Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case for a GOP debt limit fight about as well as it is going to be made by anyone. One way of looking at it is that refusing to unconditionally raise the debt ceiling in order to pay for already authorized spending is irresponsible. As Ponnuru points out, this assumes that either the budget process itself is responsible, or that a debate over the debt ceiling would necessarily make things worse. Neither of these things are true. The budget process is broken with much of the spending growing automatically (entitlements) and other spending passed in an atmosphere of hysteria and demagoguery. Ponnuru argues that a debt ceiling fight can be a moment to bring some deliberation to the budget process. There are several keys for the Republicans in a debt ceiling fight:
1. The GOP’s goals should be modest. The debt limit fight shouldn’t be about trying to balance the budget in one year or even to reach a deal to balance the budget in the medium-term. The Republicans would be better off supporting the modest spending cuts that Ponnuru lays out (capping Medicaid spending, increasing Medicare co-pays for seniors with high lifetime earnings.)
2. Have a Plan B to prevent a default on the debt in case the debt ceiling isn’t raised. The importance isn’t to have a plan that gets passed. Having a plausible plan makes it more likely that Obama will make a deal. If it becomes obvious that the Democrats are the ones who are refusing to pass any bills to pay interest on the debt, the Republicans will be able to say “We passed a bill to prevent default, but they keep blocking it.” It won’t get through to everybody, but it is better than nothing, and Obama knows it is better than nothing.
3. Like Patterico says, stop saying you’re going to shut down the government. As Bill Murray said, “You’re scaring the straights.” Maybe you think they should be scared, but guess what? If you talk like that, they won’t be scared of the deficit. They are going to be scared of you. Republicans should try to be look like the party trying to minimize disruption by taking a few small steps to a more sustainable budget alongside raising the debt limit. It is the Democrats who would prefer to shut down the government and default on the public debt rather than go along with any spending reforms.
The most important thing is that the Republicans be seen as asking for moderate change in exchange for adding to our already gargantuan debt. If the president wants a higher credit card limit, then the country is going to need a better payment plan. The president should be portrayed as the rigid ideologue who is willing to take everyone down with him if he can’t totally have his own way. Come to think of it, Ted Cruz did a good job expounding that position a couple of days ago on Fox News Sunday. He just needs a better answer on government shut downs.
The worst debt ceiling outcome for the Republicans is that they are seen to take a “balanced budget or bust” attitude toward the debt ceiling. The deficit this year is likely to be over $800 billion. It has already been $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal 2013. No deal on the debt ceiling is going to get us to a sustainable budget. The kind of rhetorical maximalism that demands an immediate balanced budget plays into Obama’s hands. The best we can reasonably hope for is movement in the right direction. If the Republicans are seen as demanding everything, then the public will turn on them. The result will be that the Republicans will be forced into a “debt ceiling increase plus nothing” deal.
January 8th, 2013 | 8:42 pm
1. My idea, which I see has independently picked up steam in the past week or so, is to say there will be no debt ceiling increase without a budget. That’s a simple, clear argument that Joe Q. Public can understand and support. The GOP should stand firm on this.
2. Every GOP figure who goes on TV for the next few months should memorize Sen. Obama’s anti-debt-ceiling-increase pandering from back in 2006 or whenever it was and regurgitate it ad nauseum. Again, simple and clear (while also typically unserious from the speaker) and easy to support.
3. “The deficit this year is likely to be over $800 billion.” Ha! We should be so lucky. It will easily exceed $1T, of course.
4. “The most important thing is that the Republicans be seen as asking for moderate change in exchange for adding to our already gargantuan debt.” I believe that the budget of the last GOP Congress, if passed today, would lead to a balanced budget right now. Tell people, over and over, that the ~2007 budget spending levels produces a balanced budget today. The whole “The Tea Party wants to abolish the government!!11!!!1!!!” and “there is no fat, just bone to be cut” idiocy needs to be smashed.
January 8th, 2013 | 8:42 pm
Pete, I see two problems with this strategy:
(1) based on past performance, there is not the slightest reason to believe that the Republican Congressional leadership – which could not even defend itself for delaying a vote on the pork-filled “Sandy relief” legislation – has the communication skills to implement it (many of them won’t even understand it), and
(2) even if the Republicans had the skills to carry the strategy out, the media will portray them as the bad-guys and Obama as the knight-in-shining armor, and that’s the message that will get through to the large majority of the public (probably significantly more than Obama’s % of the popular vote last November).
Also, haven’t we seen this movie before? I’m referring to 1995, when it was Bill Clinton – not the Republican Congress – who shut down the government by vetoing budget bills Congress submitted to him. The GOP got blamed, anyway.
January 8th, 2013 | 8:59 pm
Brian, I believe that the budget passed by the House (the most recent Ryan budget) doesn’t balance either this year or this decade or the next decade. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:LlreHRllwmEJ:cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-20-Ryan_Specified_Paths_2.pdf+ryan+budget+cbo&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgCoWx_c02pWyQzMqFCzxpXUT_oFRenOTSeQt5EAr0SpyHRm9NJ-epP6ccFugfH-5_Nns2M6hBWeZlBvO0gbO6N1a0yigFMQFIXAvDIJXdiFhN7IwZ7lBuDCiI1w2tNLVY9vfqQ&sig=AHIEtbRHYkHWtYemuG6X-E0ThfwXj3hO6g
I picked the 800 billion dollar number because I don’t know what part of the sequester will be retained and haven’t seen the first year revenue impact number for the latest tax increase, so chose to err on the low side.
DJF, on you points
1. Maybe, but the Romney team even in losing the election, managed to fight premium support vs. IPAB to a draw. Raising the debt ceiling isn’t popular, but it would prove less unpopular than a default. Rasing the debt ceiling + modest spending cuts vs. just raisnig the debt ceiling is a simple-enough and winnable argument I think.
2. The Democrats had all kinds of advantages on the most recent tax issue. The high earner tax increases really were popular for one thing. That isn’t the case here. I think the Republicans have a corp of people (Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, maybe others) who can make the case to the public on this issue if they can coordinate the right message. A possible obstacle is the emergence of a group of self-dramatizing back benchers who make the whole party look like a bunch of anarchists by demanding the politically impossible in order to prove their authenticity.
January 8th, 2013 | 9:40 pm
Pete: Um, yeah, the GOP isn’t serious about balancing the budget now or ever. I know that. That’s a huge part of why I didn’t vote for Mitt. I’m not at all sure what your point is, though.
January 8th, 2013 | 9:49 pm
Brian, I was responding to where you wrote “I believe that the budget of the last GOP Congress, if passed today, would lead to a balanced budget right now.” Maybe I misunderstood you.
January 8th, 2013 | 10:02 pm
Pete: Ah, I see the confusion. I meant 2005, back when the GOP actually controlled both houses. Yeah, it was pre-crash, and pre-tons of Boomer retirees, but it should be able to make the point that spending has gone absolutely haywire in just the past few years.
January 8th, 2013 | 10:08 pm
Pete, the obstacle you refer to in the last sentence of your 8:59 post is not just “possible,” it’s just about a sure thing. As you’ve noted before, these backbenchers have no concept of the long-term interests of the country, the party or conservatism. They just want to gratify the people back home who voted for them in the primary. And those voters will be egged on to keep their congressmen in line by Mark Levin and talkers of that ilk.
That said, I hope you’re right.
January 9th, 2013 | 12:13 pm
The notion that a group of folks who think that having the feds spend 20% of GDP would be preferable to spending 25%, considering they only collect about 18% or so in taxes, should be called “anarchists” by anyone at this site is truly asinine and pathetic.
January 9th, 2013 | 7:49 pm
Brian, several points, I see where the confusion was. I don’t actually think that point could be made very effectively. I don’t know what the CBO budget projections for the last budget passed by a fully GOP Congress, but I don’t think it can be made to politically matter in any case. It isn’t like any of those Bush-era congresses passed balanced budgets that I recall. On the other hand those deficts were smaller than the current ones. On the other hand they were inheriting projected surpluses. On the other hand (so many hands) there was the bursting of the dot com bubble and the 9/11 attacks. We are just so deep in the weeds and it isn’t like people have fond meories of the last spell of unified Republican governance of the elected branches.
“The notion that a group of folks who think that having the feds spend 20% of GDP would be preferable to spending 25%, considering they only collect about 18% or so in taxes, should be called “anarchists” by anyone at this site is truly asinine and pathetic.”
That is all correct, which is why more Republican rhetoric should do better to line up rhetoric with the moderate and incremental policy approaches they actually vote for. Bachmann voted for the policies you describe that slowly lower federal spending to around 20% of GDP over years and years. During the last debt ceiling fight she proposed to balance the budget immediately entirely through spending cuts without any increase in the debt ceiling despite the budget she had actually voted for. Demanding and immediate 33% and more cut in federal spending isn’t anarchism either of course, but it can help make the Republicans look a lot more reckless and anit-government than they really are.
January 9th, 2013 | 7:57 pm
DJF, I’m a little more optimistic (or at least less fatalistic.) There is a group of Republican members of Congress who (unlike John Boehner unfortunately) have Tea Party authenticity branding like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Pat Toomey. They have bigger reputations than any back bencher that might try to make a name for him or herself by saying something wild. Guys like Rubio, Cruz, etc. are going to get as many media invites as they can handle and they have a chance to set the tone for how Republican rhetoric is perceived in this coming contest (though of course much of the public will never see them – a problem for center-right messaging.) This could even influence how the right-leaning media covers the story. I don’t think it is destined that the Republican arguments people actually hear will be shrill.
January 9th, 2013 | 9:01 pm
Obama does not “deal.” He dictates.
January 9th, 2013 | 9:06 pm
Obama’s stated position was that he wanted to raise the top marginal income tax rate on those earning 200,000 dollars or more. He didn’t get that. There is some reason to think he might be more intransigent since he never has to worry about reelection (though he was in a very strong position and he still made a deal), but better and worse outcomes seem available for the GOP in the debt ceiling fight among others depending on where public opinion ends up.
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