President Obama Had Two Major Victories Last Night And They Had Nothing To Do With The State Of The [View all]

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Last edited Wed Jan 29, 2014, 09:35 PM - Edit history (1)

President Obama Had Two Major Victories Last Night And They Had Nothing To Do With The State Of The Union

by Danny Vinik at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/president-obama-had-two-major-victories-last-night-and-they-had-nothing-to-do-with-the-state-of-the-union-2014-1

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But the president did have two decisive victories last night, and neither had anything to do with his actual speech.

1. Republicans gave in on the debt ceiling. Just before his address last night, Politico reported that House Republican leaders were privately saying that there would be no debt ceiling fight this time around. This is a massive victory for the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who both stuck to a hard line last October during the previous debt ceiling fight and refused to negotiate. This was a matter of principle. President Obama regretted making concessions in the debt ceiling fight in 2011 and want to set a standard that the debt ceiling cannot be used as an extortion device.

If Republicans are truly waving the white flag, then the president has set that standard. He has disarmed the debt ceiling for good.

2. Obamacare repeal is 100%, officially dead. Throughout the past couple of weeks, the Republican Party's position on Obamacare has slowly shifted from repealing the law to fixing it. They weren't vocal about this development but party leaders knew that repealing Obamacare in its entirety was no longer a politically viable strategy now that millions have gotten insurance through it. That's why the alternative health reform plan proposed by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) kept some of Obamacare's most popular features and retained the same framework of the law.




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