Obama's irrelevant threat not to negotiate over debt limit

Keith Hennessey:

Late last week President Obama called Speaker Boehner to say that he wouldn’t negotiate on the debt limit.

This strikes me as an irrelevant threat. As best I can tell, no one was proposing such negotiations. Indeed after the tax increase fight last December, Speaker Boehner made a point that he would henceforth return to regular orderrather than engage in ad hoc one-on-one negotiations with the President.

To increase the debt limit one needs the House and Senate to pass identical bills which raise (or suspend for a time) that limit, and then for the President to sign that bill, or at least not veto it. To pass identical bills it may be necessary for Speaker Boehner and Leader Reid to negotiate. But the President and his advisors don’t have to be part of that discussion. Speaker Boehner needs only the President’s reluctant after-the-fact acquiescence to a House-Senate agreement legislated without the President’s direct participation. To succeed Speaker Boehner does not need President Obama’s up-front and public approval.

Had the President wanted to make a threat that mattered, he would have told the Speaker “If you send me anything other than a clean debt limit bill, I’ll veto it.” That would have been a red line. He didn’t make such a threat, and that’s intentional. But the actual threat made by the President sounds tough to his allies without actually constraining his future options. The President won’t have to retreat (again) from a red line threat, because he hasn’t actually drawn a red line.
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There is more.

With Harry Reid carrying water for him, he may get something close to what he wants, but red state Democrats will probably pay the price for some of these votes.

I think the house made a mistake by not passing appropriation bills separately rather than tossing everything into a continuing resolution.  Separate bills would give them more control over the end product and make it harder for Reid and Obama to hold them hostage to the Democrats' agenda.