By Cenk Uger
These budget negotiations were a giant win for the Republican Party. President Obama initially cut $40 billion from his own budget proposal -- and he got absolutely no credit for that. It was a very typical preemptive concession by the president. It was so typical, you wonder if he recognizes what an indisputably terrible strategy it is or if he has a different agenda.
So, after getting no credit for his original $40 billion concession, then the negotiations began at square one. The Republicans claimed in February that they wanted $32 billion in cuts from that point on. About a week ago, the president came out an announced that they had given the Republicans another $33 billion in cuts -- a billion more than they originally asked for. And still the Republicans wanted more.
Why not? They're dealing with the world's worst negotiator, why not ask for more? After February they came up with a brilliant good cop-bad cop strategy with the Tea Party, where they had the Tea Party force them to go to $61 billion in demands. Which pushed the spectrum out further to the right. They know President Obama will go to the middle of any spectrum, no matter how radical. And then once they had baited Obama out to the $33 billion number, which was past their original goal, they baited him out even further. Finally, they got him to $38.5 billion in cuts an hour before the deadline.
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