The best reason so far not to do the coin trick

[drwex]

Props to Felix Salmon in his blog for pushing commonsense reasoning against the coin trick: it's just going to make the situation worse.

To wit, we get into this mess because the Republicans in the House are intransigent. Who here thinks doing an end-run around them is going to make them more cooperative?

Comments

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

I figure the GOP is intractable regardless, succumbing to yet another hostage situation is a Bad Idea, and the coin trick is probably at least not impeachment attempt fodder.

[drwex]

Yeah, I read Dean's column, too. I think he's blowing wind, though I guess it's not entirely impossible that they'd try it.

[dcltdw]

and the coin trick is probably at least not impeachment attempt fodder.

Am I being more-cynical-than-thou? I would think the GOP would be looking for any excuse to do exactly that. (Echo chambers, Fox entertainment, impeachment... I'unno, maybe I'm being too cynical.)

[gsh]

The goal isn't to make them more cooperative. The goal is to prevent a default.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

You're right, the Republicans are intransigent. They're like small children who scream and kick and hold their breath in order to get their way. You can't reason with them, and you can't negotiate with them (unless your definition of "negotiate" happens to be "cave in to their every badly-thought-out plan"). Obama's options boil down to: a) ignore them and try to pull a rabbit out of a hat to fix things or b) let them railroad the government into a mess that they then blame him for. Well, there's always c) kick the bums out, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

[drwex]

I disagree. As I said in my original post on this topic, he has three options, of which two are clearly unconstitutional. The coin trick was invented to get around the third option, but it's the wrong way to approach things.

As I'm reading things now the State of the Union speech isn't until Feb because technically there's an Inauguration and accompanying speech Jan 21. I think we'll know a bit more after that first speech and we'll see how things stand come late Feb. Bernanke has said he can keep shuffling things around until about the end of Feb so we may have a doozy of a State of the Union to look forward to.

[dpolicar]

If intransigence stops working because end-runs are generally feasible, then I expect less intransigence in the long run. If intransigence continues to work, I expect more intransigence.

Which ought not be taken as an endorsement of the coin trick.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

This. It's the reason I have a minor love for the coin trick; it strikes me as a way to basically say "If you're going to act like children..."

At the same time, the coin trick is (forgive me) a one trick pony, in the sense that it will only work once. Congress will look at it, once it's done, and say "Well, no more of *that*, and pass a remarkably restrictive coining law. Bad juju, and thus bad choice all round. But still, it would be a neat hack in the MIT sense...("a clever prank that amuses and delights everyone")

(OK, not everyone. But you get the idea...)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Do you see a course of action that would make them more cooperative?

[gsh]

I'm sure they would cooperate at helping him pass the republican plan.

[drwex]

As I said originally, no, I don't think the Republicans are automatically going to become cooperative. But they need to understand that this dog will not hunt and that Obama will follow his Constitutional mandate. If they don't like that mandate they can bloody well pass a budget they're willing to fund. Or eat sequestration.

[cos]

Ummm... the reasoning in that blog post seems completely stupid to me. It ignores the whole point of the coin "trick", which is to prevent default in case Congress won't raise or repeal the debt ceiling. So everything he says is basically irrelevant. I see nothing even approaching a notion of "common sense" in that post, just irrelevancy.

Edit: As far as its political effects on Congress, I can't see how it could make things any worse. Republicans used the debt ceiling for hostage taking because they believed they held a trump card - that without their support, we'd be stuck, so we needed to do something to get their votes. But this coin proposal just broadcasts to them "hey, we'd like to have your votes, but we don't absolutely need that as much as you though we did". Sure that might make them angry, but it's much more likely to make them more cooperative than less.

However, that's tangential, either way.

[drwex]

I assume you didn't read my first post on this in which I laid out what I see as the options. My opinion remains what it was then - Obama should do the illegal-but-Constitutional thing and inform Congress that it cannot (Constitutionally) pass a budget and obligate the government to certain debts, but then both refuse to pay for those obligations and deny the government the power to borrow to meet the obligations. I believe the debt-ceiling bill is unconstitutional and I believe that issue needs to be confronted head-on, not tricked around.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Congress pass a budget? Oh aren't you funny. *sigh*

[docorion.livejournal.com]

It's a good concept; I personally doubt Obama has the stones for it. He has not, to my lasting regret, shown himself to be a man of principle where fiscal issues are concerned (or many others, at least not if principle stood between him and something else he wanted politically, like re-election). In a less intransigent era he'd be an excellent president; in the current era he's a good president, and has the potential to be excellent, but to do that he needs to grow a lot more backbone, and a willingness to face down the Congress when it counts. Like, you know, now.

(Read the first post a few minutes ago, but responded here since this is more recent)