Will Common Sense Prevail in the House on the Debt Ceiling Vote?

Senator DeMint has finally proven to many Republicans that he has a lot rhetoric but never offers a plan of his own.   His threats against those in the House voting for Boehner plan were not something I would expect out of a US Senator.  Asked a good friend what other Senator would do this and he came up with LBJ and maybe John Kerry.  That's not someone a Republican Senator would want to be compared with IMHO.  DeMint telling House Members if they vote for the Boehner plan to raise the debt ceiling, they will be out of power for years is totally irresponsible.  He called a Tea Party Rally for yesterday and maybe 100 showed up to protest the Boehner bill -- they seemed to be as many reporters as Tea Party people for his rally:

Today's (7/28/11) Tea Party rally outside the Senate -- the "Hold the Line" rally -- attracted a few dozen activists, and about as many reporters. Here's a shot of Jim DeMint addressing the crowd, more members of which were in the shade to the right. 

Could this poor turnout along with the irresponsible Republican Study Committee's emails urging conservative groups to turn out their people to call Congress to tell them to defeat the Boehner bill have turned the tide in support of the Boehner bill?  Have some members of Congress finally realized that all these threats from DeMint and the National Tea Party leaders mean nothing in the long run.  What means something is that the United States does not default.

When DeMint steps up to the plate with a plan, I might listen but until then he needs to stop grandstanding and interfering in the business of the House.  With some of the candidates he and the Tea Party Express pushed in 2010, it kept us from having more votes in the Senate.  Do you realize how bad it was to have a DeMint Tea Party candidate defeated in AK with a write-in?  Looks like we are on the same page as The Wall Street Journal who seems to have their 'groove' back in their articles:

Strangely, some Republicans and conservative activists are condemning this as a fiscal sellout. Senator Jim DeMint put out a statement raking the Speaker for seeking "a better political debt deal, instead of a debt solution" (emphasis, needless to say, his). The usually sensible Club for Growth and Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, are scoring a vote for the Boehner plan as negative on similar grounds.If the Boehner plan fails in the House, the advantage shifts to Harry Reid's Senate plan. (my emphasis)

But what none of these critics have is an alternative strategy for achieving anything nearly as fiscally or politically beneficial as Mr. Boehner's plan. The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. 

Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell into GOP Senate nominees. (my emphasis) The reality is that the debt limit will be raised one way or another, and the only issue now is with how much fiscal reform and what political fallout. 

Read that paragraph from the WSJ  and wanted to start applauding the Journal for telling the truth.  Two of the worst candidates that Republicans have ever nominated came courtesy of DeMint and the Tea Party Express.

Quit Club for Growth yesterday for several reasons one being they have way overreached compared to when Senator Toomey was in charge, and their aligning with Sen DeMint left me no choice because I don't share his political ideology of 'my way or no way' so I asked for no more emails and no more of their snail mail newsletters which are a waste a lot of money.  One person quitting is not going to make a difference, but I wanted them to know that at least one person stood on their own principles and realizes that sometimes you have to compromise whether you like it or not.  That is something that the DeMint crowd cannot get through their heads as they truly believe only they have all the answers, but have no plan to present.  Kind of like all the rhetoric surrounding the Senate budget -- lot of talk and no substance.

Speaker Boehner has not been shy in saying this plan is far from perfect but once it passes the House, then its the democrats on the hook.  That should be clear to anyone with the least bit of political savvy which is missing in this 'my way or no way' culture among some members of Congress.  As for the National Tea Party Leaders, their voices have far less clout then they had a year ago before they started with the threats against Republicans.  Get that Republicans not Democrats.  Never have witnessed anything like it and the head of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips, who is being sued for breach of contract by a Las Vegas hotel, is calling for Speaker Boehner to step down.  Who is going to listen to him?

When article after article starts talking about facing reality, it is telling Republicans in Congress to get to get their act together and as Eric Cantor said "Quit whining and vote."

Reading this article from the WSJ has me sitting me nodding my head in agreement starting at the very beginning of Republicans opposing the Boehner bill playing into the hands of Obama.  They nailed the article right there by stating the truth.  Sometime today, we will know the truth if common sense prevails in the House versus the 'my way or no way' ideology.

• JULY 27, 2011

The GOP's Reality Test
Republicans who oppose Boehner's debt deal are playing into Obama's hands. 

The debt-limit debate is heading toward a culmination, with President Obama reduced to pleading for the public to support a tax increase and Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid releasing competing plans that are the next-to-last realistic options. The question now is whether House Republicans are going to help Mr. Boehner achieve significant progress, or, in the name of the unachievable, hand Mr. Obama a victory. 

Mr. Obama recognizes these stakes, threatening yesterday to veto the Boehner plan in a tactical move to block any Democratic support. The White House is afraid that it will pass the House and then become the only debt-ceiling vehicle if Mr. Reid can't get 60 votes for his own proposal in the Senate. This would short-circuit Mr. Obama's plan to blame the GOP for a U.S. credit downgrade, any market turmoil, a possible default, and the lousy economy too.
***
Under the two-phase Boehner plan, Congress would authorize $1 trillion in new debt in return for $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade. Most of that will come from caps on domestic discretionary spending over 10 years—the Pentagon and homeland security are exempt—with automatic spending cuts if the caps are breached. While one Congress cannot bind another, the proposal would at least guarantee real reductions in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. 

In the second stage, the House and Senate would convene a 12-member joint select committee with a deficit reduction goal of $1.8 trillion by November. The majority and minority of both chambers would each make three assignments, and any plan that secured seven votes or more would get an up-or-down vote in both chambers with no amendments. 

The danger for the GOP is that the committee could end up proposing tax increases, since the committee's only remit is the deficit, not the larger fiscal landscape or the size of government. A poorly chosen Republican nominee could defect, and any structural change to entitlements almost certainly can't pass the Senate. 

Then again, unless the plan passed, Mr. Obama couldn't request the additional $1.6 trillion debt ceiling increase that he would soon need. The political incentive is for a reasonable package, and many Senate Democrats also don't want to vote for tax increases before 2012. 

The debt-limit debate is heading toward a culmination, with President Obama reduced to pleading for the public to support a tax increase and Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid releasing competing plans that are the next-to-last realistic options. The question now is whether House Republicans are going to help Mr. Boehner achieve significant progress, or, in the name of the unachievable, hand Mr. Obama a victory. 

Mr. Obama recognizes these stakes, threatening yesterday to veto the Boehner plan in a tactical move to block any Democratic support. The White House is afraid that it will pass the House and then become the only debt-ceiling vehicle if Mr. Reid can't get 60 votes for his own proposal in the Senate. This would short-circuit Mr. Obama's plan to blame the GOP for a U.S. credit downgrade, any market turmoil, a possible default, and the lousy economy too. 

 (snip)

It's true that the Boehner plan doesn't solve the long-term debt problem, but Mr. Obama won't agree to anything that does. The GOP plan also may not prevent a U.S. national credit downgrade, but it has a better chance of doing so than Mr. Reid's. The Boehner plan is the most credible proposal with a chance of becoming law before the 2012 election.   

(snip) 

Excerpt:  Read More at The Wall Street Journal