More debt ceiling chicken
by digby
It was such a big winner for them they’re going back for more:
Republican Tom Price, the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, said his party could demand steep spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling next year, the most provocative comments by a senior GOP member to date on how negotiations could play out.
The Georgia congressman, during an hour-long briefing with reporters Friday, said the expected mid-2015 debate over whether to raise or suspend the debt ceiling offered Republicans an opportunity to make a sizable imprint on government policy.
Why wouldn’t they? They have never suffered anything at all for their tactics. They are rewarded for them.
Steve Benen says this isn’t 2011 and that the Democrats have learned the GOP won’t go through with it:
Hostage crises only work when there’s a credible threat. In this case, Democrats have to actually believe that Republicans would do deliberate harm to the country unless Dems paid a ransom. But once Obama realized that GOP leaders had no intention of crashing the economy on purpose, the fear disappeared and the incentive to hold the nation hostage again vanished with it.
On Friday, Tom Price said in effect, “Maybe we can go back to the way things were in 2011?” And the polite response from the Oval Office and sensible adults everywhere will be, simply, “No.”
Maybe that’s true. But playing chicken with the debt ceiling will almost assuredly end up forcing more cuts than would have happened otherwise as Democrats run around in circles trying to find some sweet spot in anticipation of the battle ahead. If these Republicans can’t drown the government in the bathtub, they’ll just waterboard it until it passes out.
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