Yesterday Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made a new, and complex, proposal regarding the debt ceiling. The proposal boils down to this: Congress would give the President authority to raise the debt ceiling in increments over the coming year. The only check to this power would be a joint congressional resolution halting the raise, but…
Economy & Budget
Political Shorts
Here are a few items that have caught my interest but don’t require a full post. More good news from Eric Cantor (previously here and here): He won’t be signing the “Cut, Cap, Balance” pledge. Members of the House Republican leadership (Cantor included) keep telling Obama that there simply aren’t votes to pass a deal…
Cantor and the Budget, Update
I recommended earlier that we’d need to watch Rep. Eric Cantor’s future statements to see whether he was serious about negotiation and compromise or not. Today he’s made a statement that I would characterize as a half-step in the right direction. By accepting at least the principle of raising some taxes (by “closing loopholes”) as…
Eric Cantor’s Approach to Budget Negotiations
On Thursday, Rep. Eric Cantor pulled out of budget talks led by Vice Pres. Joe Biden. In doing so, Cantor announced that negotiations had reached an impasse over tax increases. Basically, the Republicans in the House don’t want them, so they couldn’t be passed in that chamber. And Senate Democrats do want them, so they…