Obama’s big triumph on the shutdown, debt ceiling

ANALYSIS - if the country, congressional Republicans, congressional Democrats and President Obama all suffered from this 16-day impasse, the Republicans were much more badly damaged...

“There are no winners here,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday, on the evening of a bipartisan vote that raised the debt ceiling, ended the government shutdown and included almost none of the changes Republicans sought on the president’s signature health care law.

But if the country, congressional Republicans, congressional Democrats and President Obama all suffered from this 16-day impasse, the Republicans were much more badly damaged.

And the president, who last month looked indecisive and powerless as members of both parties in Washington and foreign governments rejected his Syria policy, showed a combination of grit and determination in battling the Republicans on fiscal issues that surprised the GOP, delighted his supporters and suggests Obama is far from a lame duck.

“Nobody believes that. Nobody believes that,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) told the National Review on Sept. 28th, when asked about Obama’s posture that he would not negotiate over the debt ceiling. He added, “I think most people believe he’s just posturing for now.”

Republicans had good reason to expect the president would eventually compromise. In 2010, he agreed to leave in place tax cuts for the wealthy that he had spent years railing against. In 2011, an agreement between Obama and Republicans included major spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Even earlier this year, Obama and the GOP reached a compromise on raising taxes on upper-income households that many Democrats felt did not generate enough new revenue.

But over the last two weeks, Obama stood firm. He met with congressional Republicans, but did little negotiating. He blasted the Tea Party, House Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly. He and his aides offered the same message every day: broader discussions with Republicans could happen only after they ended the shutdown and raised the debt ceiling. As the Republicans kept reducing their demands on Obamacare, from defunding the law to delaying it for a year to delaying parts of it, the message from the White House was consistent: no.

It’s not clear exactly what Obama’s success means on other issues. The government funding and debt ceiling increases are only temporary, through the beginning of next year. The president is already talking about moving ahead on immigration reform, but it’s hard to imagine House Republicans, already mad about not being able to blunt “Obamacare,” are eager to enact another one of Obama’s top policy priorities. And the core political divide in Washington on the role of government remains as wide as ever.

Over the last two weeks though, Obama gained, if only because Republicans lost. The voices of the most anti-Obama Republicans, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, will be weakened within in the GOP, at least temporarily. Republicans will have to think twice before pushing for another government shutdown or impasse over the debt ceiling. And the Affordable Care Act, which Obama spent much of his first term getting through Congress, will have the chance to succeed or fail on its merits, instead of being gutted by Republicans before it could truly start.

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