The House, under the guidance of John Boehner has voted to 'suspend' the debt ceiling for now. Essentially that means that there is no debt ceiling, which I guess, is like a blank check to the Treasury Department. It's also throwing away their most effective bargaining chip--the threat to withhold raising the debt limit unless there are deep cuts in spending. To replace that bargaining chip, Republicans threaten to withhold the pay of the House and Senate from April 15th through May 19th, if necessary.
After vowing to use the debt ceiling issue to force Democrats into making deep spending cuts the Republicans decided that if they pursued this strategy they would be blamed for any resultant stock market decline. So they made up a gimmicky 'solution' whereby they will suspend the debt ceiling until May 19th, whereupon any new spending that the federal government has undertaken will be retroactively automatically funded.
Now the Republicans look to use Sequestration as their next leverage point. Sequestration are the automatic spending cuts that were supposed to occur January 1st, but were kicked down the road to March 1st. Republicans figure they can use the threat of automatic spending cuts to get Democrats to agree to specified spending cuts.
If they let that deadline pass, automatic spending cuts are supposed to be invoked. Somehow I think those automatic cuts will get put off for another 60 days. Then what? Well, there is always the need to pass another stopgap spending bill by March 27th. Republicans could then attempt to use that deadline as leverage to get what they want in spending cuts.
And if that fails then House and Senate members don't get paid for a month. And after that? Well, it looks like the country would be exactly where they are right now--no spending cuts, no budget, and a looming automatic spending cut deadline in the future.
It would be deja vu all over again.
This is called leadership.
After vowing to use the debt ceiling issue to force Democrats into making deep spending cuts the Republicans decided that if they pursued this strategy they would be blamed for any resultant stock market decline. So they made up a gimmicky 'solution' whereby they will suspend the debt ceiling until May 19th, whereupon any new spending that the federal government has undertaken will be retroactively automatically funded.
Now the Republicans look to use Sequestration as their next leverage point. Sequestration are the automatic spending cuts that were supposed to occur January 1st, but were kicked down the road to March 1st. Republicans figure they can use the threat of automatic spending cuts to get Democrats to agree to specified spending cuts.
If they let that deadline pass, automatic spending cuts are supposed to be invoked. Somehow I think those automatic cuts will get put off for another 60 days. Then what? Well, there is always the need to pass another stopgap spending bill by March 27th. Republicans could then attempt to use that deadline as leverage to get what they want in spending cuts.
And if that fails then House and Senate members don't get paid for a month. And after that? Well, it looks like the country would be exactly where they are right now--no spending cuts, no budget, and a looming automatic spending cut deadline in the future.
It would be deja vu all over again.
This is called leadership.