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Ladies and Gents, We Have a Conservative Debt Ceiling Plan (Not really)
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Posted: Sunday, November 08, 2015 at 10:10 AM EST - Item ID: 496
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) was once well regarded as the club for House conservative lawmakers. Sometime after 2010, members realized the RSC was the cool kids club and turned into, well, just the Republican caucus. To fill this void, the real conservatives headed off and started a new entity, now referred to as the House Freedom Caucus. Not to be outdone by the Freedom Caucus, this week RSC members decided to flex their "conservative" muscle and propose a debt limit bill titled, the "Terms of Credit Act." To be fair, they deserve credit for proposing something. I've said all along, the most important achievement in the debt ceiling fight is simply advancing a conservative agenda. The avidity of Republican leadership to surrender to Obama on the debt ceiling is frightening. So, kudos to the RSC. BUT, MY APPLAUSE STOPS THERE. The essential provisions of the bill: 1.The spending reductions are mostly for show. Just months ago, in April of this year, Republicans passed a budget. The budget put forth would have presumably balanced, albeit with questionable revenue assumptions. But more importantly, in order to achieve balance, the budget needed to cut $5.3 trillion in spending. Now, six months later, Republicans are demanding just $3.8 trillion in cuts – at least that's the narrative. That narrative is a bit of a farce because the bill doesn't actually cut spending. In fact, it directs other committees to find the proposed savings through gimmicky budget procedural requirements. On its own, the bill does nothing to directly cut spending; it's little more than a legislative cheerleader merely rooting on conservatives to push a separate spending reduction bill. In the unlikely event that happens, it will arrive the president's desk, where Republicans are certain to know the president will stamp it with a veto. After all, the president already received his debt limit increase (See 3 below). To make you feel really good, the bill includes a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) vote. In Washington we refer to this as a "shiny object." Essentially, it looks bold and it distracts from what's really happening – Republican surrender. The BBA allows members can take a few good votes, and with it, a few good talking points back to their constituent town hall meetings. But the truth is that not a single member believes amending the constitution is even remotely possible right now. Finally, the bill includes a member "time-out" if work on a spending reduction bill is not accomplished. The bill prohibits the House from adjourning (leaving Washington) during the 114th congress until such work is completed. This same process is used in Reconciliation, the legislative vehicle Republican leaders "promised" would be used to repeal Obamacare. With reconciliation, that process also prohibited the House from adjourning until such important work was completed. Did that happen? Of course not. A rule tucked into the debate governing the House Interior appropriations bill not only allowed Congress to go on vacation over the fourth of July break, but it further allowed them to leave for a month in August. Take that Congress. 2.The third section of the bill, titled "Grow," doesn't actually do anything about growth. It essentially freezes in place all Obama's disastrous regulations, which the Heritage Foundation found adds an additional $80 billion in annual regulatory costs. This bill does not appear to help anyone. In addition, the bill provides the president waivers and exceptions to promulgate new regulations when they comply with typical Washington verbiage, "necessary because of imminent threat†"The same language typically accompanies federal emergency money; which taxpayers now understand to be a total joke. Remember the life-threatening need to spend $65 million of federal emergency money on tourism ads after Hurricane Sandy? I wouldn't bet on this provision doing much of anything either. 3."Re-election" protection. In providing the president with a lofty $1.5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, the Republican party can avoid further responsibility of dealing with Washington's fiscal mess until after the election. A $1.5 trillion increase will satisfy the growing debt until well after the election, into March 2017. With this bill, they can rest assured that the debt can keep on soaring without the need for any further politically tough votes. In all hilarity, the author of the bill, Rep. Bill Flores, is the last member that should be championing spending cuts and negotiating a deal with the President. Flores has a solid "D" ranking by Conservative Review. And he's certainly no top defender of small government; Flores helped dismantle the last debt ceiling deal, the Budget Control Act of 2011. He voted for the fiscal cliff deal, as well as the Ryan-Murray budget deal, both of which razed a large portion of the spending cuts in that deal. Ok, we can do better than this.
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