Jagadeesh Gokhale points out that President Obama is not only bluffing, but that it’s transparently obvious what this tactic is intended to achieve:
The president’s Wednesday night warning to House Majority Leader Cantor to not “call his bluff” suggests that… well, he’s bluffing. But the president has already been playing some transparently thin cards in this game of poker, including his melodramatic — but highly questionable — hint that Social Security checks would be interrupted on August 2.
The go-to strategy in a literal train wreck is to jump off a nanosecond just before the collision. The debt-limit debate is more complicated, however, because no one really knows what the effect would be if the deadlock on budget negotiations continues through August 2nd.
Debt-rating agencies may soon downgrade U.S. debt. But does the debt of a country on a fiscal path to borrow and spend 45 percent more than its revenues — at a time when its debt already equals its annual output — really warrant a AAA rating? Won’t House Republicans really be doing investors a service by revealing a more honest debt rating?
[. . .]
Regarding a potential “bluff” by the president and high officials of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve: It’s only natural that they would sound the most dire of alarms. There is no guarantee that the government would default on its existing contractual debt and that financial markets would tank even if such a temporary technical default were to occur. But the risk of such events is not zero and no high government officials would wish to risk it on their watch.
A hint about whether and how much President Obama might be “bluffing” is his unwarranted warning that Social Security payments could not be guaranteed if the debt limit is not increased. There is every reason to believe that those payments could and would be made in full in August — and for many more months — no matter whether the budget deadlock is resolved by August 2nd.
