I’ll believe it when I see it:
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) will mark out a firm Republican position regarding the debt ceiling in his speech this evening at the Economic Club of New York (7 p.m., watch live here). He will insist that while allowing the country to default would be “irresponsible,” voting to raise the debt limit without spending cuts and reforms would be far worse in terms of the economic consequences.
Most significantly, the speaker will demand that any increase to the debt limit be offset by spending cuts of a greater amount. “Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt limit increase,” Boehner plans to say, according to excerpts obtained by National Review Online. “And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given. We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions.”
In other words, if President Obama wants to be able to borrow trillions more (and he does), he will have to consider meaningful reforms to entitlement programs — the primary drivers of the country’s debt problem — in exchange for Republican votes.
The measures attached to a debt ceiling increase, Boehner will say, “should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future,” and everything is on the table except tax increases, including “honest conversations about how best to preserve Medicare.”
[…]
Boehner will also go after the Obama administration’s energy policies, claiming that it is “simply untrue” that nothing can be done to reign in rising fuel prices. “Washington has also kept most of our nation’s vast energy resources under lock and key for decades, over the clear objections of the American people — the people who own those resources. If we had listened to the people decades ago — or even a few years ago — many of these resources would be available to us right now to lower the price of energy.”
The current debt limit of $14.3 trillion is expected to be reached shortly, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently floated an increase of $2 trillion in order to meet the government’s obligations into early 2013. Geithner had urged action from Congress before May 16 but since extended the deadline to August 2.
That Aug 2 date is important to keep in mind. Because what this speech is intended to do, in my opinion, is to sound like the current leadership is getting tough on spending, while laying out the starting point for a compromise that will end, if history is any guide, with the President promising to make cuts, then disavowing his promise in a signing statement.
And the GOP will grouse and tell us it did the best it could — and Andrew Stiles will doggedly defend their courageousness.
Meanwhile, so’s you know just how opportunistic and cowardly and two-faced and feckless and disingenuous and dismissive of the wishes of its constituency is the current GOP leadership — Stiles’ optimism notwithstanding — here’s a reminder, courtesy of Eric Cantor himself, c. 2010.
If the GOP holds true to its demands, I’ll very happily eat crow and reassess my opinion of Boehner and Cantor. But until they do more than talk and threaten — only to later come away with nothing but bruised asses and whining excuses — I’m just going to consider this a whole lot of posturing, designed to end in a “compromise” that the TEA Partiers will hate and the GOP establishment (along with the Dems) will be perfectly okay with.
(thanks to newrouter)
In the meantime Jeff, and if you don’t mind my threadjacking: it’s a spooky day when you and lefty Marc Cooper appear to agree about something.
Oops, wrongy linky. (Though the above is still pretty entertaining IMHO.)
http://marccooper.com/memo-to-chomsky-retire/
I’ll believe Boner is serious about spending when I see him act like it. So far, no soap.
“We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions.””
all hat no cattle
I realize that they just don’t get it, but I did think they got things like this.
Act tough,sure. Stand tough? I’ll be surprised.
They are now out there, on the record in both houses. I pray they stick to it and damn them if they let the Dems run all over them on this. They have the Dems by the balls and should squeeze, hard.
GOP:Talk Tough–sorta
GOP:Act Tough–nope
GOP:Stand Tough–based on previous actions, not bloody likely.
Let’s just say we’re in the “trust” stage of “trust and verify.” Don’t dissapoint, GOP.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
ah yes another boner:
link
ace ain’t bad. the 25000 word atlas shrug thing made me read less.
GOP tough talk explained?
I’ll be happy when they’re out of power. I’ll be even happier when there’s no power for them to be out of, and Washington goes back to being a swampy little village that gets burned down by the British every so often.
Speaking of which, I’ll be in Alexandria this weekend. Anyplace interesting I should
burn downvisit while I’m there?Murphy’s Irish pub is a pretty good, some folks like Ireland’s own also-I could take it or leave it…
There’s a lot of nice places in DC also, which is not too far away.
I’ve heard the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is pretty cool; you should check it out.
Squid – Arlington.
Oh, and considering the state of the Royal Army right now…they might need some help destroying anything larger than a small pub in Glasgow.
Washington goes back to being a swampy little village that gets burned down by the British every so often.
Save us, Elizabeth!
Riiight. No matter how you slice it, they’re going to agree to an increase in the debt ceiling now, in return for Big Cuts(!) later, just trust them. After Boehner’s Pledge to America that promised only a trivial $100 billion in cuts to the FY2011 budget, the Big Cuts(!) that turned out to be about $352 million by CBO estimates, they really expect us to believe they’ll actually keep their word this time?
The good news it, it probably doesn’t matter. Of course that’s the bad news too. They’re so overextended now it’s probably too late to avoid a debt crisis no matter what they do, and even attempting to do anything meaningful would be so painful for so much of the electorate that it would be political suicide, so I think we can count on them to continue to kick the fiscal can down the road until it’s truly too late.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.