Posted on 04/19/2011 7:27:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
You want to get attention on Capitol Hill? Threaten to lower the U.S. government credit rating. The news that Standard & Poor's has lowered its outlook for the United States from "stable" to "negative" shot through congressional offices on Monday. An already-hot fight over raising the national debt got even hotter.
"Today S&P sent a wake-up call to those in Washington asking Congress to blindly increase the debt limit," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement released minutes after the news broke. "House Republicans will only move forward on the president's request to increase the debt limit if it is accompanied by serious reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and end the culture of debt in Washington."
On the other side, Democratic Rep. Peter Welch, of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, sent out a letter to Democratic leaders, signed by 114 House Democrats, demanding that Congress pass a debt-limit bill without any spending reforms at all. "Mr. Cantor should today abandon his dangerous plan to leverage America's duty to pay its bills to achieve a partisan advantage in budget disputes," Welch wrote.
Given all the maneuvering, you might think a debt-limit showdown is coming soon. It's not. Lawmakers, who are currently enjoying a two-week Easter recess, have plenty of time before they are required to act.
Two weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner sent a letter to congressional leaders with his best estimate of when the United States will actually hit the $14.3 trillion limit on its borrowing ability. It will happen in mid-May, Geithner told Congress, but the Treasury Department can take "certain extraordinary measures" to put the deadline off a little longer. Geithner said there will be "no headroom to borrow" left by July 8.
Maybe Geithner was trying to prod lawmakers to act quickly, but when Hill politicos read that, they immediately thought: We have loads of time. "It doesn't hafta hafta be done until July 8," says one GOP Senate source. "We've got all of May and all of June." Remember, the last crisis, averting a government shutdown, was literally settled at the 11th hour on the day the government was to have closed.
That's why Geithner took to the talk shows on Sunday to argue that there can't be shutdown-style brinksmanship this time. "If you take it too close to the edge, then people will start to wonder, really, what are we doing, what are we thinking," Geithner told ABC.
The treasury secretary is unlikely to get his wish. Both sides are so far apart, and feel they have so much time, that it's impossible to imagine the issue being resolved before the end of June, or maybe early July. Especially not with Speaker John Boehner telling President Obama that the White House can forget about getting a so-called "clean" bill, that is, one that raises the ceiling without other measures to control spending. "There will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it," Boehner said at a fundraiser April 9.
But here's the problem for Republicans. They control the House of Representatives. The debt ceiling has to be raised -- Boehner has always conceded that -- and the party in power has to do it. Even as Boehner demands spending concessions as the price of raising the ceiling, the White House knows that in the end he will have to pass a bill. "Our bargaining power derives from our controlling the House but is also limited by it," says a House GOP source.
In the Senate, on the other hand, minority Republicans will be free to oppose any debt ceiling bill that isn't to their liking, because in the end it will be the Democrats' responsibility to pass it. Protest-minded Republicans are heartened by Obama's recent admission that his own vote against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 was "a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country."
"People know there is hypocrisy coming out of the White House," says the GOP Senate source. "Someone who took a political vote and let the other party pass the debt ceiling bill -- well, it's a little difficult for him now to say, you shouldn't do that."
The bottom line is, the debt ceiling issue won't be settled before an extended game of chicken, one in which Republicans will undoubtedly win some concessions but will, in the end, have to give in.
-- Byron York, is the Examiner's chief political correspondent.
Boehner will blink his misty eyes first.
While the RINO pub’s and commie dem’s play a game of chicken over the debt ceiling, the American citizen’s goose is being cooked.
How stupid. Yes we will raise it for sure but first we want to argue a little??? Lame.
>> In the Senate, on the other hand, minority Republicans will be free to oppose any debt ceiling bill that isn’t to their liking, because in the end it will be the Democrats’ responsibility to pass it.
Ha. In the Senate there is no real *difference* between (R) and (D). The overwhelming majority of them favor big government and are just fine with spending ourselves into bankruptcy.
Kabuki theatre. The outcome is known - debt ceiling increase.
More than one of them ended up walking to school because both drivers didn't “chicken out”. One pair even managed to kill each other.
Hmmm.
Perhaps playing “chicken” over raising the nation debt ceiling might not be such a bad idea after all.
We already know who is a chicken and it isn’t Obama. Boehner will fold up like a little girl and cry his eyes out. We saw him let BO pull his pants down in the CR. So don’t get your hoped up folks. He is a chicken. Cluck, cluck, cluck!
A man with some stones would call that sniveling little tax cheat, Geitner, down to Congress and tell him that if the next attorney general is appointed by a Tea Party backed President, he had better get immunity before BO leaves.
And, if he doesn’t want a debt default, he had better figure out how to cut the current budget. End of story.
A game of “chicken” involving two chickens is nothing more than a cockfight.
High treason!
Geithner could not fill out his own measly income tax return with TurboTax.
Why would I believe ANYTHING out of his mouth?
I DO NOT now & I never will. He is a puppet. He has a nose that should be growing at every utterance he makes.
When the GOP promised $100 BILLION in 2011 budget cuts, opens with $30 BILLION (the Tea Party goes nuts), then goes back with $61 BILLION in cuts, and finally reaches a bipartisanship compromise of $352 MILLIONin 2011 cuts HOW CAN THIS BE CONSIDERED A GREAT DEAL FOR BOEHNER AND THE GOP?”
It ISN’T!!!
American voters are sick & tired of all the numbers being pushed around & the end result being that nothing changes.
Many Republicans in office now are going to be sucking wind the day after the Nov 2012 election, IMO.
They have double crossed us too many times.
We elected them to get at least $100 billion cut out of the budget NOW-—not 25 years down the road & not only $352 MILLION.
We are not as dumb as the politicians think we are.
I am also furious that PBS is still sucking at the public trough, since it is so flaming obvious how Liberal they are.
Fox News Poll this morning indicating that just 16% of ALL AMERICANS favor raising the debt ceiling.
And yet Boehner has apparently already agreed to do it.
This is going to get very interesting.
“We are not as dumb as the politicians think we are.”
Perhaps not Freepers or most Tea Partiers. Unfortunately politicians know that the vast majority of Americans are dumber than a box of rocks. I wish it wasn’t so.
As long as our children keep getting their indoctrination from government and union run schools the problem will only get worse.
A game of chicken requires both sides wanting to win. Republicans will cave. We know that. So, there is no game of chicken, just a bunch of presstitutes looking for attention as they pretend to play the game.
It’s just another good old boy party and everyone will play another round of let’s make a deal to increase the debt limit.
Not one strong link in the lot,it’s not about what is good for America it’s a matter of can I get another term out of the deal.The sooner people learn it’s better to limit a congressman to two terms only the the faster things get fixed.
Don’t raise the debt ceiling, lower the spending floor. (We should have the floor that drops out as the rope hold these collectivists up. “A Fistful of Dollars” or “Hang ‘Em High”?)
Defund collectivist’s collectives. (it’s the socialist/socialism, stupid)
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