Fall Preview

[ClydeR]

Background..

The last debt ceiling crisis was in 2011, as a set up for the 2012 elections. The next debt ceiling crisis will be this fall, as a set up for the 2014 elections. Last time, Obama vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling, but he eventually did anyway. This time, Obama vows not to negotiate over the debt ceiling, and this time he really means it, since he's not running for reelection.


WASHINGTON — Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the Treasury Department said on Monday that it expected to lose the ability to pay all of the government’s bills in mid-October.

More... (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/us/politics/treasury-warns-congress-over-raising-debt-ceiling.html)


The Players..


Speaker Boehner..


House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that getting the GOP-controlled House to agree to raising the U.S. debt ceiling will only come with a bipartisan deal to make cost-saving changes to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, farm programs and government pensions.

More... (http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/26/2726580/popkey-boehner-visits-boise-still.html)

("Farm programs" = food stamps)


President Obama..


In an interview on CNBC Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Jack repeated, multiple times, the Obama administration's familiar line that the President "won't negotiate" over raising the nation's debt limit later this fall.

"The President has made it clear: we're not going to negotiate over the debt limit," Lew said.

That has been a sticking point for President Barack Obama since the summer of 2011, when negotiations over the debt ceiling led to a near breach and played a part in a downgrade of the nation's credit rating. During the fiscal cliff debate late last year, Obama said he wouldn't be negotiating over the debt limit.

Lew drew a contrast between the upcoming fiscal debates, which also includes the need to pass a continuing-resolution bill to fund the government after Sept. 30. In another familiar line, he cast the debt-limit debate as one over bills that Congress has already racked up.

"The debt limit is just different. ... These are old bills that have to be paid," he said.

More... (http://www.businessinsider.com/debt-ceiling-deadline-jack-lew-john-boehner-obama-2013-8)


The Republican Base..


Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is set to announce Tuesday that she has signed on to the Defund Obamacare movement.

More... (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/27/sarah-palin-backs-defund-obamacare/)

[ClydeR]

("Farm programs" = food stamps)

My fall preview was spot on. Republicans need to continue to hold together, like they did with their bill that would keep the government open if we cancel Obamacare and food stamps.


So it's worth asking if the share of households on food stamps has any effect on House members' votes once you take their party affiliation into account. It appears they don't. If you do a simple regression trying to explain how members voted with only two explanatory variables — the member's party, and the share of his or her district on food stamps — the latter isn't even close to statistically significant.

Now, that doesn't mean that members of Congress aren't responding to the views of their districts, since presumably economic conditions of districts — including food stamp usage — help determine which party represents them. But Democrats in districts with barely any food stamp users (such as Henry Waxman, whose district's SNAP usage rate is a paltry 1.7 percent) all voted against cut, and Republicans in districts with huge numbers of food stamp users (such as Hal Rogers, 29 percent of whose district's households are on SNAP) almost all voted for them. It's yet another indication that House members are becoming less and less motivated by parochial interests of their districts and more and more unified on party lines.

More... (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/20/the-lesson-of-the-food-stamps-vote-party-is-all-that-matters-now/)