I wanted to make a remark or two about Bob Woodward’s reporting of the failure of President Obama to reach an agreement with House Speaker John Boehner on spending and taxation last summer:
The book, “The Price of Politics,” on sale Sept. 11, 2012, shows how close the president and the House speaker were to defying Washington odds and establishing a spending framework that included both new revenues and major changes to long-sacred entitlement programs.
But at a critical juncture, with an agreement tantalizingly close, Obama pressed Boehner for additional taxes as part of a final deal — a miscalculation, in retrospect, given how far the House speaker felt he’d already gone.
The president called three times to speak with Boehner about his latest offer, according to Woodward. But the speaker didn’t return the president’s phone call for most of an agonizing day, in what Woodward calls a “monumental communications lapse” between two of the most powerful men in the country.
When Boehner finally did call back, he jettisoned the entire deal. Obama lost his famous cool, according to Woodward, with a “flash of pure fury” coming from the president; one staffer in the room said Obama gripped the phone so tightly he thought he would break it.
“He was spewing coals,” Boehner told Woodward, in what is described as a borderline “presidential tirade.”
“He was pissed…. He wasn’t going to get a damn dime more out of me. He knew how far out on a limb I was. But he was hot. It was clear to me that coming to an agreement with him was not going to happen, and that I had to go to Plan B.”
Hat tip: James Joyner
In negotiations when one party re-opens a subject that the other party believes already to have been settled and then, when called on it, reacts angrily, it is reasonable to conclude that the party that re-opened the previously settled subject was negotiating in bad faith, i.e. had no intention of arriving at an equitable settlement. At that point withdrawal from negotiations is the only viable alternative.
Something else I’ve mentioned here before: there is an asking price, a selling price, and an insult price, i.e. a price so out of the ballpark that it’s taken as a deliberate affront to the other party. It’s also possible that’s how Speaker Boehner interpreted the president’s escalating offer.
Both of these things are traps that experienced negotiators should know how to avoid. I think this adds weight to an argument I’ve made here before: I don’t think that Barack Obama’s experience in Illinois prepared him for a situation in which he would need to negotiate. Indeed, his election to the U. S. Senate here was a mark of just how supine the Illinois Republican Party has been.
In negotiations when one party re-opens a subject that the other party believes already to have been settled and then, when called on it, reacts angrily, it is reasonable to conclude that the party that re-opened the previously settled subject was negotiating in bad faith, i.e. had no intention of arriving at an equitable settlement. At that point withdrawal from negotiations is the only viable alternative.
I don’t know how you’re getting this interpretation from the above summary. It’s pretty clear that Obama’s anger was subsequent to Boehner’s avoiding his calls for a day. That’s not “calling him on it,” that’s backing out.
” there is an asking price, a selling price, and an insult price”
A concise, apt phrase applied to negotiations, one that I will remember….
Also, Woodward’s rendition of of the details surrounding this much talked about attempt, between Boehner and Obama, to come to a compromised agreement about the debt crisis, fits with what Boehner has said happened, all along. Boehner went out on a limb to make the concessions he did, thinking he had a deal, when Obama (perhaps pushed by congressional dems) upped the ante, wanting more taxes. Such a move was the straw that broke the donkey’s back, so to speak — becoming the ‘insult’ part of the negotiation.
Obama and his people, though, played the breakage of this deal differently, saying it was all Boehner’s fault. And, this has been replayed, forever more, in the liberal blogs.
I don’t know how true it is, but even today Boehner has expressed at least an openness about meeting again, before the election, and before another crisis of “what to do about the tax cuts’ looms in Congress’s face. But, there seems not be any sign of a door opening, from obama, to do this.
I’m a big fan of the negotiating books, “Getting to Yes,” and “Getting Past No.” I thumbed through my copy of the latter earlier and confirmed that “escalating demands,” which Obama is accused of employing, are in the “What if They Use Dirty Tricks?” chapter of the book. The recommended response is call the dirty trick to their attention and then perhaps take a break and consider whether and on what basis to continue negotiating.
These recommendations are pretty dire for a book dedicated to negotiated solutions. The tactic is deemed completely deleterious to getting to an agreement; taking a break at a minimum prevents an escalation of emotions, personal attacks, and retributory demands. I can’t imagine anybody reading the full excerpt cannot see emotions playing a negative role here.
Now, did Obama escalate demands? I think the answer is almost certainly yes. There is corroborating evidence in a gang of six in the Senate, reaching an agreement with more revenue raisers. Obama thought this was grounds for escalation, in which case he sorrowfully misunderstood that the way to the House was not through a few guys in the Senate. (That may be a “state office” problem, the makeup of the lower and upper chambers at state levels is not as dramatically different; the U.S. Senate is less responsitive to public opinion.)
Matt Bai’s version is much more detailed. It details how the $800 billion in revenue was achieved, the Senate meetings, and how the GOP asked for extra spending cuts after an initial deal was made. We dont really know if Woodward’s book goes into that kind of detail.
Steve
steve, I don’t see how Bai’s rendition is different in the particulars:
“the White House had the sense that something important had shifted. More than 20 Republican senators, by some counts, had stood up in favor of a plan that would raise more revenue, and Obama thought he now had an opportunity to exert more pressure on House Republicans by highlighting the widening split inside their own party. Shortly after noon, Obama took the unusual step of marching out to the briefing room to declare his support for the Gang of Six, instantly elevating what was supposed to have been an informal, sparsely attended briefing into the day’s national news. It was, in retrospect, a costly miscalculation. ”
. . .
“As White House aides would later present it, Boehner’s guys took this news with equanimity, indicating they were skeptical but willing to talk. The speaker’s aides, however, say they were reeling. A deal is a deal, a mystified Jackson told Daley. He and Loper hoped the alarm in the White House might be a temporary overreaction and that Obama might relent once he and Boehner had a chance to talk.”
The door to the House is not through the Senate, trust is necessary for compromise, and publicly recanting a prospective deal meant that Obama could no longer guarantee Congressional Democrats and Boehner could no longer guarantee House Republicans. Obama couldn’t walk back without losing face. This was a fatal miscalculation.
@PD- Bai’s article is still unflattering for Obama, and Boehner, but it lays out how they got there and adds in other areas of conflict, like the floor vs ceiling that were, apparently, just as important as the extra $400 billion. It also notes that Boehner asked for the same amount in Medicare/Medicaid after they had an initial agreement. It also notes that there was, probably, an offer to go back to the original $800 billion offer. It also makes it clear that Boehner could only present that $800 billion as money that would be achieved through tax cuts, leading to increased revenue. Thus, Boehner wanted that $800 billion as a ceiling. (The biggest mistake Obama made was not supporting the Senate plan, though it is not clear it was really going anywhere. When Obama made the request for the extra revenue, I am sure that Boehner knew the Senate was contemplating a larger increase.)
Of course, we havent actually seen Woodward’s book, but everyone has made up their mind already.
@PD- So when Boehner asked for an extra $400 billion in cuts, it was not escalation?
Steve
To be clear, Boehner doesn’t look all that good in the WaPo story either. Negotiating behind the backs of other senior Republican leaders and badly misjudging Obama make him look untrustworthy and smudge* too.
And what the Hell was this supposed to mean?
What’s that supposed to mean, John, that he can kinda/sorta control his worst impulses and you don’t even bother trying? That you’re a drunkard that can’t function without alcohol? Freakin’ idiot. But Drew and jan want me to believe that Boehner is part of the solution and not part of the problem. No way, straight Scourge Party ticket for me.
Not one of the top leaders in that story looks good, except maybe (God help us all) Joe Biden.
* A reference to The Office.
@steve, I don’t see an extra $400 billion in spending cuts mentioned in the Bai article or the Woodward excerpt.
I think the Democrats p.o.v. is that there never was a deal because nothing was ever definite and Boehner never had the votes. That points to a problem at the beginning of the negotiations in terms of tallying the vote counts. I find it odd that no House Democrat is mentioned in these article, either providing a vehicle for some Democratic votes or advising the POTUS on reasonable expectation on the votes Boehner can deliver. Something like 40 House Republicans signed a fairly rigid non-revenue-raising pledge, and some of them probably don’t care if they are re-elected, so they are immune from leadership discipline.
@PD- 25th paragraph. Starts with “no one”. I see your point about the vote counts, but the whole idea was so toxic, at least it was perceived so by both Boehner and Obama, that they were trying to keep it secret until they reached a deal. Hard to do counts that way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html?pagewanted=all
Per wiki, the latest count on the Norquist pledge.
“As of late 2011, 238 of 242 House Republicans and 41 out of 47 Senate Republicans had signed ATR’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”, in which the pledger promises to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”[
Steve
@steve
Per wiki, the latest count on the Norquist pledge.
These are politicians making the pledge. They will be for it before they are against it and for it after they were against it. How many of them were for term limits before the limit of their came due.
@steve, that doesn’t read to me like additional cuts. The parties met reached a verbal agreement, shook on it, and Boehner’s group sent over ” a three-page proposal based on the discussions,” which included “more than $450 billion in combined cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade alone.” I think the author is trying to emphasize at this point in the piece, after focusing on how difficult and strained it was to get revenue enhancers from Boehner, that Democrats were also compromising on significant spending issues. There is no complaint lodged about Boehner changing the basic bargain. For the Obama team, “[t]he debate now was about what it would take to get the votes. ”
The pledge I was referring to was the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge made by a group of 39 House Republicans, those are the most intransigent members to any compromise.
“There is no complaint lodged about Boehner changing the basic bargain.”
No, there was not. When Obama asked for more revenue, Boehner responded by ending the talks. In one case, it was a continuation of negotiations. In the other, it was portrayed differently. I cant tell why that is the case. Offers went back and forth. The last offer was rejected. That last one is considered a bad faith offer for some reason.
Steve