There’s a talking point which says that it’s standard practice to negotiate over the debt ceiling, that ‘clean increases’ rarely happen. This might make it seem like the current strategy is just a normal extension of politics as it has always been done.
The problem is that this completely misses the unique feature of what’s going on here.
It’s perfectly normal to negotiate about must-pass legislation. If by negotiate we mean look for ways to generate political will for a omnibus bill that includes some things that various factions want, but might not otherwise be able to garner sufficient support for. Because the thing HAS to pass, it creates an incentive for all parties to be a little bit more flexible than they would otherwise be. Therefore, structuring negotiations to to tie them into a must-pass bill makes sense.
It’s not at ALL normal to insist on concessions as a condition for allowing must-pass legislation.
The whole point of must-pass legislation is that it HAS to get done. None of the parties involved are willing to let it fail – and so it’s a vehicle for negotiation. But this only works if everyone agrees that it has to pass. The terror about causing a really bad thing to happen motivates them to modulate their requests, give into some requests from the other side, etc.
The current Republican position asserts:
1. The debt ceiling must be raised. Everyone agrees about this
2. Obamacare is bad. Everyone agrees about this
3. The deficit is a huge problem. Everyone agrees about this
If all those things were actually true, then their position would make some sense. The problem is that NONE of those things are true. Democrats quite obviously disagree about numbers 2 and 3. And a vocal (powerful) component of the GOP caucus seems to believe that #1 is false.
Given this, the GOP is not ‘negotiating’ around the debt ceiling. They are asserting the truth of a consensus that quite apparently does not exist, and hoping that if they say it enough times it will start to sound plausible.
This is the only world in which it makes sense to say that Obama is refusing to negotiate. His refusal is only a refusal to step into the fictional world with them.