Mitch McConnell Just Proposed the "Pontius Pilate Pass the Buck Act of 2011"

Editor’s note: I decided to make the title less incendiary.

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Consider the Associated Press’s headline right now: “GOP Leader McConnell proposes giving Obama new power for automatic debt limit increase”

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Mitch McConnell is right now talking about making 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.

Consider sending McConnell a weasel as testament to his treachery. His address is 601 W. Broadway, Room 630, Louisville, KY 40202 and the phone number is (502) 582-6304.

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.

In a 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.As the Politico notes,

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Senate Republicans are actively pursuing a new plan under which the debt ceiling would grow in three increments over the remainder of this Congress unless lawmakers approve a veto-proof resolution of disapproval.

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.

Yes, instead of putting the burden on the White House, McConnell would make it damn near impossible to block a debt ceiling increase. We’ve seen this before. The House once had the Gephardt rule that required the debt ceiling vote be attached to a more popular measure so members of Congress could escape a tough vote.

Consequently, the debt ceiling has gone up to $14 trillion without Congress ever having to make a tough choice about debt.

And now Mitch McConnell wants to make it even easier by allowing Congress to go through a dog and pony show of feigned cuts that never get cut while allowing escalation of our national debt. So much for accusing Barack Obama of smoke and mirrors.

2014 cannot come soon enough to destroy the political future of this weasel.

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Consider sending McConnell a weasel as testament to his treachery. His address is 601 W. Broadway, Room 630, Louisville, KY 40202 and the phone number is (502) 582-6304.

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Updated again: Changed to title to something less incendiary. I still encourage weasels be mailed.

UPDATE: Some of the most willfully ignorant and willfully naive McConnell supporters are coming out of the woodwork to say this is not *the* plan, but a contingency plan if *the* plan can’t be agreed to. So let’s get this straight: if Democrats won’t agree to make spending cuts, we’ll fall back to the contingency where they get to raise the debt ceiling without making spending cuts.

That’s not a contingency, that’s handing the Democrats a silver platter.

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