Obama and Boehner: They have a "rendezvous with destiny"

I have been grappling with this debate about the debt ceiling and the "grand bargain" of spending cuts offset by revenue increases.  I understand why we need to increase the debt ceiling.  I understand why we need to cut some spending programs.  I agree with the need to close tax loopholes and tax breaks for those sending jobs to other countries.  And most of the commentary has been spent talking about the various maneuvers of politicians around these issues.

To me, what has emerged are a few key points:

·        We cannot get out of this mess with spending cuts alone. 

·        We are in trouble because 14 million Americans are out of work; and they are depending on safety-net benefits instead of paying taxes.

·        There is no "partial deal" or "deal on spending cuts" without a full agreement, including revenue enhancement. Despite what the chattering heads may say, Obama and Biden have not agreed to any cuts until and unless the GOP agrees to some revenue increases.

·        The GOP will not allow any discussion of revenue increases.  They consider the elimination of tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthy to be "job killing tax increases on small business."

·        Going into last weekend, the President and Speaker Boehner wanted to try for a big deal – three trillion dollars in spending cuts and one trillion dollars in revenue increases.

·        Speaker Boehner discovered he did not have the support of enough Republicans in the House to make this deal a reality.  In this effort, he appears to have been challenged by the GOP Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA.)

·        As a result, the Speaker backed away from the potential historic deal and started setting smaller targets.  In these efforts, he was still undercut by Cantor.

·        With the Republicans refusing to consider any revenue growth ideas, while wanting to undermine the social safety net for children, the disabled, the unemployed and the elderly, the Democrats are beginning to position themselves politically for a potential take-over of the Congress in the upcoming 2012 elections.

These developments led me to consider what I would do if I were John Boehner.  I would conclude the following:

·        Boehner will be a one-term Speaker. Either Cantor will challenge him or the GOP will lose control of the House and he'll be rejected as leader.

·        Boehner may want to consider his "place in history" now that his career is ending.

·        Taking the country to the edge of bankruptcy and undermining the "full faith and credit" of the US Treasury is not a legacy a reasonable person wants to see on his resume'.

·        Boehner should work with Minority Leader Pelosi and her team to find an agreement (or a "clean bill") for which the two parties together can provide enough votes to get it passed in the House of Representatives.  (Yes, I understand this means more Democrats will likely vote for it than Republicans. But then the Democrats believe in more than politics – they believe in governance.)

·        Boehner and Pelosi then must assure there are sufficient votes in the US Senate to support this measure.

If this can be done, the President will sign the debt ceiling extension measure.

John Boehner reminds me of Senator Ross in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage: "I almost literally looked down into my open grave. Friendships, position, fortune, everything that makes life desirable to an ambitious man were about to be swept away. . ."

If President Obama understands Boehner's position in this situation I call on him to encourage the Speaker to do the right thing for the country.  Obama and Boehner have been dealt a bad hand: a broken economy and high unemployment; dropping federal revenues; un-funded wars and under-funded benefit expansions.  This is not the time to debate who is to blame for this situation.  This is the time to act to change the direction, to "bend the curve" and set us back on course for a successful future.

In the election year of 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed his Party's convention in Philadelphia with words that ring true today:

We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

. . .

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Photo Credit:

Washington, DC - July 12: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) answers reporters' questions during a press briefing after a caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol July 12, 2011 in Washington, DC. The House Republicans spoke about the ongoing budget and debt limit talks between Congress and the White House. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Name-Calling

MR. GREGORY [on the subject of "birthers"]:  As the speaker of the House, as a leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?

SPEAKER BOEHNER:  David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think.  Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people.

– "Meet the Press", February 13, 2011

An Editorial writer at the New York Times (and David Gregory) took issue with this response, seeing it as disingenuous.  Let's consider another possibility. 

Assume there are basically two ways of thinking:

Type1 – Dualism: black-white, wrong-right, evil-good; apocalyptic –
Child-like

The thinking goes something like this:

     My side is right and good.

     The other side is wrong and therefore Evil.

     Things I don't understand are scary to me and therefore Bad.

     I will stick with my side because they're good and I'm good.

Dualistic thinking can lead to a straight-forward, consistent message and solid group cohesion.

Type 2 – Complexity, tones of gray – Grown-up

     Sometimes I'm right, sometimes you're right.

     By sharing differing perspectives, we can find solutions to our problems.

     My side is not always right or good; sometimes I don't have a "side" at all.

     Things I don't understand make me curious to learn more.

     I will challenge my side when I believe they're wrong.

     I will approach the other side as if they think the same way I do, even if their perspective is different.

What is the opposite of cohesion ? Confusion – that is, the message is complicated and may seem confused. [Most of us have heard the line, attributed to Will Rogers, "I belong to no organized party, I'm a Democrat."]  The consistency is in the process, how one thinks about problems, not in the "answers."

So, if I'm a Type 1 person I might think about the president this way:

I am right and good; I disagree with Obama, therefore he is wrong and evil.

Other things that are bad:

     Anyone who's not American born

     Muslims (who honor something called "Sharia Law")

     Street-wise men of color

     People who want to take my guns, and so forth.

Therefore, Obama is not American-born, is a Muslim, wants to impose Sharia Law, a thug who wants to take my guns away, etc. etc.

So perhaps it's not disingenuous for a leader who's constituency holds many Type 1 voters to say, "The American people have the right to think what they think."  Conceivably the Speaker is just reflecting an understanding of the community his party represents.

Is it possible this is about epithets, not "facts"?  If so, there's no wonder Democrats are frustrated; facts as they understand them are irrelevant to a significant number of American voters.  Perhaps it's time to come up with a whole different understanding of "facts."

NOTE:  I have simplified some important concepts to help get me to my point more directly. Much good work has been done in the area of conflict and communications. Excellent examples can be found in the  works of W. Barnett Pearce, such as his books Communication and the Human Condition and Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (the latter with Stephen W. Littlejohn.) All Barnett's work is informed and intriguing.

[Image Credit:

Obama as a pimp, from TeaParty.Org email, January 2010

Reported at Talking Points Memo, January 28, 2010]