There’s frequently a pretty big discrepancy between what people believe and what they say. There can also be quite a difference between what people believe and what they’d like to think they believe and, even more so, what they’d like you to think they believe.
In the case of the present House of Representatives, fortunately, we have a record of what they believe. Not only do we have the continuing resolution they’ve passed but we also have the 2014 budget they passed.
Budgets are, among other things, statements of intent. In no case has the House passed any form of budget that limits expenditures to revenues. Now, I could do all sorts of analyses of these two pieces of legislation but there’s one thing that’s beyond doubt: the House intends to raise the debt limit. Since they’ve already signalled their willingness to raise the debt limit by passing a budget, refusing to raise the debt limit at this point isn’t even an effective bargaining ploy. It’s just posturing.
This gets to the heart of the matter, IMO, for which all of the partisan fingerpointing provides cover: Congress has been failing to carry out their responsibilities on the budget for years. How many of the spending bills have even been brought to the floor this time? if I’m not mistaken, the House passed 4 out of the required 12 and the Senate hasn’t addressed any of them (though they at least passed their budget blueprint this time.)
This is what we the people should be up in arms about. If the committees would do their due diligence, we wouldn’t have to keep funding the government by CR and getting to brinkmanship. I don’t agree with how the GOP is handling this but it really is a resylt of the smaller battles which are not resolved before we get to this point.
Also agree with that the House has already implicitly raised the debt limit, though by a smaller margin than the Senate.
With all due respect, Dave, that’s just really too cute. CR’s are by definition a declaration that “we can’t agree.” The country has been operating by CR for quite some time. Hardly a robust declaration of intent by anyone, except that we disagree.
Further, wrt to 2014 alone, along almost pure party lines the House passed and the Senate did not pass the budget. Hard to imagine that the Senate voted it down for reasons of a lesser increasing of the debt limit. In other words, this has all been an ongoing negotiation; every last bit. Republicans are using (knowingly) the ceiling as a bargaining ploy. Whether its effective or not is to be determined, but I interpret “posturing” as a pejorative description. Its what you do when the other side does not bargain in good faith and tells you “do what I want (spend more money) or I’ll conduct a public propaganda campaign calling you terrorists, child starvers and crazy.”
Speaking of intent, was Obama’s invocation of morality, duty and, ahem, “purist” concern about the untenable state of the country’s finances and his declaration of a “no” vote on the debt limit when he was Senator Obama (and Harry Reid) “intent,” or a bargaining ploy or posturing?
‘the House intends to raise the debt limit. “
That kind of reminds me of a Geico commercial, where the opening line is, “Did you know that 15 minutes saves you 15%?” to humorously denote the obvious.
Of course the debt ceiling debate has been about carving out a fiscal compromise all along, not denying necessary funding to run the country, or worse yet, to crezte a default situation. That’s why the House sent those appropriation bills to the Senate, including one funding Veteran Affairs, which would have addressed those death benefits.
How is the party of opposition supposed to restrain the spending of this Keynesian form of government — say “pretty please?”
BTW, my new hero is Chris Cox — the lawn-mowing, chain saw artist, who took it upon himself to address neglected lawns, in some of our closed-down memorials. He has real heart and soul, IMO, nothing to do with vain political posturing, as seen in DC and the WH.
“How is the party of opposition supposed to restrain the spending of this Keynesian form of government — say “pretty please?â€
Perhaps it could demonstrate its bona fides as a serious cost-cutting party by not passing an egregious Ag bill. How’s that?