Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives (36 page)

Then McCarthy gave his presentation, which he entitled,
Lessons Learned from the CR.
One such lesson: “Let’s not do numerous votes on this.” They had done this from February to April with a series of short-term Continuing Resolutions, and all the experience had done was create divisions rather than promote unity within the conference. The whip advised them to settle on a package that could muster 218 votes. Two other lessons: they should avoid continually modifying the original proposal and thereby risk confusing the message; and they should develop their own numbers rather than allowing other numbers to be imposed on them.

The members then contributed their thoughts. Some said that they would vote to raise the debt ceiling only if serious spending caps were mandated. Some demanded that Obama agree to repeal his own health care legislation. Many insisted on a balanced budget constitutional
amendment as a precondition. But during the early sessions, most of the questions and comments expressed doubts that the debt ceiling actually needed to be raised.

McCarthy wrote down all of their ideas on a notepad. He rejected none of them as impractical or wrongheaded. On the contrary, he encouraged them to think big. “We all ran for a reason,” he reminded them. “What’s most of concern to you? What is it that we think will change America?”

To the whip’s delight, several of the freshmen began coming back for more listening sessions. They were drilling down deeper. Everyone was having their say. By McCarthy’s informal count, by the end of May only a dozen or so freshmen were still a “no” under any circumstances. The rest would vote “aye,” if the deal was right.

At 10
A.M.
on June 1
, 2011, President Obama met with the House Republican conference in the East Room of the White House. Though the meeting had no agenda, everyone present was aware of the looming August 2 deadline to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion in order to prevent a default on the nation’s obligations.

The previous evening, Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp brought to the floor a “clean” debt ceiling bill—that is, one with no preconditions attached—and promptly urged his colleagues to vote against it. No Republican voted for it, and House Democrats derided the bill as an unserious ploy. But from the White House there was silence. Already Obama had tacitly accepted that a raising of the debt ceiling would have to come with some kind of deficit reduction package. Already the Republicans were winning the negotiations.

“I’m deadly serious about facing up to the debt and the deficit,” the president began. “Time is of the essence—we can’t wait until August 2.”

To the Republicans’ surprise, Obama then said, “We need to reform entitlements.”

The president also surprised them by saying, “If you’re truly interested in reducing health care costs, I’m ready to do something about tort reform.”

But Obama also indicated his determination to see revenue increases as part of any deficit reduction package that would accompany a debt ceiling deal. And several members gasped when the president
observed that negotiations would be eased if all sides toned down the “demagoguing.”

Paul Ryan had something to say on the latter subject. The Budgeteer reminded the president who had recently claimed that the Ryan budget would end Medicare for autistic children. “You’ve mischaracterized my plan,” Ryan said. He then proceeded to reexplain the “Medicare premium support” component to his Road Map to Prosperity. When he was finished, the Republicans awarded him a standing ovation.

Speaker Boehner urged the president, “This is the moment. Let’s not kick the can down the road. We’re waiting for a plan from you.”

Obama responded that any plan he sent over to the House would likely “be dead on arrival.”

Only if it wasn’t a serious plan, countered Kevin McCarthy. “The budget you sent over wasn’t a serious one—it didn’t get one vote from any Democrat in the Senate.”

After the Republican leaders and committee chairmen each spoke, there was time for a comment from a single freshman. McCarthy had seen to it that the designee be Reid Ribble of Wisconsin. Ribble was a plain-spoken owner of a highly successful roofing business. During one of McCarthy’s dinners, Ribble spoke of a regulation that had once been on the books forbidding workers from carrying plastic water bottles up to a rooftop—thus necessitating frequent (and dangerous) trips up and down the ladder to drink. McCarthy wanted Ribble to share that story of egregious overregulation with the president.

In fact, Ribble had already received face time with the president when he, as a Wisconsin native, was invited to the White House on Super Bowl Sunday to eat sports bar food and drink Hinterland beer while watching the Green Bay Packers defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers. But in addition to being a personal favorite of McCarthy’s and the quintessential small businessman, Ribble had also been a loyal team player, never once crossing the Republican leadership on a major vote.

Ribble reintroduced himself to the president and mentioned unfair regulations. But his main message was about the debt. During the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II, the freshman said, America took on debt for the sake of “a bigger cause than ourselves.” But today, by asking for a higher debt ceiling, the president was asking “future generations of this country to pay a debt for ourselves.”

The freshmen clapped for their colleague. But after seventy-five minutes, there had been only speeches and partisan applause and nothing close to agreement.

Just after the meeting broke up, Idaho Tea Party freshman Raul Labrador made his way up to the president. Not one to mince words, Labrador said to Obama, “I actually want to take issue with—well, with a lot of things. But specifically, I don’t think this freshman class would treat anything you send to the House as dead on arrival. We’re more interested in actually getting something done. If your issues and values are going to be close to our issues and values, we can actually work together.”

Obama seemed to be listening intently. “I can’t speak for the senior members who’ve been here and are more jaded by politics,” Labrador went on. “But the freshmen really do want to fix the problems of the country.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” the president replied. He looked around and noticed that several other freshmen were standing by, nodding along with Labrador’s sentiment. “I’d like to work with you, too.” The new House liaison for the White House, Jonathan Samuels, stepped forward and handed Labrador his card.

The freshman never heard from the White House after that. Nor did the White House hear from Labrador.

On Wednesday, June 22, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn had lunch with fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The previous day, Clyburn had met for the ninth time with a bipartisan group of representatives and senators
led by Vice President Joe Biden
to discuss a debt ceiling deal. His fellow CBC members were as skeptical of such backroom negotiations as the Republican Tea Party freshmen. They felt that the final Continuing Resolution agreement hammered out by Boehner and Obama unfairly targeted discretionary programs for the poor and minorities while leaving defense spending and tax giveaways for the rich largely intact. Now they feared that the so-called Biden talks would produce the same outcome.

Clyburn’s presence at the table was intended to quell those concerns. He had repeatedly called for “compassion” during such talks. Clyburn’s definition of compassion was in fact broader than simply looking after
the less fortunate. He had in mind the biblical parable of the Samaritan who tended to a man that had been robbed and beaten—presumably a man of some means, perhaps even a job creator. As the sole Democrat in the South Carolina delegation (albeit one in a district protected by Voting Rights Act provisions to guarantee minority representation), Clyburn had learned how to make himself relevant in a conservative state. He was pronuclear and along with Senator Lindsey Graham had been instrumental in acquiring funding to deepen the Charleston port. Nonetheless, his role during the Biden talks was clearly that of the Democratic Party’s conscience. At one point, Eric Cantor proposed block-granting food stamps—a popular conservative idea that Speaker Gingrich’s House Republicans had pushed in 1995 and had also been included in the Ryan budget plan. Much as with what Ryan had in mind for Medicaid, the proposal would essentially do away with the food stamp program and instead send each state a lump sum of federal money to spend on feeding the poor however they saw fit.

“If you knew the history of my state,” the South Carolina African-American told the Republicans, “you wouldn’t be in favor of that.”

Cantor backed down immediately, and the subject did not come up again.

At the CBC lunch, Clyburn had good news for his black colleagues. The talks were going very well, he assured them. “I’d be very surprised if we didn’t get something very positive done that each one of you guys will be able to vote for.”

After the lunch, Clyburn returned to the Capitol to meet for the tenth time with Biden, fellow Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Democratic Senators Max Baucus and Dan Inouye, and Republican Senator Jon Kyl. What Clyburn did not know was that it would be the group’s final meeting.

Throughout the talks, four documents sat alongside the seven men: the Ryan budget proposal, President Obama’s budget framework, the report by the White House debt commission known as Bowles-Simpson, and the bipartisan task force plan steered by former Republican Senator Pete Domenici and former Clinton White House budget director Alice Rivlin. Obama’s framework proposed to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion over the next decade; Bowles-Simpson by $3.8
trillion; Rivlin-Domenici by $6 trillion; and Ryan’s plan by $6.2 trillion. Three of the four proposals included revenue increases as part of the package. Only the Republican plan authored by Paul Ryan did not.

During the very first meeting, on May 5 at Blair House, across the street from the White House, the vice president made clear that President Obama would only sign on to a deal that included revenue increases. Cantor and Kyl did not object. After the fourth meeting, on May 24, Biden repeated publicly the stipulation that “revenues are gonna have to be in the deal,” while Cantor publicly said the opposite: “Tax increases are not going to be something we’re going to support in the House.”

Chris Van Hollen was not picking up on the positive vibes that had compelled Clyburn to speak so hopefully to his Congressional Black Caucus colleagues. Over the course of several meetings, both sides had outlined potential areas of spending cuts. The Democrats had also offered a menu of possible cuts in the mandatory health programs—all with the understanding that nothing was agreed to unless everything was agreed to. The vice president wanted to pay out the rope, keep the process going, hoping that the Republicans would be sufficiently encouraged by the Democrats’ willingness to show their hand that they might finally do the same. Cantor in particular had impressed the Democrats with his congeniality and depth of policy knowledge. For a time, they interpreted these qualities as evidence that the majority leader was eager to cut a deal.

The day just prior to the CBC lunch, the Biden group had convened with a single item on the agenda: revenue proposals. Two Treasury officials, including Secretary Tim Geithner, went through a menu of options. The Republicans listened politely but declined each revenue-raising possibility. The Democrats were plaintive:
You guys just tell us which one of these you hate the least. Can we start with corporate jets? Oil and gas subsidies? Just tell us.

It was clear to Van Hollen that Cantor and Kyl’s strategy was to elicit from the Democrats what they would be willing to give up on the entitlements side while offering no such list of revenue options in return. Later that afternoon on the House floor, Democratic caucus chairman John Larson of Connecticut inquired hopefully about the progress.

“We’re screwed,” Van Hollen told him.

At the Wednesday meeting immediately following Clyburn’s lunch with the CBC, the Democrats decided to be more emphatic about where they stood. After acknowledging the concessions the Democrats might be willing to make on Medicare and Medicaid, Van Hollen then said, “We’re not going to engage in this debate seriously unless you’re going to engage seriously on the revenue piece.”

Cantor replied that the Republicans had no intention of going there.

“What are you guys giving, then?” Biden asked.

“Well, we’re giving you the vote on the debt ceiling,” said Cantor. “You may not think that’s a big deal. But you’ve got to understand, I’ve got a lot of guys who think that not raising the debt ceiling wouldn’t be such a bad thing—that in fact it’s just what we need.”

The Democrats weren’t sure what to say.

Cantor added, somewhat abashedly: “We’re working hard to educate our guys.”

The meeting broke up cordially. Biden said, “Guys, we’re running out of time. We’d better schedule some more meetings.” Everyone agreed to do so, including Eric Cantor.

The others in the room were not privy to the wheels turning inside the majority leader’s head. Despite the attack-dog nature of his job, Cantor was an exceedingly cautious man. He did not want to get far ahead of his own conference and thus become 2011’s version of Roy Blunt, who had played a critical role in negotiating with Democrats the details of the 2008 Troubled Assets Relief Program, which multitudes of Republicans ended up voting against and for which conservatives would never forgive Blunt. If Cantor’s conference was not willing to consider revenue increases, there was no point in pretending otherwise. It did not help matters that, as Cantor learned after the fact, Boehner had met privately with Obama at the White House a few hours after the Biden meeting on Wednesday to discuss possible tax reform as part of a “grand bargain.” Cantor and Biden had struck up a rapport along the way, and the VP had told him some things about ongoing dialogue between Boehner and Obama of which Cantor had not been aware. The majority leader didn’t see how he could continue to negotiate one kind of deal with the vice president while the Speaker was negotiating a different—and, from a revenue standpoint, antithetical—deal with the president.