Mutually Assured Destruction did not succeed in bringing the Democrats and the Republicans back to bargaining table to renegotiate the sequester. So, a reporter facetiously suggests locking up everyone in a room till an agreement is reached.
This is not so facetious as it seems – the sequester was meant to create agreement because the spending cuts were a hostage that no-one wanted to lose. Schelling thought about this sort of thing but the obvious reference is Oliver Williamson’s “Using Hostages to Support Exchange”. So, let’s go the whole way and think about who we would have to hold hostage to give good incentives for Congress to renegotiate the sequester. We would have to have one Democrat and one Republican to give both sides a hostage to release.
First off, John Boehner is not a good candidate for the Republican hostage. The real sequester leaves the Republicans divided – the defense hawks hate it but the deficit hawks want it. Similarly, a significant fraction of the Republican House caucus would just love to leave Boehner hostage. They are not going to negotiate a grand bargain to get him out. Extrapolating this logic to the Democrats, it is pretty clear Hillary Clinton would be a great hostage – all the Democrats would want to release her. This intuition further suggests Hillary will be great candidate in 2016, should she want to run. She would unify Democrats behind her and is a centrist so she would be a good candidate in the general election. My intuition is that Biden does not generate the same enthusiasm for hostage release.
So who is a good Republican hostage? Reagan, if he were still around, would be great. Who is today’s Reagan? Let’s face it, Jeb Bush does not inspire – Republicans would leave him hostage to get a good deal to free Hillary. Ditto Chris Christie. Rubio? Ryan? If Rubio were left hostage, the Republican Party would not lose a “thought leader” as we say in b school. They could pretty much survive without him intellectually. McCain is a leader on immigration reform, Rubio’s key issue. Sure, they lose diversity but not leadership. Ryan on the other hand is a leader when it comes to fiscal matters. No-one is the House can take his place and the Senate budget experts may have expert opinions but lack charisma (e.g. Portman).
So, Ryan should be the Republican hostage and he should be locked up with Hillary Clinton until a “grand bargain” is reached.
Cheap Talk 
8 comments
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March 5, 2013 at 4:25 pm
Dennis O'Dea
Perhaps there is no one you get get the majority of one side (cough cough) to agree should not be left to die in the room; this lack of unity might explain the reason there is conflict in the first place.
March 5, 2013 at 5:26 pm
hanmeng
“Mutually Assured Destruction”? Maybe both sides actually know that sequestration is actually a tiny reduction in the rate of increase of government spending.
June 10, 2013 at 5:39 am
Firman
Using epoxy or urethane is a bit of a beefy souitlon. Offcourse you can make a structure using such a material. But the overall durability and environmental impact is at question. The production cost of such a synthetic material is also quit high.How do you get such large quantities of epoxy in a disaster area? what do you do with it after its useful life?
June 10, 2013 at 10:37 pm
qahpqko
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October 17, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Laz
Dallas went Blue during the ectoeiln. Almost no districts were red when it came to the president. Sure, plenty of republicans won, but in the presidential race, though some districts were close, the city itself was very blue.
March 3, 2014 at 9:23 pm
Vianca
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March 15, 2013 at 4:06 pm
Francisco Moreno
It is difficult to take seriously any article which refers to the Sequester as MAD.
The sequester cuts $85 billion out of a 2013 Fed budget of $3,600 billion.
2.3% is MAD? Is that the reason why this is the Cheap Talk blog?
June 10, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Rutika
Considering that concrete is weak in tesinon to begin with, having 2.5 times the tensile strength of concrete still doesn’t necessarily make it strong. Concrete’s compressive strength is what matters in most applications, and the article says nothing about the sand brick’s compressive strength relative to concrete.