The WaPo’s Debt Ceiling Nothingburger

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

So I finally got around to reading this weekend’s big Washington Post tick tock about last year’s debt ceiling negotiations. Jon Chait goaded me into it by writing a post saying that everyone was missing the real bombshell in the piece. Yes, the deal traded $800 billion in tax increases for $1.7 trillion in spending cuts. Nothing new there. Yes, the deal got derailed after the “Gang of Six” unveiled a more ambitious proposal that suggested Republicans could live with more than $800 billion in tax increases. Nothing new there either. The real news, he says, was that the $800 billion in revenues was mostly just a phantom in the first place, and Obama was willing to sell out the left by accepting this:

In Boehner’s offer Friday night, the taxes came with strings attached. The Republicans wanted Obama to give up plans to raise the tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans, now set at 35 percent. Instead, they wanted that rate to go down….Another key caveat: Much of the $800 billion would have to come from overhauling the tax code — not from higher tax rates. The Republicans believed lower rates and a simpler code would generate new revenue by discouraging cheating and spurring economic growth. If the White House would agree to count that money, the Republican leaders said, then they might have a deal.

That last condition was a problem. For years, Democrats have mocked the Republican argument that tax cuts pay for themselves by boosting the economy….So there were issues to work out that Sunday but also reason for optimism. In its counterproposal, the White House appeared to accept the $800 billion tax offer and a lower top rate….When Boehner brought up economic growth, arguing that his caucus would not accept tax increases under any other terms, the Republicans saw Geithner as receptive, Jackson said. “It was literally one of the last things discussed when they came in on that Sunday. And Geithner said, ‘Yes, we accept that,’?” Jackson recalled. “We viewed it as a breakthrough.”

On this point, the two sides are in dispute. Geithner and other administration officials say it never happened. They strenuously deny agreeing to count revenue from economic growth, a process known as “dynamic scoring.” Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte said the Republicans “were kidding themselves” if they thought the White House would concede that point. “That’s always been a total non-starter for Secretary Geithner and this administration and always will be,” she said.

Meh. The story doesn’t say that Obama accepted the notion that the new revenue would mostly come from dynamic scoring. It says the two sides disagree about who accepted what. Big surprise. And anyway, even this isn’t new. Here’s Jay Newton-Small a few days after the deal fell apart:

Late last Sunday morning, House Speaker John Boehner and his No. 2, majority leader Eric Cantor, found themselves in White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley’s West Wing office talking with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about how tax reform, if done right, could produce $800 billion in new revenues over the next 10 years through growth and by closing loopholes. Sensitive to an anti-tax promise taken by most of the House Republicans, the negotiators felt this would be a way to raise revenues without breaking the pledge.

In other words, Cantor was hellbent on raising revenue without breaking the Republicans’ no-higher-taxes pledge. Instead, some of the additional revenue would come via higher growth and some would come from broadening the tax base by closing loopholes and reducing tax expenditures. Did they end up agreeing on this? Nobody knows.

To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything new in the WaPo piece. There are a few details here and there, and a bit more recreated dialog, but nothing substantive. It’s the same story we’ve heard from the very beginning: It was a lousy deal; the revenue increases were dubious; it got derailed after the Gang of Six released its plan and Obama asked Boehner for more revenue; and it got scuttled completely when Boehner refused to accept Obama’s offer to go back to the original deal. Unless I’m missing something, we already knew all this.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate