GOP congressional
leaders and officials never tire of accusing President Obama of trying to blame
them for the chaos that would result if the nation tumbles over the fiscal
cliff. They are right and they deserve every bit of the blame for pushing the
nation to the budget brink. Surveys and polls consistently show that the
overwhelming majority of Americans say that they want a deal on the budget, and
that deal must include the things that Obama has stood firm on. They are that
the Bush tax cuts must expire on the wealthy, stay in place for the middle
class, no meat ax slashes in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and other
vital spending programs. If there's no deal the majority do blame the failure
on the GOP.
GOP House leaders
floated one tepid, half-baked concession that would have permitted some tax
hikes for the high rollers, and would have gone relatively easy for the time
being on a wholesale hatchet job on entitlements. But it was quickly scuttled
by GOP House conservative hardliners and cheered by tea party leaders as a
cave-in to Obama and the Democrats.
GOP Senate leaders almost certainly will agree to a
few concessions such as an extension of unemployment insurance, keeping the tax
cuts for lower income wage earners intact, allow the current payroll tax cut to expire, and push off any decision on
the debt ceiling and a pledge from Obama that he won't push for more spending
to stimulate economic growth. But GOP House ultra conservatives will
still likely fight to the barricades on the tax hikes and deep spending cuts in
non-military programs, even at the risk of making the party the butt of even more
public ridicule and its taking a further hit on its political credibility.
One reason for this is that the GOP effectively now
has two wings. One of which by knocking down the House leadership's mild concession
on a fiscal deal showed that it still is ready and willing to obstruct, oppose,
and harangue any White House proposal on taxes, spending and any other budget
matter. Conservatives are also ready to intimidate any House or Senate
republican that wants to give-in on any of the Obama proposals. They have the
numbers and the clout in the House to get away with it.
Another reason is the
GOP's unreconstructed decades old stance that increased spending on education,
health, and jobs programs is tantamount to a wild, bloat of the power and reach
of the federal government at the expense of the states and private sector. The
fight to beat back tax hikes on the wealthy is just the GOP's current cover to
make its point about the supposedly dangerous expansion of the power of the
federal government.
Still another reason GOP
hardliners will risk taking the blame tossed at them for playing the role of obstructionists
on the fiscal crisis is that they must remain the gatekeepers for the interests
of the corporate rich. Until Obama made a major dent in corporate and banking
industry political campaign giving, the GOP had always had a firm lock on the
political bank account of the rich. It's been a lucrative partnership. On the
one hand the corporations and financial industry got lax regulatory oversight, bountiful
tax subsidies and benefits, and investment protections. In return, GOP candidates
and incumbents got hefty cash subsidies from the corporate rich for their
campaigns.
But the stiff potential
fall-out from a plunge over the fiscal cliff poses a danger to their neat
arrangement. To prevent that, the GOP will do as little as it can get away with
to deflect the full brunt of the public wrath over its foot drag on cutting a deal to avoid total fiscal collapse. But it
will not give up its sacred cow, which is preserving the perks of the rich, nor
will it sheath the one weapon that it has relentlessly stabbed Obama with. And
that's to slur him and the Democrats as wildly irresponsible tax and spend, big
government devotees, inherently hostile to business. Romney made this the
centerpiece of his strategy to snatch back the White House. It failed with
Romney, but the GOP won't abandon the ploy.
In the days after House
Speaker John Boehner's mild counter proposal to Obama's tax and spending
proposal went down the drain, legions of tea party leaders wildly cheered the
failure. They implored GOP congressional leaders to stand firm against the
White House. The concessions that the
White House will ring out of the GOP won't alter the party's game plan to use
the fiscal cliff and all other vital issues that will come down the legislative
pike to reassert its traditional role as the guardian for the corporate rich
and to defiantly oppose Obama administration policies. For that the GOP will
get much deserved public blame.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent political commentator on
MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio
Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and
Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is the host of
the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.