Reid: Debt Ceiling Fiasco Shows GOP's 'Absurdity' And 'Lack Of Common Sense'

[DonViejo]

Source: TPM

DANIEL STRAUSS – FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 4:47 PM EST

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seemed to twist the knife on Republicans' decision to surrender on its plan to exact policy concessions in exchange for a debt ceiling hike. "This shows the absurdity and the lack of common sense and reasoning that Republicans in Congress have," Reid said Tuesday after weekly caucus lunches.

Reid noted that the GOP's previous plan included reversing cuts to military retirement benefits. The rub is that in the latest plan House Republicans pushed included something of an about-face. They wanted to reverse cuts to military retirement benefits that were included in the Ryan-Murray deal and were supported by House Republicans.

Republicans have suggested that the clean debt ceiling hike was the best option they had available at this point. Earlier on Tuesday Boehner said there just wasn't enough votes for the GOP's now-nixed plan.

"We don't have 218 votes," Boehner said. "When you don't have 218 votes, you have nothing."

###

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reid-gop-absurdity-lacks-commonsense

[ffr]

1. What a wreck the GOP is! Pandering into the mid-terms.

That's all they have to look forward to.

Lest we sit idly by and let them win again.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. And it also shows something about the DEMS...

[mostlyconfused]

3. How about the absurdity of a government

as large as ours that can't find anything to cut and instead plans on just adding to the debt every year for the foreseeable future? The models posted on whitehouse.gov are the most optimistic, but even they show no signs of a federal budget ever being in balance. So the debt continues to grow. At what point do interest and payments on the debt become so large that they prevent the government from spending on the other things it needs to?