The House Republican conference is holding a "retreat" at which the GOP is planning its strategy for the upcoming year. So far, the big news has been that the Republicans are going to put forward a bill to raise the debt ceiling by an amount sufficient to last for the next three months. They are going to couple that with a requirement that Congress pass a budget by the beginning of May or else suffer the consequence of the pay of the members of the House and Senate being withheld. There is little likelihood of the House not complying with this new requirement, but the Senate has not even bothered to pass a budget for the last three years despite the legal requirement that it do so. The hope is that withholding pay will be a sufficient penalty to get the Senate to actually vote on a budget in 2013.
So, is this a good move? The reaction from many on the left in the media has been to celebrate the defeat of "Republican efforts to block an increase in the debt ceiling". I happened to see a bit of "Washington Week in Review" on PBS last night (someone has to watch it), and the woman reporting on this almost got up and danced since she was so happy about this Republican defeat.
It never fails to amaze me just how out of touch with reality much of the press can be. There never has been a Republican effort to block an increase in the debt ceiling. Everyone knows that (except for some in the media). The effort has been to find a way to cut spending and there was talk among the GOP of using the increase in the debt ceiling as a tool to accomplish that goal. The latest move is an admission that the increase in the debt ceiling is not the right place to force that issue. It may be that the liberal press will report the story in their way, no matter what the truth is. Nevertheless, since almost no one is paying attention to this, the story will get lost in the shuffle. What will not get lost, however, is the next of the upcoming cliffs: the sequester cuts to spending and the need to authorize further spending in general by the federal government. This hits around the beginning of March.
The three month increase of the debt ceiling will put the need for the next increase well past the votes on the sequester and government spending, but it will keep the debt ceiling alive as an issue. In just six weeks, there will need to be agreement on spending. A failure to agree will let the automatic cuts go into effect, a result which will not be perfect but which will be much more acceptable to the GOP than to the Democrats. On top of that, the Republicans will then also have to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government or there will be a shutdown. At that point, the GOP will have maximum leverage to obtain meaningful cuts in spending.
As the saying goes: "It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"
So, is this a good move? The reaction from many on the left in the media has been to celebrate the defeat of "Republican efforts to block an increase in the debt ceiling". I happened to see a bit of "Washington Week in Review" on PBS last night (someone has to watch it), and the woman reporting on this almost got up and danced since she was so happy about this Republican defeat.
It never fails to amaze me just how out of touch with reality much of the press can be. There never has been a Republican effort to block an increase in the debt ceiling. Everyone knows that (except for some in the media). The effort has been to find a way to cut spending and there was talk among the GOP of using the increase in the debt ceiling as a tool to accomplish that goal. The latest move is an admission that the increase in the debt ceiling is not the right place to force that issue. It may be that the liberal press will report the story in their way, no matter what the truth is. Nevertheless, since almost no one is paying attention to this, the story will get lost in the shuffle. What will not get lost, however, is the next of the upcoming cliffs: the sequester cuts to spending and the need to authorize further spending in general by the federal government. This hits around the beginning of March.
The three month increase of the debt ceiling will put the need for the next increase well past the votes on the sequester and government spending, but it will keep the debt ceiling alive as an issue. In just six weeks, there will need to be agreement on spending. A failure to agree will let the automatic cuts go into effect, a result which will not be perfect but which will be much more acceptable to the GOP than to the Democrats. On top of that, the Republicans will then also have to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government or there will be a shutdown. At that point, the GOP will have maximum leverage to obtain meaningful cuts in spending.
As the saying goes: "It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"
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