Touting His Government Shutdown In 2005, Pawlenty Says GOP Lawmakers ?Should Not Raise The Debt Ceiling?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on January 17th, 2011 5:38 am by HL
As an increasing number of Republicans clamor for a “showdown” over raising the U.S. debt limit, the more sober-minded among them warn of the looming economic disaster such a move would cause. Aware that the U.S. will hit its $14.3 trillion debt limit on March 31 this year, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned his party that “if we don’t raise the debt ceiling,” there will be “financial collapse and calamity throughout the world.” Conservative commentators Bill Kristol and George Will echoed his sentiment, calling such right-wing myopia “silly” and “suicidal.”
Former Governor and likely GOP 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty (MN), however, readily prescribed this economic kamikaze mission to the GOP today on Fox News Sunday. Pawlenty, whose failure to sign a state budget in 2005 forced 9,000 state employees to stop pubic services for nine days, told host Chris Wallace that GOP lawmakers “should not raise the debt ceiling” and should “take it one step further” by somehow “sequencing the pain of the bill” to prevent default:
WALLACE: Back in 2005, you allowed the government of Minnesota to shutdown for nine days because of a disagreement with a Democratic legislature about taxes and spending. Should congressional Republicans take the same tough stance when it comes to raising the debt limit and federal spending?
PAWLENTY: …I’m glad we had that showdown in Minnesota. As to the federal government, they should not raise the debt ceiling. I believe we should pass legislation, allow them to seek spending, as the revenue comes in to make sure they don’t default and have a debate about what other spending could be reduced.
WALLACE: You would say to Republicans up in the building behind me do not raise the debt limit?
PAWLENTY: That’s right. To avoid the default, I would take it one step further. Send the president a piece of legislation that authorizes the federal government to sequence the pain of the bill so we don’t default on the debt obligation and then have debate about how we reduce the other spending.
Watch it:
While Pawlenty heralds his 2005 shutdown as a way to force reduced spending, Wallace pointed out that he only ended the shutdown because he “blinked” by raising taxes, specifically a tax on cigarette packs which Pawlenty preferred to call “a health impact fee.” Admitting to the tax hike, Pawlenty said his tenure was still “transformational” in reforming spending and believes he “should’ve let the shutdown run longer” to secure more of his agenda. An agenda, Wallace notes, that will leave the state’s deficit even further in the hole.
Despite the devestating effect Pawlenty’s advice would have, at least eleven Republican lawmakers are signing on to freeze the debt limit and at least seven are prepared to shutdown the government to do so. Still a slew of others are readily threatening to vote against the debt ceiling unless specific, often regressive cuts are made. Joining Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Graham, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) reiterated that stance today on NBC’s Meet The Press. Insisting that the U.S. credit rating is threatened more by debt than by default, Coburn said he will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless spending cuts are made.
Of course, like Pawlenty, these lawmakers refuse take a lesson from history, namely the well-documented disaster that was former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1995 government shutdown that “cost American taxpayers over $800 million.” But, if newly-elected Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) proves anything, that lesson won’t be learned anytime soon. When asked what would happen if the debt ceiling weren’t raised, Mulvaney voiced what appears to be the GOP lawmakers understanding of the issue: “Well I don’t know…No one seems to have the answer to that.”
After Promising To ‘Repeal And Replace’ Obama’s Health Law, Republicans Have No Replacement
As the first major legislative act with their new majority, Republicans are planning to hold a futile vote next week to repeal President Obama’s health care law. The laughably named “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” has an equally laughable chance of becoming law, as the Democratic majority in the Senate will inevitably block it. President Obama has also confirmed that he’ll veto it.
Nonetheless, House Republicans are rushing headlong into inevitable defeat, insisting that their efforts aren’t doomed, and promising to “replace” Obama’s law with their own, better one. “Repeal and replace” has been a mantra for Republicans and their conservative allies since March of last year, though the repealers have been hazy on with what they would “replace” it with.
On Fox News Sunday today, conservative Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol could offer only the vaguest of promises about the replacement. When Fox News contributor Juan Williams challenged Kristol to explain “what are you going to replace it with?”, Kristol told Williams not to worry, because there would be hearings in a few months and Republicans would probably come up with something by then. Watch it:
It seems House Republican leaders fully understand the pointlessness of their effort. Just days away from the repeal vote, House leaders have no coherent plan to address health care if their repeal effort succeeds. The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reports that “according to GOP House leaders, senior aides and conservative health policy specialists, Republicans have not distilled their ideas into a coherent plan”:
On the cusp of undertaking this work, the GOP has a cupboard of health-care ideas, most going back a decade or more. They include tax credits to help Americans afford insurance, limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits and unfettering consumers from rules that require them to buy state-regulated insurance policies. In broad strokes, the approach favors the health-care marketplace over government programs and rules. […]
In the absence of a plan, Republican leaders nevertheless are eager to convey that they have ideas about health care – and are not merely trying to knock down those of the Democrats. As a result, they have drafted a resolution to accompany the repeal legislation. It lays out broad, long-held GOP health-care goals, but no specifics, and directs four House committees to develop proposals. […]
The range of current thinking in the House is not entirely clear, with 87 Republican freshmen and nearly half the members of the influential Ways and Means panel new this year.
The repeal ploy and the lack of real ideas suggest the new majority is uninterested in serious governing.
