(Image source: The New York Times)
BY MALLORY PERRYMAN
ANCHORED BY MEGAN MURPHY
You're watching multisource politics video news analysis from Newsy.
House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has come up with a hail-Mary for ending the debt debate before the August 2nd deadline.
In a nutshell...
“...the plan would permit respective increases of $700 billion, $900 billion and another $900 billion with the approval of one third of Congress, or in other words, let Democrats vote for additional borrowing.”
The procedural-savvy Kentuckian describes the plan as the so-called “last-choice option” in case the tense debt negotiations never turn the corner.
So who’s on board?
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): “I commend him for what I consider to be a positive and thoughtful response.”
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): “I commend him for his thoughtful and unique proposal.”
Senate Democrats seeing the plan as -- at least “thoughtful” -- but a lot of Republicans-- not so much.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): “Republicans weren't elected last November to make it easier to borrow and spend and add to our debt.”
Newt Gingrich (GOP Presidential Candidate): “The way it’s written I think is a surrender by the Republicans.”
The Weekly Standard outlines one of the GOP’s main problems with McConnell’s escape hatch--
“...the plan isolates House Republicans, it undercuts their (tentative) plan to offer an aggressive debt limit proposal of their own...and it virtually ensures that, in the event of default, Republicans – not the White House – will be blamed.”
The American Spectator adds--
“...only gimmickry separates this from what Republicans were trying to avoid in the first place: just raising the debt ceiling without any cuts or reforms.”
And conservative blogger Erick Erickson polishes off the cons with this:
Erick Erickson (Redstate.com): “Mitch McConnell has been one of the Republicans out there saying that this is all about policy...Now all of a sudden you’re going to say ‘hey this is great politics, we’ll let the president take the blame for it’. If this is a crisis, then we need a real policy.”
But an analyst on MSNBC counters-- McConnell knows what he’s doing.
Analyst: “He’s also the shrewdest legislative tactician and negotiator of any of the parties around the table...His- what some people saw as a capitulation is a pretty clever way to try and solve this problem.”
For every politico who trashes the minority leader’s strategy- another defends it. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein argues McConnell’s plan would formalize...
“...the informal arrangement the parties have had in recent years, which is that the debt ceiling is used to embarrass the party in power, but it’s not allowed to threaten the American economy...McConnell is giving us a way out of the hole we’ve dug for ourselves”
McConnell’s last resort would force Democrats to raise the debt ceiling three times without GOP support. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says- for Dems up for reelection in 2012- this last-choice option is a worst-case scenario.
Joe Scarborough: “By the way, if I were Claire McCaskill, I would tell anybody at the White House that says this is a good idea to go straight to hell...I’m saying behind the scenes I would say that because Claire McCaskill, you can’t take that vote three times before 2012...It’s political suicide.”
But a Fire Dog Lake blogger counters...
“I cannot name for you one single solitary member of Congress who lost his or her seat because they voted to increase the debt limit... McConnell may consider this tactically brilliant, but Democrats would be fine to call his bluff.”
Transcript by Newsy.
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