http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/aqbr92u)<\/a>\u00a0published on Saturday, House Speaker John Boehner reported of the fiscal cliff talks, “At one point several weeks ago, the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem'” \u00a0— this in yet another year of spending at twenty-five percent of GDP, before this presidency a level unheard of in the post-World War II era. \u00a0Meanwhile Mr. Obama\u2019s mainstream media allies pummel Republicans as obstructers when the GOP tries to use debt ceilings or fiscal cliff talks to force some, any concession on spending. \u00a0Polls reflect that the Congressional GOP is playing a no-win game, as the game is framed today.<\/p>\nSo Senator Sessions proposes to change the game by clarifying the stakes. \u00a0He would trade a GOP House green light on a higher debt ceiling for a Democrat commitment that the Senate take up and pass a budget by a date certain this year. \u00a0If the Democrats propose in that budget to buy the moon, fine. \u00a0Just lay it out on paper as a plan and put it to a vote.<\/p>\n
The demand would have obvious justice on its side. \u00a0The Democrats would be hard pressed to justify saying no, though undoubtedly they would. \u00a0Even so, the Sessions\u2019 idea would focus discussion, if on no other question, on, what are the Democrats hiding?<\/p>\n
The big question right now is, if Harry Reid were to agree to the deal, once the debt ceiling had been increased, wouldn\u2019t he say something on the order of, \u201cOops, you must have misunderstood what I said,\u201d and back out. \u00a0But even that would help clarify for the public who stands for what.<\/p>\n
The point is that that the Session\u2019s idea fits the place in which Congressional Republicans find themselves. \u00a0The Democrats won the White House and the Senate last year, the GOP only the House. \u00a0The House is not nothing, but it is not everything either. \u00a0Advocates of spending and entitlement control \u2013 and at this point in Congress that would mean only Republicans — need greater support from public opinion, if they are to make any serious progress before the next election. \u00a0Which means they must simplify, clarify and focus the issue.<\/p>\n
What will be the first sign of success? \u00a0There are surely Senate Democrats from conservative states, particularly ones up in 2014, who could be split from Reid and the White House. \u00a0Indications of wavering in those ranks will be the first and essential marks of progress.<\/p>\n
Conservatives of late have been angry with the GOP House leadership for the 40 to one ($40 of tax increase to one dollar of spending cut) fiscal cliff deal. \u00a0But instead of more anger, we need better strategy. \u00a0Senator Session\u2019s smart idea may show the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What to do about the debt ceiling? \u00a0An idea is circulating among Senate Republicans that has a real chance of compelling Democrats in Washington to confront \u2013 or at least take public responsibility for \u2013 outsized federal spending. The idea originated with Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[98,99,97],"class_list":["post-1470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-debt-crisis","tag-98","tag-debt-ceiling","tag-debt-crisis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}