Obama: "Smoke & Mirrors, Tax Hikes, My Demands Or Default."

Update 6:00 PM: House failed to pass The Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act. It would have rescinded efficiency standards for incandescent bulbs included in a 2007 energy bill. Vote 233-193 but vote required a supermajority. 285 yea votes to pass. Presently, the incandescent bulbs is on the endangered list!

Today In Washington, D.C. - July 12, 2011:
The Senate resumed consideration of S. 1323. Yesterday, the Senate voted 69-27 to agree to the motion to proceed to S. 1323 which is a nonbinding Sense of the Senate resolution offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). S.1323 says people making over $1 million per year should be required to “sacrifice” in resolving the budget deficit. Reid has filed cloture on S. 1323 and filled the amendment tree, allowing him to decide which amendments, if any, will be allowed to be offered.

Reid has also filed cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2055, the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (Milcon-VA) appropriations bill, one of the annual appropriations bills that are considered by Congress.  Both cloture votes are likely to occur Wednesday.

Today, there are mixed reactions to action proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) regarding allowing President Obama to raise the debt ceiling. Different viewpoints have developed from people I respect. The following will be be divided with the 1st being the words of Sen. McConnell on the action he proposes. Then the reaction by others to McConnell's proposal.

Sen. McConnell - Let the President Make the Decison to Raise the Debt Limit.
Speaking on the floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made major remarks on the debt limit negotiations, saying, “[A]fter years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this President is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable.”

He explained, “I was one of those who had long hoped we could do something big for the country. But in my view the President has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above.  I hoped to do good; but I refuse to do harm.”

“So,” Leader McConnell said, “Republicans will choose a path that actually reflects the will of the people — which is to do the responsible thing and ensure the government doesn’t default on its obligations. And to continue to press the administration to rein in Washington. Not to freeze it in place.”

Leader McConnell elaborated on the situation President Obama presented Republicans: “At a moment when we needed leadership the most, we got the least. The financial security of the nation was being gambled on the President's wager that he could convince people our problems would be solved if we just all agreed to take it out on the guy in the fancy house down the street. In my view, that was the saddest commentary on the status of the leadership at the White House.

“And I’m proud of the fact that Republicans refused to play along. We stood our ground. We know that what Americans need right now is for government to make job creation easier, not harder. And we said so. At a time when 14 million Americans are looking for work, we refused to support a tax hike. We supported jobs and economic growth instead.”

Leader McConnell called out Democrats for the smoke and mirrors they’ve presented to Americans and pointed out why Republicans refused to accept this. “When Democrats saw that we wouldn’t budge, they proposed one last offer to craft a deal. They asked us to join them in another Washington effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people. They offered us the opportunity to participate in the kind of deliberate deception of the public that has given public service such a bad name in recent years. We all saw how it worked. The Administration carefully leaked to the media, without any details, the idea that it was willing to go along with trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

“The lack of detail concealed the fact that the savings they were supposedly willing to support was at best smoke and mirrors. The hope here was that the budget gimmicks and deferred decision-making they actually supported would have the appearance of serious belt-tightening.

“But the practical effect would have been at most about a couple of billion dollars in cuts up front with empty promises of more to follow. We've seen this kind of thing before. It’s just this kind of sleight of hand governing that’s put our nation more than $14 trillion in debt. And I will not associate myself with it. I refuse to join in an effort to fool the American people.”

Leader McConnell emphasized, “Republicans have told the President we're not interested in business as usual in Washington. We mean it. We will not be party to something that claims to save trillions but leaves it to future generations to pick up the tab, and to future Congresses to reverse it with a simple vote. We will not pretend that a bad deal is a good one.”

He lamented Democrats’ intransigence on retaining their huge increases in the size of government and their insistence on tax hikes. “An ideological commitment to big government has outweighed the White House’s commitment to find a meaningful compromise that does not damage our fragile economy in the process. Rather than find a way to bring government back to the people, the Administration has committed itself to protecting the size and scope of government at the cost of job creation, economic growth, and America’s status in the global economy.”

Leader McConnell summarized the problem: “We showed a willingness to sacrifice all along, even as we made it crystal clear from the outset that tax increases would not be a part of any agreement. It was their commitment to big government that stood in the way of a grand bargain. It was their determination to freeze the policies of the past two years in place, permanently. The American people don’t want that, and Republicans won’t be seduced into enabling it.”

Grover Norquist Support's McConnell's position:
Andrew Stiles in National Review article Norquist: Time to Force Obama’s Hand reports:

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, says he supports Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “contingency plan” designed to force President Obama to assume nearly all of the responsibility for raising the debt ceiling.

“Obama is playing politics,” Norquist tells National Review Online in an interview. “Republicans need to force him to do what the established press is not doing. He says he’s got a serious proposal. Could we see it written down please?”

McConnell’s plan would require the president to submit, in detail, a list of spending cuts of equal or greater value than the amount of debt increase he is requesting (about $2.5 trillion). “Obama wants to claim to the American people that he’s seriously willing to reduce spending and he’s not seriously taxing everybody and his brother,” Noquist says. “He’s lying. It’s time to end this fiction that he’s negotiating in good faith. They’ve got to force him to put in writing what the hell he thinks he’s doing.”

He blames the “established press” for allowing the president to get away with putting out a horrendous budget earlier this year, and allowing Senate Democrats to get away with having gone more than 800 days without even passing a budget. Members of the media and their Democratic cohorts, he says, have convinced themselves that Republicans will eventually cave and agree to raise taxes, as they did in 1982 and 1990. But they are perilously mistaken. “Most the people around in ’82 and ’90 are dead now!” he exclaims. “That’s a long time ago. Democrats think because MSNBC says we’ve got them on the ropes, that Republicans will fold and raise taxes. They’re nuts.”

The impetus to raise the debt ceiling has been with President Obama all along, Norquist argues, so where is the harm is simply forcing the issue? “He needs to do something to change the game,” says Norquist. “If nothing changes, Republicans win the Senate and keep the House in 2012.”

The key obstacle to deal on the debt limit, he says, is the president’s refusal to view overspending in Washington as a problem that needs fixing. On the contrary, Obama views his increased spending as the “signal accomplishment” of his presidency. “He’s like a kid caught shoplifting in a candy store, and we’re making him empty his pockets on the way out,” says Norquist. “Forcing him to give it all back now is like losing the next election already.”

McConnell’s plan, while it may be a “last resort” option,” is simply a recognition of the fact that significant budgetary changes are all but impossible as long as Obama is in the White House. Norquist says it is extremely important that Republicans don’t let the president off the hook by “putting their fingerprints on his misbehavior” and agreeing to a lousy bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling (particularly one that raises taxes). Doing so would give Obama a huge political victory that is completely undeserved.

“That would be the worst possible thing because the country would be robbed of a choice in 2012,” he says. “We’ve got time through 2012. The important thing is not to go into [the election] with blood on your hands.”

Eric Erickson, Editor, RedState: Like Hell this is stupid!

Mitch McConnell just concluded a press conference declaring his intentions to have the Senate Republicans engage in a historic capitulation. So fearful of being blamed for a default, McConnell is proposing a compromise that lets Barack Obama raise the debt ceiling without making any spending cuts at all.

McConnell’s idea is to make the debt ceiling automatic unless Congress, by a 2/3 vote blocks the increase. Oh yes, he put a salve on it by dressing it up in tough talk that, to quote the Wall Street Journal, “[a] ‘eal solution’ to U.S. fiscal problems isn’t possible as long as President Barack Obama remains in office.” So since no “real solution” is possible, McConnell proposes to go Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of spending, blaming Obama while doing nothing himself.

Here is how the plan would work. Ina nutshell, the President would get to raise the debt ceiling three times in the next year at several billion bucks a pop without making any spending cuts unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress disagree. In his press conference, McConnell says he would not give the President “unilateral authority to make spending cuts on his own,” but this plan would allow the President to raise the debt ceiling pretty much automatically.

Much more information on this amazing capitulation can be found by clicking right here. You'll find a rather appropriate suggestion for a response as well.

Bil Wilson, President, Americans For Limited Government Blasted McConnell's Plan: 

"Under the Senate Republican proposal, Congress would cede its constitutional power to borrow on the full faith and credit of the U.S. in deference to the Executive Branch. All of this, apparently, to solve a short-term political problem for Republicans seeking to avoid blame for a failure to pass an increase in the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling.

"This abdication of responsibility is puzzling to say the least. When spending is this out of control, and the only thing keeping it in check is the congressionally authorized debt ceiling, why would Congress cede its say on the nation's finances?

"If Republicans give sole power to raise the debt ceiling to Barack Obama, it will be a colossal failure of this Congress."

In summary, President Obama is driving America bonkers and the "wear and tear" is showing even in Congress by people who wish to act responsibly but are tired of Obama's false rhetoric and games. Running America is no game.  But, POTUS's eyes are glazed over with visions of the 2012 election. So far, Obama has offered "Smoke and Mirrors," Tax Hikes, Demands to Comply with His Liberal Agenda, or to Default on the Debt. I don't know if McConnell's current approach is  being as smart as a Kentucky fox.  Time will tell.

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