“The House GOP’s debt limit bill isn’t a serious governing document…It’s a cry for help.”
House Republicans are pretty clear what they want in exchange for not crashing the U.S. economy and maybe even the global economy by not extending the national debt limit: everything.
Via Ezra Klein at the Wonkblog:
The House GOP’s debt limit bill — obtained by the National Review — isn’t a serious governing document. It’s not even a plausible opening bid. It’s a cry for help.In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, Rep. Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan, the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, rewriting of ash coal regulations, a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, an overhaul of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services Block Grant, more means-testing in Medicare, repeal of the Public Health trust fund, and more.
It’s almost literally everything that the House Republicans have been trying to do for the past five years (or more.) That’s it. They just want everything and they’ll gladly raise the debt limit for a whole year.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has given Speaker Boehner a list of things that they are willing to deal on:
The White House has released a list of concessions it's willing make in exchange for the GOP raising the debt limit. pic.twitter.com/r70u7SSfIG
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 26, 2013
It’s nice to see they aren’t capitulating to the hostage takers any longer. High time, indeed.
