Bad: GOP leaders will hold debt ceiling hostage. Worse: they don't know what the debt ceiling is

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tweeted by, Steve Benen ?@stevebenen (Maddow blog)
Bad: GOP leaders will hold the debt ceiling hostage. Worse: they don't know what the debt ceiling is http://on.msnbc.com/UNhRcf


At the intersection of recklessness and stupidity

By Steve Benen

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle today, explaining why he believes it's responsible to hold the debt ceiling hostage until President Obama "puts forward a plan" that makes Republicans happy. The piece is filled with errors of fact and judgment, but there was one truly bizarre claim that stood out for me.

"The coming deadlines will be the next flashpoints in our ongoing fight to bring fiscal sanity to Washington," the Texas Republican wrote. "It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country."

Just at a surface level, this is ridiculous -- to prevent possible trouble in the future, Cornyn intends to cause deliberate trouble now? But even putting that aside, I'm not sure if the senator understands the nature of the controversy. Failing to raise the debt limit -- that is, choosing not to pay the bills for money that's already been spent -- doesn't just "partially shut down the government," it pushes the nation into default and trashes the full faith and credit of the United States.

Does Cornyn, a member of the Finance and Budget committees, not understand this? Just as importantly, is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) equally confused?

"By demanding the power to raise the debt limit whenever he wants by as much as he wants, President Obama showed what he's really after is assuming unprecedented power to spend taxpayer dollars without any limit," McConnell argued on the Senate floor.

At the risk of being impolite, McConnell's comments are plainly dumb. As a policy matter, it's just gibberish, and the fact that the Senate Minority Leader doesn't seem to know what the debt ceiling even is, after already having threatened default in 2011 and planning an identical scheme in 2013, raises serious questions about how policymakers can expect to resolve a problem they don't seem to understand at a basic level . . .


read more: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/04/16349652-at-the-intersection-of-recklessness-and-stupidity?lite

[Richardo]

1. They know that the debt ceiling pertains to money already spent. But that's a mere fact.

By implying that it somehow controls or allows future spending, they're playing to their ignorant, uninformed base and the stenographers in the press.

Also, the President can't spend any money. That's up to the House of Representatives. Another bothersome, inconvenient fact.

[Igel]

3. Congress spends very little money.

It authorizes spending, which is a different kind of thing.

But it doesn't negotiate the contracts, call in orders for supplies, or sign checks.

There's mandatory spending that it has to either authorize or revoke. Presumably if the authorization carries the same force of law under the Constitution as permission to issue debt, then denial of authorization to raise the debt could have the same force of law as revoking permission. Depends what side of the fence you're on.

Then there's discretionary spending, where it merely says, "Here's what you can spend, if you want to." People often confuse what they want with what they need, with what they're allowed to do with what they must do. Never did understand that, personally speaking.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. But the article makes a dumb statement as well:

The author writes that not raising the debt limit is equal to
"choosing not to pay the bills for money that's already been spent"

except raising the debt limit means we continue to rack up IOUs instead of paying bills.
an increased debt limit means we can incur more DEBT, it does not mean we can pay off previous debt that we incurred by raising past debt limits.
In actuality, increasing the debt limit gives the gov't time to pay more on the INTEREST of past debt.

Or so it seems to me.

[Yo_Mama]

5. By definition, the debt ceiling sets a limit to new borrowing

Even Congress can't spend money it doesn't have.

I'm sorry, but this idea that the debt ceiling covers past spending is just ridiculous. We need to raise the debt ceiling because we need to borrow more money to fund government operations, not because we have already spent the money.

The spending authorization for this year needs to be passed also.

[railsback]

2. Time for the Prez to step up

Republicans are blatantly threatening America. Our debt shall not be questioned. They're not only questioning it, they're threatening to harm America economically with it. That's terrorism. UnConstitutional. Just print the freakin' coin, and then wave the Constitution in their face. So tired of this freakin' shit.