Leverage
by digby
Speaking of Cantor, here’s what he said about the debt ceiling this week-end:
CANTOR: We’re talking about putting in maximum caps as far as expenditures are concerned. We’re talking about changing the way that the entitlements work in this country for the future, while protecting today’s seniors. These are the kind of things that we’re talking about.
WALLACE: Let me make sure I understand. Obviously, that would be part of the 2012 budget. Are you saying you will impose them as part of the deal to raise the debt limit?
CANTOR: Just as we saw happened this week in Washington, there comes a time leverage moment here, a time in which the White House and the president will actually capitulate to what the American people want right now. They don’t want to raise taxes. They don’t want spending to continue to spiral out of control. Those are the kind of things and mechanisms — whether it’s spending caps, entitlement reforms, budget process reforms — these are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to have to go along with the debt limit increase.
At the House GOP retreat in Baltimore, “Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) delivered a stern message that the debt ceiling will eventually have to be raised to keep the government from defaulting. But he also promised that Republicans will ‘use the leverage’ they have to enact at least some of their spending-reduction goals. ‘It’s a leverage moment for Republicans,’ Cantor said in an interview Friday. ‘The president needs us. There are things we were elected to do. Let’s accomplish those if the president needs us to clean up the old mess.'”
One can see where Cantor would get the idea that you have “leverage” even as you are announcing that your threats are completely empty. After all, it’s worked really well for them so far. But I don’t think we need to sign on to this delusion, do you? As I wrote at the time he first announced his clever plan to the Republican retreat:
Cantor just said that they will have to raise the debt ceiling. He said it out loud and on the record. Therefore, we now know that any capitulation made by the President and the Democrats in the negotiations will be made because they wanted to make them. There can be no doubt about that.
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