{"id":6600,"date":"2013-10-10T09:30:04","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T16:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2013-10-10T09:30:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T16:30:04","slug":"obama-will-cut-a-deal-sooner-rather-than-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-will-cut-a-deal-sooner-rather-than-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Will Cut a Deal Sooner Rather than Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"PhotoAt first glance, the Republicans seemed to be losing the so-called shut-down impasse, inasmuch as Obamacare, as the president termed it, was \u201csettled law\u201d and the Republicans did not have the congressional clout to overturn it. No one likes, after all, to be turned away from Yosemite on a pleasant autumn day, because of Beltway gymnastics.<\/p>\n

Yet the politics are likely to change the longer this drags on, and at some point Obama will see the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n

First, the legions of federally employed constituents, the lesser Lois Lerners of the bureaucracy, have played the shutdown badly. Like supervisors at the IRS, many want to freelance their pettiness to showcase their Obama fides\u2014and thereby screw up. No one wishes to see veterans turned away from open-air monuments, while illegal aliens are invited into public federal spaces to protest against their supposedly insensitive host whose laws they are daily breaking (at a time of a government shutdown, try protesting en masse in the Z\u00f3calo in Mexico City for your inherent rights as an illegal, foreign resident of Mexico).<\/p>\n

Second, the long-term trajectory of the debate is not so sanguine for the Democrats. The initial news of the Obamacare inaugural is horrible\u2014aside from the inability of so-called techies and social-media gurus to run a website (can\u2019t the geniuses who ran the websites of Obama 2012 run those of the ACA?). True, for now the bad press is eclipsed by the shutdown. But there is nothing intrinsic in Obamacare that is ever going to make people like it. Well before the long waits and reduced care, the carefree young struggling to find a part-time job will be shocked by a huge de facto tax on them; the majority with existing health-care plans will find their premiums spiking; and many of those without insurance, contrary to Obama\u2019s protestations, have always found some avenues for care in free state and federal clinics and emergency rooms that will be seen as preferable to either paying a fine or buying insurance. No one wants to hear that unions, businesses, and government grandees are finding ways to avoid what most cannot.<\/p>\n

Third, there is the impending debt-ceiling debate. If voters don\u2019t like shutdowns, they even more so do not like borrowing another trillion dollars.<\/p>\n

Finally, Obama\u2019s near daily commentaries are utterly incoherent. Well aside from hokey similes, almost everything he says is demonstrably untrue.<\/p>\n

He himself overturned \u201csettled law\u201d by nullifying key parts of his own signature legislation, such as the employer mandate.<\/p>\n

He calls for bipartisanship but proved entirely partisan in ramming through the ACA without a single Republican vote.<\/p>\n

He and his associates call for civility but use the terrorist\/anarchist\/deadbeat\/blackmail metaphors non-stop; when he is not trashing Republicans, Obama is talking down financial markets.<\/p>\n

He cites a unique and dangerous precedent, but knows that the government has been shut down lots of times (by Democrats no less) in the past over similar differences on spending.<\/p>\n

He brags that deficits are coming down, but knows (as is the case of increased gas and oil production) that is true only despite not because of his efforts, and due mostly to the prior debate over the debt ceiling that ushered in sequestration.<\/p>\n

And he knows that no one was more eloquent in voicing the current Republican position on the debt ceiling than he was as a senator in 2006 when the debt was $8 trillion less than it is now. Given all that, his bully pulpit has proven mostly pathetic.<\/p>\n

Who knows what Obama\u2019s compromise position will be\u2014perhaps just getting the bill he always wanted but without any of his subsequent waivers whatsoever: no pet businesses exempt, no politicians and congressional staffers exempt, no employer mandate exemption, no unions exempt: everyone in it together right before the 2014 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO’s\u00a0The Corner At first glance, the Republicans seemed to be losing the so-called shut-down impasse, inasmuch as Obamacare, as the president termed it, was \u201csettled law\u201d and the Republicans did not have the congressional clout to overturn it. No one likes, after all, to be turned away from Yosemite on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,619,278,136],"tags":[12,48,895,40],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Is","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6672,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-redefines-the-shutdown\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":0},"title":"Obamacare Redefines the Shutdown","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 Democratic senators up for reelection in 13 months are now embracing, in their calls to delay Obamacare, the same themes as did the House Republicans and a few senators a few weeks ago\u2014hoping to preempt mounting criticism. In this surreal landscape, three weeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6638,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-heed-thyself\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":1},"title":"Obama, Heed Thyself","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He used to know some important things. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Republicans and Democrats are still name-calling in their arguments over the government shutdown, out-of-control federal spending, and the implementation of Obamacare. Yet if both sides would agree to just follow the earlier advice of President Obama,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/3544735027_8a0ac7b28a-201x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6662,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-shutdown-in-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":2},"title":"The Shutdown in 2014","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 No one knows what the effect of the presently unpopular shutdown will be 13 months from now on the eve of the 2014 elections, but it may be far less than the consequence of the Obamacare rollout. The problem with the website is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6614,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-as-chaos\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":3},"title":"Obama as Chaos","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 Amid all the charges and countercharges in Washington over the government shutdown, there is at least one common theme: Barack Obama\u2019s various charges always lead to a dead end. They are chaos, and chaos is hard to understand, much less refute. By that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/let-obama-be-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":4},"title":"Let Obama Be Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After his party's devastating setback in the 2010 midterm elections, Barack Obama was re-elected earlier this month by painting his Republican opponents as heartless in favoring lower taxes for the rich. They were portrayed as nativists for opposing the Dream Act amnesty for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Obama Administration"","block_context":{"text":"Obama Administration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9671,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9671-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6600,"position":5},"title":"From an Angry Reader: Re:\u2026","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Re: Obama's initiatives What a horrible president and yet, 57% approval rating! Wow! How is that possible! I think he did quite well considering that Republicans vowed on the first day not to work with him and never did! \u00a0Connie Knapp Victor Davis Hanson's Reply: Dear\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6602,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions\/6602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}