House Republicans still playing games with debt ceiling default threat

Democrats should call the GOP's bluff (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
 

Yesterday, Senate Minority Mitch McConnell said he wouldn't support raising the debt limit without cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid. That might be a reminder of the GOP's plan to end Medicare, but it's actually a fairly inconsequential statement; the GOP doesn't control the Senate, and the party in power is usually the one who is responsible for voting for raising the debt ceiling.

But when House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said yesterday on Meet The Press that Republicans would hold the debt ceiling hostage, it was a bigger deal:

MR. GREGORY:  All right.  Before you go, what about the debt ceiling negotiations?  Do you think they'll be a deal, or will this go down to the wire?

REP. RYAN:  Well, first of all, I think there will be a deal, and it'll probably take a while.  Look, we have till August.  It's May right now.  This is going to take time.  Our position's really simple.  For every dollar the president wants to raise the debt limit, we're saying let's cut more than a dollar's worth of spending.  He's asked for a $2 trillion increase in the debt limit, we've laid out $6.2 trillion in spending cuts.  So we can show the president plenty of ways and areas to cut more than a dollar's worth of spending and it's very important for the credit markets, for our economy to show that we're going to get this situation under control, that we're going to get the debt stabilized and get spending under control, as we deal with this debt limit.  Nobody wants default to happen, but at the same time, we don't want to rubber stamp just the debt limit increase that shows we're not getting our situation under control.

It's remarkable how Republicans continue to conflate deficit reduction with spending. Even if you stipulate that they've proposed $6.2 trillion in spending cuts, they've also proposed trillions in tax cuts. They're not interested in reducing debt, they're interested in reducing spending. And the debt ceiling vote is not a place for a debate about spending.

But the most amazing thing about this is the extent to which Republicans are betting the farm on Democrats being willing to treat raising the debt ceiling as a hostage worth saving. They seem to think they have the same amount of leverage as they did in the tax cut fight. Who knows, maybe they are right. But the thing is that raising the debt ceiling is politically unpopular, and it's hard to imagine that Democrats are going to be willing to take the politically unpopular position of accepting the GOP's ransom note simply so they can take ownership of another unpopular move, raising the debt ceiling, especially given that Republicans know they ultimately must raise the debt limit.

The smartest move for Democrats at this point is to stop serious negotiations with Republicans over the debt limit. At some point, Republicans are going to drop their insistence on major policy changes and will instead demand a fig leaf. Until that point comes, there's nothing to be gained from negotiating over a non-negotiable item.

If Republicans really are crazy enough to force the country into default, no amount of negotiating is going to stop them; if you keep on letting an armed madmen take hostages, sooner or later somebody's getting shot. So let's put them to the test and find out whether they are bluffing or not.

My bet is that they are bluffing and they back down and the country can move past the GOP hostage-taking theatrics. But if they don't, they were going to shoot a hostage at  some point anyway, and it's better to find that out sooner than later, so we can get back on track with moving the country forward.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/DKxMTRJClVM/-House-Republicans-still-playing-games-with-debt-ceiling-default-threat

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