The Back Room

Boehner complained shortly after the elections that there were too many back-room deals — but that seems to be the only way the 112th operates. Typically just a couple of leaders were directly involved at any one time, while other Members of Congress remained on the outside looking in, some even asking reporters what they’ve heard because they remained in the dark. Leaders keep vowing next time will be different, but it never is.

The Overreach

Both sides have learned the fine art of asking for far more than they can reasonably hope to get at the outset — the better to wind up in a somewhat happy place when the inevitable compromise occurs. Liberals had complained for years that Obama would always lead with a compromise, whether it be a tax-cut-laden stimulus package or not proposing a single-payer health care plan. This time around, the White House started out further left and gave itself more room to maneuver. The president pushed for nearly unchecked authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own while starting the post-re-election revenue bidding at $1.6 trillion — double what he and Boehner had been discussing in the 2011 debt limit talks. Republicans, meanwhile, continued to push for Social Security cuts in the stopgap cliff deal — only to abandon them soon after Democrats began squawking that they were demanding cuts to seniors as their price for helping the unemployed and the middle class. Democrats said they weren’t about to give up Social Security — in the form of lowered cost-of-living increases through “chained CPI” — on the cheap with the debt ceiling unresolved.

Of course, stopping each side’s unrealistic proposals became useful trophies for the other side to help sell to their Members as they round up the votes for the deal.