The crazy train has left the station and we are headed for a train wreck

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The crazy train has left the station with the latest GOP gambit today from the Tea-Publican leadership on the federal debt ceiling negotiations.

Shorter version of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today: "F**k the Constitution! F**k my constitutional duty! The GOP's Gimmicks-R-Us shop has produced a new gimmick that will get us out of this box and allow us to play the blame game of 'it's all Obama's fault!' Bwaahahaha!"

The Washington Post reports GOP Senate leader McConnell suddenly proposes giving Obama new powers to raise debt limit:

Under a proposal outlined by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Obama could request increases of up to $2.5 trillion in the government’s borrowing authority in three separate installments over the next year, as long as he simultaneously proposed spending cuts of greater size.

The debt limit increases would take effect unless blocked by Congress under special rules that would require speedy action — and even then Obama could exercise his authority to veto such legislation. Significantly, the president’s spending cuts would be debated under normal procedures, with no guarantee they ever come to a final vote.

In essence, McConnell’s proposal would greatly enhance Obama’s authority to avoid a default, while also virtually absolving Republicans of responsibility if one occurred.

At the same time, it would allow Republican lawmakers to avoid having to support an increase in the debt limit, something many of them find odious.

Are you f**king kidding me?! I have suspected for some time that Sen. Mitch McConnell has gone insane, but now we have the evidence. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

Politico adds today Senate GOP mulls new debt strategy:

In effect lawmakers would be surrendering the very power of approval that the GOP has used to force the debt crisis now. But by taking the disapproval route, Republicans can shift the onus more onto the White House and Democrats since a two-thirds majority will be needed to stop any increase that President Barack Obama requests.

“It gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility for increasing the debt limit if he chooses not to have any spending reductions,” Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican Conference chairman, told reporters Tuesday.

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Politically, the new debt process is a McConnell classic in that it seeks to shift all of the blame for any debt increase on to the president and Democrats. Republicans would be free to vote in opposition without the consequences of risking default.

Sandy Levinson says it best at the Balkinization blog:

Apparently, Mitch McConnell's secret plan to avoid a default is to delegate to the President the unrestricted power to cut whatever governmental programs he wishes, with no consultation with Congress, so long as his cuts reach the magic number of $2.4 trillion. If he does that, then he can also unilaterally raise the debt limit. This gives new meaning to the notion of "delegation run riot."

How could any "conservative" support this enhancement of "constitutional dictatorship" and unilateral powers over important governmental programs? But, of course, that's a rhetorical question, because in no serious sense is McConnell or the modern Repubulican Party "conservative." He and his collegues are truly right-wing radicals and should be described as such.

Congress has already abdicated its war powers to the executive branch, now an insane senator wants to abdicate the powers of Congress over spending because he thinks he can absolve his caucus of (1) having to vote for any tax increase and (2) having to vote to raise the federal debt ceiling, because these are articles of faith among the far-right Tea Party extremists. Sen. McConnell is conceding that this Tea-Publican Congress is incapable of responsible governance. They are out of control.

And House Speaker John Boehner (at least at the time of this post) has descended into madness. Political Animal – Boehner: avoidable economic crash isn’t my problem:

The correlation is probably not a coincidence: the more House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) loses control of his caucus, the more he loses his cool.

Burned by the fact that their prescription for reducing the deficit and increasing the national borrowing limit either can’t pass in Congress or doesn’t cut spending enough to warrant, in their minds, a significant debt ceiling hike, House Republicans returned to the Capitol Tuesday to ratchet up their demands, and shirk responsibility for avoiding default.

“Where’s the President’s plan?” asked House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) at a press stakeout after a GOP caucus meeting. “When’s he going to lay his cards on the table? This debt limit increase is his problem.”

Just so we’re clear, in three weeks, the United States will exhaust its ability to pay its bills. The economy will deteriorate and millions of Americans will suffer. John Boehner knows all of this — he’s never even tried to deny the severity of the consequences — and has the ability to prevent it. Indeed, by most measures, he has a legal obligation to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

But as of today, with the crisis quickly approaching, the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful officeholders in our system of government, has decided this isn’t his “problem.”

The simple fact of the matter is we can Resolve the debt-ceiling dispute in five minutes:

A lot of crises are extremely difficult to resolve. This isn’t one of them. The threat of an economic collapse could be eliminated entirely in five minutes — all Congress has to do is raise the debt ceiling, just as previous Congresses have done dozens of times for decades.

* * *

During the Bush presidency, Republicans did it seven times. The current GOP leadership in Washington has voted to raise the debt limit 19 times. (Sorry, Eric Cantor, it’s too late to pretend like this is some sort of gift to Democrats.)

Mitch Daniels, the conservative Republican Indiana governor and former Bush budget director, explained that “a responsible government” must routinely raise the debt ceiling. “This ought to be treated as the housekeeping matter it is,” Daniels said. Ronald Reagan warned that failure to raise the debt limit would lead to consequences too “awesome to contemplate.”

As Matt Yglesias explained yesterday, one effortless vote makes the entire problem disappear.

Surveying the scene, perhaps everyone should take a deep breath and recall the traditional way the country has avoided default when the debt ceiling needs raising: Congress raises the debt ceiling.

It’s that simple. The same kind of “clean” debt ceiling increase that’s passed repeatedly over the past 100 years will allow the country to avoid default without tax increases, without defense cuts, and without slashing entitlement spending. Education will be spared. So will transportation, health care, farm subsidies, and everything else. The interest rates investors are charging the American government to buy our debt are extremely low right now. The world economy is suffering from an excessive demand for American debt, not by reluctance to lend. All we need to do to keep our finances flowing is to raise the statutory debt ceiling…. Right now, though, the only crisis we face is an entirely self-created one.

GOP leaders insist they can’t do this because their political philosophy won’t let them. This might be slightly less laughable if they hadn’t already raised the debt ceiling — many times and without conditions — just a few years ago.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any potential crisis that’s so serious and yet so easy to resolve. Indeed, by some measures, the 14th Amendment actually compels Congress to act, suggesting policymakers have a constitutional obligation to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

This entire dispute can end in five minutes, at which point, the parties can go back to arguing. But Republicans don’t care.

Instead Tea-Publicans are choosing a train wreck in their single-minded pursuit of hatred for President Obama, believing they can blame him for the train wreck they are creating. This goes beyond ideology, it borders on sociopathy.