GOP's hard right shift in debt talks may put deal at risk
By DAVID ROGERS
Politico.com
7/17/11 7:11 PM EDT
Turning right with a vengeance, Republicans will bring to the House floor Tuesday a newly revised debt-ceiling bill that is remarkable for its total absence of compromise at this late date, two weeks before the threat of default.
Final revisions made Friday submerge conservative demands to reduce all federal spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product — a target that threatened to split the GOP by requiring far deeper cuts than even the party’s April budget. But Republican congressional leaders still want a 10-year, $1.8 trillion cut from nondefense appropriations and have added a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that so restricts future tax legislation that even President Ronald Reagan might have opposed it in the 1980s.
Indeed, much of the deficit-reduction legislation signed by Reagan would not qualify under the new tea-party-driven standards. And even the famed Reagan-Tip O’Neill Social Security compromise — which raised payroll taxes — passed the House in 1983 well short of the 290 votes that would be required under the constitutional amendments being promoted by the GOP.
Dubbed Cut, Cap and Balance, the House bill allows for a $2.4 trillion increase in the Treasury’s borrowing authority but effectively uses the Aug. 2 deadline as a Republican anvil on which to hammer out cuts President Barack Obama would otherwise veto.
(Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59223.html.)
Politico.com
7/17/11 7:11 PM EDT
Turning right with a vengeance, Republicans will bring to the House floor Tuesday a newly revised debt-ceiling bill that is remarkable for its total absence of compromise at this late date, two weeks before the threat of default.
Final revisions made Friday submerge conservative demands to reduce all federal spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product — a target that threatened to split the GOP by requiring far deeper cuts than even the party’s April budget. But Republican congressional leaders still want a 10-year, $1.8 trillion cut from nondefense appropriations and have added a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that so restricts future tax legislation that even President Ronald Reagan might have opposed it in the 1980s.
Indeed, much of the deficit-reduction legislation signed by Reagan would not qualify under the new tea-party-driven standards. And even the famed Reagan-Tip O’Neill Social Security compromise — which raised payroll taxes — passed the House in 1983 well short of the 290 votes that would be required under the constitutional amendments being promoted by the GOP.
Dubbed Cut, Cap and Balance, the House bill allows for a $2.4 trillion increase in the Treasury’s borrowing authority but effectively uses the Aug. 2 deadline as a Republican anvil on which to hammer out cuts President Barack Obama would otherwise veto.
(Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59223.html.)
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