Americans Finally Realize GOP Handling Debt Debate Poorly
And the loser is… the GOP!
Or so says the latest CBS poll showing 71 percent of Americans don’t like the GOP’s handling of the debt crisis. And why would they? Americans have shown in polls, time and time again, that they want both sides, Democrat and Republican, to work together to get business done in Washington. To get the business of raising the debt ceiling done, that takes compromise; a word I fear Republicans don’t like or perhaps aren’t that familiar with. A great man once told me the best negotiations are when both parties leave the room winning and losing. The president has shown his ability to compromise; he put cuts to Medicare and Social Security on the table. Heck, he’s even willing to talk about cuts rather than just raising the debt ceiling on his own!
To read the polls is not only confusing, but it shows how confused we the people are. Some polls show Americans want to cut spending, but they don’t want to raise taxes. Other polls show a majority of Americans want the Bush tax credits to end for the wealthy. And after Rep. Paul Ryan put forth his machete to Medicare, he was booed at town hall meetings, and a Democrat won a congressional seat in a district which had been a Republican stronghold for decades.
This current proposal by Republicans is not a GOP plan, it’s a Tea Party debt plan, appealing to the overwhelming minority of their base, obviously pandering to the “Teapublicans” for their cash for the upcoming election.
It sickens me when I hear the GOP talk about leaving something for our children and future generations when their proposals cut more education and Medicare and Social Security, making those programs a memory for our children. And without them, our children will be financially strapped, taking care of sick and elderly parents and grandparents.
These poll numbers show the GOP cannot even convince their own party of what they’re doing, which is obviously playing politics and puffing their chests out like chicken hawks, trying desperately not to blink first in this game. And for all their talk about the Democrats’ scare tactics, the poll shows the majority feel the president raises valid concerns if the debt ceiling is not lifted.
My favorite president, and a man who I think is the most intelligent of all of them (maybe not in choices he made in his personal life), is Bill Clinton. President Clinton says he would raise the debt ceiling using powers granted under the 14th Amendment—“validity of the public debt shall not be questioned…”
Maybe it’s time President Obama took a page from the Clinton handbook and took his advice. After all, he was a constitutional lawyer. If President Obama stops the economy from going into a double dip recession by raising the debt ceiling, he’ll not only be re-elected, he’ll show America that the GOP are the losers, and prevent the American people from being so—which is what would happen if he signed that GOP plan into law.
By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, July 20, 2011
Cut Cap & Balance And The New Frontiers of Kookery
A scant few months after the Paul Ryan budget redefined the boundaries of conservative fanaticism, the Republican Party’s new “Cut, Cap, and Balance” Constitutional Amendment makes that document seem quaintly reasonable. Ezra Klein sums up the policy:
Ronald Reagan’s entire presidency would’ve been unconstitutional under CC&B. Same for George W. Bush’s. Paul Ryan’s budget wouldn’t pass muster. The only budget that might work for this policy — if you could implement it — would be the proposal produced by the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee. But that proposal was so extreme and unworkable that a majority of Republicans voted it down.
37 House Republicans and 12 Senate Republicans have pledged not to support a debt ceiling increase unless the CC&B Constitutional Amendment passes. Mitt Romney has signed this insane pledge. Ramesh Ponnuru has some gentle questions:
Representative Mick Mulvaney, a freshman Republican from South Carolina who is a leading supporter of the amendment, said in an interview that if “the president wants this debt-ceiling increase, he’s going to help us get the votes.” He argued that Obama should deliver 50 Democratic votes in the House and 20 to 30 in the Senate. “That’s a good compromise for both sides.”
Does the congressman think that 50 Republicans would vote for a constitutional amendment that contradicts everything they stand for if President Romney asked them to?
What a congressman who pledges to increase the debt limit only if a spending-limit amendment passes is really saying is that he opposes increasing the debt limit. Because there is no way that two-thirds of Congress is going to pass this amendment now, or ever.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the CC&B amendment is the casual way in which it attempts to enshrine specific spending levels and to freeze current taxes into the Constitution. I would like to see its advocates explain why it is necessary for the Constitution to require their agenda. What is keeping the public from electing officials who will enact this agenda? If people want to enact policies like this, why not just let them do it? And if they don’t, why force these policies upon them?
By: Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, July 19, 2011
The GOP’s Problem: There’s No Bridging The Gap Between Tea Party And Reality
Why do the Tea Party and the right adamantly oppose Mitch McConnell’s proposal to transfer control of the debt ceiling to the president as a way out of an impasse that many think is badly damaging the GOP?
The answer, paradoxically, lies in the beauty of the McConnell plan: It was crafted to allow Republicans to repeatedly vote against raising the debt ceiling without actually stopping it from being raised.
McConnell and other GOP leaders know full well the debt ceiling must be hiked. But they also know full well that this is entirely unacceptable to large swaths of the base who now see this as their number one ideological cause celebre, on a par with the now-forgotten drive to repeal Obamacare. So his plan tries to solve both these problems at once. It provides for Republicans to vote to “disapprove” of each debt ceiling hike the President pursues. But since they need a veto proof majority to block each debt limit hike, those “disapproval” votes won’t actually stop the hikes from happening — keeping the business community happy and averting economic and political disaster.
The problem for GOP leaders, however, is that the Tea Party and the right are dead serious about this stopping-the-debt-ceiling-hike thing — reality and the consequences be damned. Solid majorities of Republican voters and Tea Partyers don’t even think failure to raise it will be a problem. Symbolic votes to “disapprove” of debt ceiling hikes aren’t enough. Anything short of stopping the debt ceiling from going up is unacceptable. The McConnell plan would surrender the GOP’s ability to do this. Therefore it’s a total cave-in.
Business leaders and sane GOP leaders want the debt ceiling raised and understand that failure will be catastrophic. The Tea Party wants a hike blocked at all costs. The problem in a nutshell is that there’s no putting that ideological genie back in the bottle. One party is going to have to walk out of this situation not getting what it wants. Hint: That party’s name begins with the letter “T.”
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, July 19, 2011
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