It Is Time To Burn Mitch McConnell In Effigy. He Goes Pontius Pilate On the Debt Ceiling.
Mitch McConnell Just Proposed the “Pontius Pilate Pass the Buck Act of 2011”
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Tuesday, July 12th at 2:35PM EDT
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Mitch McConnell is right now talking about making a historic capitulation. So fearful of being blamed for a default, McConnell is proposing a compromise that lets Barack Obama raise the debt ceiling without making any spending cuts at all.
Consider sending McConnell a weasel as testament to his treachery. His address is 601 W. Broadway, Room 630, Louisville, KY 40202 and the phone number is (502) 582-6304.
McConnell’s idea is to make the debt ceiling automatic unless Congress, by a 2/3 vote blocks the increase. Oh yes, he put a salve on it by dressing it up in tough talk that, to quote the Wall Street Journal, “[a] ‘eal solution’ to U.S. fiscal problems isn’t possible as long as President Barack Obama remains in office.” So since no “real solution” is possible, McConnell proposes to go Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of spending, blaming Obama while doing nothing himself.
Here is how the plan would work.
In a nutshell, the President would get to raise the debt ceiling three times in the next year at several billion bucks a pop without making any spending cuts unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress disagree. In his press conference, McConnell says he would not give the President “unilateral authority to make spending cuts on his own,” but this plan would allow the President to raise the debt ceiling pretty much automatically.As the Politico notes,
Senate Republicans are actively pursuing a new plan under which the debt ceiling would grow in three increments over the remainder of this Congress unless lawmakers approve a veto-proof resolution of disapproval.
In effect lawmakers would be surrendering the very power of approval that the GOP has used to force the debt crisis now. But by taking the disapproval route, Republicans can shift the onus more onto the White House and Democrats since a two-thirds majority will be needed to stop any increase that President Barack Obama requests.
Yes, instead of putting the burden on the White House, McConnell would make it damn near impossible to block a debt ceiling increase. We’ve seen this before. The House once had the Gephardt rule that required the debt ceiling vote be attached to a more popular measure so members of Congress could escape a tough vote.
Consequently, the debt ceiling has gone up to $14 trillion without Congress ever having to make a tough choice about debt.
And now Mitch McConnell wants to make it even easier by allowing Congress to go through a dog and pony show of feigned cuts that never get cut while allowing escalation of our national debt. So much for accusing Barack Obama of smoke and mirrors.
2014 cannot come soon enough to destroy the political future of this weasel.
Consider sending McConnell a weasel as testament to his treachery. His address is 601 W. Broadway, Room 630, Louisville, KY 40202 and the phone number is (502) 582-6304.
Every time Congress enacts ANY kind of measure that allows anything to happen automatically, unless another Congress intervenes to stop it is (1) an abdication of their own authority and power under the Constitution by which they and they alone make the laws and the budget (2) and it ties the hands of future Congresses with super-majority vote requirements needed to stop what an earlier Congress made automatic, by a simple majority.
It is always bad law and allows abdication of their proper role as the legislature, not the rubber stamp.