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In the latter Obama years he finally grew a spine and adamantly refused to negotiate with the GOP over the Debt Ceiling and the radicals inevitably caved every single time. This lesson was learned from the 2011 Debt Ceiling Showdown where the Boehner House with some help from Cantor put the full faith and credit of the American Economy on the line in order to extract concessions from Obama. In other words extortion. Obama eventually did a horrible job prosecuting his case and from the start was obsessed with a Grand Bargain fairy tale that would have gutted Entitlement benefits. Considering that Boehner didn’t even have the support of his Caucus, it is rather dubious whether an agreement would have held but my question is 2 parts:
1) how would a successful agreement have affected the 2012 election? Obama was able to effectively caricature Romney as a venture capital vampire laying off workers left and right while Obama was the defender of the Social Safety Net. How effective would they be in tarring Obama?
2) Let’s say Obama takes on a no negotiation stance from the beginning. Will Boehner cave the closer it gets to Doomsday. And if neither side blinks, what would the Economic effects be and who gets the blame?