Who Will Miss Crisis-Budgeting? Republican Senators.

[DonViejo]

By David Weigel

My piece from last night traced the three-odd year history of government-by-debt limit, pronouncing its end for the rest of 2014 (no huge risk there) and maybe for even longer. But you'll notice that Lindsey Graham, not ever seen as a radical Republican, appears in the piece as a very, very concerned observer who wishes the House GOP could agree to demand something in the debt limit. Maybe an infrastructure bank?

This is part of the new normalcy, same as the old normalcy -- the debt limit restored as something the opposition votes against, because it can, while it criticizes the big spending of the party in power. But is there more to it?

"I suppose that's the most John Boehner could do," shrugged Ohio Sen. Rob Portman when asked about the "clean" debt bill. "I suppose he tested other ideas. I was always focused on a very simple solution -- do some spending reform as part of the debt limit. It's the only way Congress has ever put spending reform in place. Every significant spending reform of the last 30 years was through the debt limit."

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, who had loudly and frequently criticized the government shutdown strategy of 2013, sounded a bit like Portman. "Most of us said from the beginning, we don't want to monkey around with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government," he said. "By the same token, there's no reason that you can't find other solutions at the same time, whether they're incorporated or they ride separately."

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/02/12/who_will_miss_crisis_budgeting_republican_senators.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=0ca105f0f0&mc_eid=7a8b58c8c3

[bemildred]

1. And corporations. All those "earmarks". nt

[Laelth]

2. Hmm ...

If the author acknowledged the role that the Hastert Rule played in this drama, I'd give his analysis more credence. Sane Republicans (plus the Democratic Caucus) could have passed a budget every single year in the absence of the Hastert Rule and could have raised the debt ceiling, as necessary, to fund the government. It was the rule, itself, that created the stupid drama we have witnessed for several years. The author's failure to acknowledge this fact detracts from whatever point he was trying to make in this essay.

-Laelth

[DonViejo]

3. Except there's no such thing as "The Hastert Rule"...

Denny Hastert Disses the ‘Hastert Rule’: It ‘Never Really Existed’

The former Republican speaker’s ‘rule,’ that you can’t bring legislation to the House floor without a majority of GOP votes, is cited as the reason Boehner can’t end the shutdown. But Hastert tells Eleanor Clift it’s a ‘non-entity’—and ‘if we had to work with Democrats, we did.’

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251327576

[Laelth]

4. Well, it's not a Federal Law, if that's what you mean.

But it's real, and the House GOP prefers to employ it except in emergencies. It's completely disingenuous to pretend it does not exist (as Mr. Hastert did in the quote you site).

-Laelth