Mitch McConnell is either the dumbest member of congress, or the smartest. At first I leaned toward dumbest when he proposed giving Obama the ability to raise the debt limit. Then I read the proposal and realized that this is a brilliant solution. The following article explains it:
First, Obama would submit a request for a $700 billion increase in the debt ceiling, along with a nonbinding proposal to cut spending. That would automatically trigger a $100 billion increase in the debt ceiling to give Congress time to consider the request. Congress could then vote to either approve or disapprove of the president’s request. If they disapprove of it, however, Obama could veto their disapproval, and unless two-thirds of both chambers voted to overturn his veto — a virtually unthinkable outcome given that Democrats control the Senate — he could raise the debt ceiling anyway.
The same thing would happen, albeit in $900 billion increments rather than $700 billion increments, in fall 2011 and summer 2012. Take it all together, and Republicans would almost completely forfeit their leverage over the debt ceiling. In return, they’d get to make Democrats vote repeatedly to first raise the debt ceiling and then to “approve” of raising the debt ceiling. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, this “gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility.”
Republicans ought to accept this, because it puts the spotlight and the responsibility solely on Obama. McConnell is right, this President will never agree to a reasonable deal to raise the debt ceiling. Instead he will hold sham meetings and repeatedly use the debt ceiling to take cheap political shots at Republicans, without having to offer any solutions himself. He will use the threat of the debt ceiling to extort outrageous concessions from Republicans. This would turn the tables on him. He and only he would be responsible for raising the debt ceiling. He and only he would be responsible to propose spending cuts to support that decision.
Unfortunately the conservatives are looking at this as surrender to Obama, without realizing that instead it is the ultimate poison pill for Obama. My prediction is that if congress did pass this, the White House would reject it. If this was such a great deal for Obama you would be hearing a lot of Democrats praising it. They aren’t. That is because they know the truth. This deal will expose Obama and ultimately expose Democrats. The reason is that Obama is very unlikely to propose real spending cuts. That means when he requests an increase to the debt ceiling congress will almost certainly vote no. Obama will then have to veto the legislation and Democrats in the Senate will have to block any attempt at over-ride.
This is absolutely brilliant, but my hunch is that it will never happen. Instead we will continue on the same path, which is the road to nowhere.
TDM
The fact that you ask the question, and that so many ploepe are even giving it credence enough to discuss how the debt ceiling affects us, shows how important it is to so many ploepe.But bottom line, there’s a lot more than one issue on the table. The only reason we’re so concerned with the national debt right now is because the media is telling us to be concerned, but not telling us to be concerned about other things. Our debt is huge, but look at the large amount that’s public debt Don’t get me wrong We need to recude it before we hit a major crisis But we’ve just killed Osama bin Laden, we’ve seen two previously-stable middle eastern countries topple, and three more are on the way Russia and China are exploding their GDP, and their military spending shows it Natural disasters are hitting ridiculously fast right now This is a very turbulent time for the world, and perhaps we should start watching international events rather than just focusing on what Republicans think is a good way to tear down a presidency.References :