Free Republic

After big events like Tuesday's debt-ceiling vote, Washington goes into overdrive to declare who won and who lost. But politics is more complex and less binary than that. In this case, neither party helped itself with the public during this struggle. But Democrats hurt themselves most of all. They made a huge strategic mistake by failing to raise the debt ceiling late last year when they still controlled Congress. Instead, Democrats tried to make the GOP complicit in their spending excesses. On Dec. 8, for example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained his decision not to tackle the debt ceiling...

So my question to Pelosi was simple, “[H]ow confident are you that Speaker Boehner will be able to corral the votes to actually lift the debt ceiling? Her response left an indelible impression that became a blog post headlined “Pelosi not sure Boehner has votes to raise debt ceiling.” I reprise most of the March 17 piece below. As you will see, the veteran vote-counter and power player saw last night’s train wreck coming a mile away. Discussing this week’s passage of a new continuing resolution, Pelosi observed that, in the vote, freshmen Tea Party Republicans were more interested in...

The fourth consecutive day of debt meetings between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties ceased abruptly with Obama walking out of Wednesday's talks, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. Cantor told FOX News Channel that the approximately two-hour meeting at the White House Wednesday "ended with president abruptly walking out of the meeting." He said Obama shoved back from the desk and said "we'll see you tomorrow." "We are very far apart right now," Cantor told FOX, adding, "The progress we made seems to have been erased now." "He [Obama] became very agitated. Said 'Ronald Reagan...

More and more I like the idea of not raising the debt ceiling. I like it financially and I like it politically. If congress leaves the debt ceiling where it is, then assuming that Obama is responsible enough to continue to make debt payments, we’re talking about roughly a 29% across the board cut in spending. That’s steep and would no doubt hurt, but it wouldn’t be the end of us. So long as Obama gives every indication that he is going to continue to make our debt payments, the markets will probably like it. It would put a real...

I’ve been very busy the last few days so I haven’t been able to research these numbers, but if you’ll forgive the unconfirmed ‘back of the envelope’ estimates, I have an interesting idea to put up. There is no doubt whatsoever that federal tax revenues for next year will be more than enough to cover all of out interest payments on our federal debt. There will also be enough left afterward to cover a substantial portion of our federal operating budget for 2012. How much? I’m not sure. A number I heard in conversation yesterday was something like 72% of...

After an election season marked by shrink-the-debt rallying cries, a Republican majority in the House would quickly have a chance to show whether it’s serious about cutting federal spending — so serious, it would threaten to shut down the government. House Republican leaders insist the party wouldn’t take it that far. But tell that to a crop of tea party candidates who say they’re prepared to take that dramatic step, if needed, to stick by their campaign-trail pledges to rein in government spending. The showdown could come after the next Congress convenes, when Republicans and Democrats would take up a...