| Morning Jolt – December 3, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Monday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim A Presidency of Perpetual Crisis So here are the headlines coming out of the Sunday shows . . . Boehner 'flabbergasted' at fiscal cliff proposal McCaskill: 'I Feel Almost Sorry For John Boehner' Sen. Ayotte 'disappointed' in initial White House proposal Sen. Hatch: Obama fiscal proposal 'classic bait and switch' So predictable, isn't it? During these seemingly more frequent showdowns, the purpose of every lawmaker appearing on a Sunday show, no matter the party, is to emphasize how committed they are to a sensible bipartisan compromise that put's the nation's interest ahead of the special interests, and how the opposition is being extreme, divisive, unyielding, outrageous, et cetera. This latest round is so irritating because a) it's just like the campaign rhetoric that we were supposed to see ending on November 6, right down to the president doing rallies in Philadelphia; b) it's a rerun of the players, issues, tone and rhetoric of last summer's debt-ceiling fight; and c) if every outcome of the fiscal cliff stinks, then this is the policy-debate equivalent of taking the Band Aid off really slowly —like over the course of a month. I don't know when buyer's remorse will kick in for any portion of the slim majority that voted for President Obama, but I look at this fight and wonder how many Americans will look at Washington and groan, "This stuff again? Already?" This section of Peggy Noonan's column from this weekend stuck out to me: The election is over, a new era begins—and it looks just like the old one. A crisis is declared. Confusion, frustration, and a more embittered process follow. This is . . . the Obama Way. Nothing has changed, even after a yearlong campaign that must, at times, have looked to him like a near-death experience. He still doesn't want to forestall jittery, gloom-laden headlines and make an early deal with the other guy. He wants to beat the other guy. You watch and wonder: Why does it always have to be cliffs with this president? Why is it always a high-stakes battle? Why doesn't he shrewdly re-enact Ronald Reagan, meeting, arguing and negotiating in good faith with Speaker Tip O'Neill, who respected very little of what the president stood for and yet, at the end of the day and with the country in mind, could shake hands and get it done? Why is there never a sense with Mr. Obama that he understands the other guys' real position? My best guess as to "why it's always cliffs with this president" is that it's because he thinks he wins bigger that way; that the closer the country gets to the edge of disaster, the more likely it is his opponents will capitulate, concluding they have to give ground to avoid that disaster. It's a game of chicken, really. Of course, Obama's gotten so used to watching the Republicans swerve away in the game of chicken that he may be entirely unprepared for a time that they don't. Some might see this as the philosophy of the manufactured crisis. Or at least as an application of the unnerving Rahm Emanuel slogan, "never waste a crisis." Although looking at how the Obama administration tackles these things, perhaps the slogan is better remembered as "never solve a crisis." Conn Carroll looks down the road and sees four more years of this: The Geithner proposal completely killed any chance House Republican leaders had of convincing their members that Obama was an honest partner for anything -- let alone major tax and entitlement reform. Now we are either going to go over the fiscal cliff, or Republicans will act to preserve the Bush tax rates for the middle class while giving Obama his return to the Clinton tax rates for the highest income earners. But that is all Obama will get. He'll get no entitlement reform now. No individual or corporate tax reform either. The rest of the second-term Obama agenda is also DOA. It is going to be all partisan scorched earth all the time, again, for four more years. Obama will have changed Washington. But for the worse. Brad Thor assesses the president's offer in the fiscal cliff negotiations: "Obama is like an angry spouse who wants everything: house, car, kids, & only scorched earth for other side. Did we have a divorce or an election? Well, at least the president looks relaxed: JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md.-- President Obama and former President Bill Clinton hit the golf course on Sunday. Obama is playing his round at Maryland's Joint Base Andrews and it is the third presidential golf outing here since the Nov. 6 elections, under sunny skies with temperatures around 55 degrees. Clinton went to bat for the president in the just-ended campaign, delivering an well-received endorsement at the Democratic National Convention in September. Their partnership, which was initially rocky in the early days of the Obama presidency, grew stronger after a September 2011 golf game. Clinton is also the last Democratic president to strike a mammoth budget deal with Congress. Obama will likely be discussing the looming "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts on the links. Rounding out the presidential foursome are U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic party chairman, who has announced his plans to run again for the governorship of Virginia. Obamacare: Some Assembly Required But hey, at least in Obama's second term we'll get all the joys of Obamacare, right? As state legislatures prepare to meet in January, lawmakers across the country are girding for a battle over whether to sign on to the health-care law's expansion of Medicaid. "This is the number one issue," said state Sen. Michael Lamoureux (R), incoming president of the Arkansas Senate. "And in 10 years this is by far the most difficult one we've ever dealt with." The national implications loom just as large. No provision is more central to achieving the health-care law's aim of extending coverage to the uninsured than its expansion of Medicaid. Under the new rules, beginning in 2014 eligibility for the program would be opened to people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $30,657 for a family of four. The law calls for the federal government to foot the the entire bill for covering the newly eligible for the first three years. After that the federal match phases down slightly, reaching 90 percent by 2020. Arkansas state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe (R) questions whether the federal government can be counted on to maintain such a high match rate in perpetuity. With all the budget pressures facing Congress members, said Bledsoe, how can she be sure they won't shift more of the burden to states down the road? Last August Obama officials sought to allay such concerns by clarifying that states are free to drop out of the Medicaid expansion at any time. But Bledsoe, a key leader in the Arkansas Senate on health issues, said that's not a realistic option. "We're not going to put more than 250,000 people on our Medicaid rolls, then pull them off," she said. So how many states will end up setting these exchanges? Hard to say at the moment: "With barely a year before the expansion is scheduled to begin, only 14 states seem certain to join in. About 13 states seem likely to opt out because the GOP has a lock on both the [governor's] office and the legislature and many of these Republicans are dubious of expansion. But even here the outcome is often in doubt. For instance, Florida's Gov. Rick Scott (R) has been one of the most scathing critics of expanding Medicaid. But in an interview shortly after the election, Scott suggested he was open to trying to "get to yes" on the issue." Erika Johnsen sees disaster on the road ahead: Just getting these supposedly fabulous online insurance marketplaces set up is already turning into an unmitigated disaster — what on earth is going to happen when we finally get down to the business of actually insuring and caring for people? Rolling this thing out, the Obama administration is looking like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off, and their unpreparedness in dealing with their own Frankenstein's monster is showcasing all of the new costs and consequences coming with it. The delusion that ObamaCare is going to do anything except turn our entire health care system into much more of an expensive, inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare than it already is, is quickly wearing thin — and we've barely even gotten started. Rand Paul: 'We'll See' if a 2016 Presidential Bid Is the Cards . . . Also, 'Ring Ring Ring' If you've wondered what Senator Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, looks like while ringing a Salvation Army bell and discussing his potential plans for running for president, well . . . here you go. Is 2016 his time to run for president? "We'll see. I don't know. I want to be apart of the national debate I think I have something to offer. And I think we as Republicans need to self examine because we kind of lost. We need to do better next time," he says. If he does run in four years, he says he first wants to sway moderates and independents. ADDENDUM: Let's get started with McElroy-mania! To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75% . . . Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for print-edition information. Click here for digital-edition information. And National Review makes a great gift. Click here to send a full-year gift to NR Digital, and here to send a full-year subscription to the print edition. 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