Why Obama is done negotiating with the GOP

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President Obama has spent much of the last five years trying to reach agreements with Republicans, often in efforts his own supporters said were fruitless or at times counterproductive.

Even after his first four years, when Republicans opposed him at every turn, Obama and top White House officials held long, detailed discussions over the summer with a bloc of GOP senators, unsuccessfully trying to reach a long-term agreement to reduce the federal budget deficit.

But the president has shifted his strategy over the last week, boldly declaring, “I will not negotiate” over raising the debt ceiling and that he would not change his signature health care law “under the threat of a shutdown.” He’s not holding meetings with Republican leaders or calling them to reach a last-ditch agreement. Vice President Biden, who Obama has deployed in the past to cut deals with the GOP, is also not involved in any negotiations.

What’s changed? The administration is trying to create a new normal. They argue that Republican efforts to tie funding the government and increasing the debt ceiling to limiting Obamacare must be met with strong resistance, not compromise. The push to repeal the health care law isn’t a traditional legislative debate, said one senior administration official I spoke to, but part of a broader Republican effort to “undo the first term.” The Republicans trying to link policy changes to the debt ceiling, according to Obama, have created a dangerous precedent that the president wants to end.

“I’m not going to start setting a precedent not just for me, but for future presidents where one chamber in Congress can basically say each time there needs to be a vote to make sure Treasury pays its bills, we’re not going to sign it unless our particular hobbyhorse gets advanced,” Obama said Friday.

This shift is an acknowledgement that Obama’s approach in 2011, when he agreed to a series of funding cuts known as the “sequester” in an agreement that also increased the debt ceiling, was unwise, as it legitimized the House Republican view that a hike in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by spending cuts or some other conservative policy measure.

But this new stance from Obama creates a huge challenge for House Speaker John Boehner.  Conservative members of Congress, like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have created an unrealistic goal of blocking the start of the president’s health care law, convinced grassroots Republicans this goal is actually attainable and now have pushed the debate to a point where the Republican base will be deeply disappointed if some part of the health care law is not scrapped. Boehner, as the top GOP leader in Washington, would take much of the blame.

Obama aides argue that Boehner shouldn’t have allowed the debate to get to this point, and that he needs to find an escape on his own, as he did earlier this year when House Republicans agreed to increase the debt ceiling as part of a bill that required the Senate Democrats to pass a non-binding budget agreement. This was an essentially meaningless concession for Democrats to give the GOP.

Now, Republicans are determined to eliminate some part of the health care law. And in truth, it’s likely Obama’s “I won’t negotiate” stance is movable, as even many Democrats oppose a tax on medical devices included in the health care law. He could at some sign a repeal of that provision.

But Obama and his team don’t want to turn every discussion on budget matters into a chance for Republicans to repeal some part of the president’s achievements over the last five years. As White House officials argue, if the price of a six-week extension government funds (as is being considered now) is reversing the medical device tax, what happens when the U.S. is likely to be near the debt limit later this month? Or when this round of funding expires in November? Republicans will push for more repeals, say White House officials.

That’s why Obama is handling this issue differently; to create a way of negotiating with Republicans. But to achieve this new normal, the president will likely have to first endure a painful government shutdown and face criticism that he is not meeting with Republicans to reshape the outcome.