More Debt Limit Propaganda from Wonderboy

Following on this recent post, and this one, regarding the summer's main political drama, the US debt limit, it seems timely to write about it again.

After one press conference and an address yesterday afternoon that I skipped, Wonderboy has attempted to cast the issue as GOP Congressional members refusing to raise taxes on the rich.

However, yesterday morning on CNBC, I saw/heard Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) correctly frame it this way. To paraphrase, he said,

'I've got a list of spending cuts in mind. The Democrats have a list. Compromise would be to agree on some mix of the two lists. Not to suddenly add raising taxes to the discussion. That's not compromise.'

It's a fair point. Further, the responsibility for this mess is Wonderboy's. He's the president. It's his job to get Congress to vote on things he wants, or to get them to vote on what works.

The GOP has an argument which I haven't yet heard them use. To wit, the First Rookie won election almost three years ago, then wasted over a trillion dollars on useless so-called 'stimulus' spending, while ramming through trillions more in longer term spending under the guise of nationalized health care.

The GOP House majority was elected less than a year ago, as were its new Senators. They are the product of voters' more current concerns with spending and size of federal government.

If you go through the recent history of House and Senate votes on various budgets, you'll see that even Democrats in Congress no longer will vote for higher spending or higher taxes, straight up. They know those are not issues on which they'll be re-elected for supporting.

If the president wants to reform the tax code, that's great! The GOP should certainly sit at that table. But as Toomey points out, that's not the same table as the spending-cut table at which the debt limit is being discussed.

It's a testament to Wonderboy's lack of governing or legislative experience that he's decrying smaller total spending cuts which could be achieved to pass a debt limit increase, in favor of some larger targets which are unlikely to be met if they require tax increases or a massive tax code rewrite.