will be in the unpopular position of mostly insisting on cuts to
Medicare and Social Security, which they are often loathe to actually
detail. And their response if Obama won’t reduce benefits to the two
most popular government programs? They will allow the United States to
default and perhaps plunge the world economy into recession.”
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