So now we see what Obama’s words mean: squat. He said in his “not press press conference” a few days ago that he would sign a short-term debt limit increase as long as it was clean. Well, Bohner caved and offered Obama one. What did the White House say? Nope.
You know what I would have done? Want to know? Well, it doesn’t matter if you want to know or not because this is my blog so I’m going to tell you.
I would have gone to that meeting and after everyone made obligatory small-talk, I would have said something along the lines of “Barry, you’d better listen up (Well, I would have called him Mr. President but I’d want to call him Barry). Here’s what’s going to happen:
1) We are going to continue to pass bills restoring funding to various government agencies. We expect the Senate to pass them and you to sign them.
2) Either none of those bills will find ObamaCare OR we’ll fund it only if the American People get the same waiver as business did (a 1 year delay) AND all existing waivers/exceptions are done away with (including for congress and the President himself)
3) We have until the 17th of October to come to an agreement on this Debt Ceiling thing. Today the offer is $1 in spending cuts for each $1 of increase. Tomorrow, it increases to $2 to $1. When we get to $5 in cuts to $1 increase, our offer changes to a real 1% budget cut each year for the next 10 years. It will then increase each day to the deadline of 17 October. This will be followed with a budget appropriate for FY 2014.
4) If you don’t like this, The Constitution requires you to make debt payments first (see the 14th Amendment). This (show it) is a bill of impeachment already drawn up. We will hold a vote the very next day following a missed debt payment. You will be impeached.
5) We understand that there may be cash flow issues. We will vote an immediate “flex” debt ceiling increase to give the Treasury authority to borrow whatever is necessary to balance out these cash flow issues if you decide we are bluffing.
If those conditions are met, I’d pass the appropriate budget (see #3), send it to the Senate for a vote.
Why is this compromise? Quite simply, the proposal I would want to ask for:
1) Increase of the debt ceiling by supermajority vote in both houses except in the case of declared war. If that were the case, the limit would be automatically raised and the government could borrow unrestricted provided those funds are used in direct support of that war effort.
2) A balanced budget for FY 2014
3) A better than balanced budget with actual reductions of 1% for each year for the next 10 years.
4) Those savings (and any surplus) would be used to pay down the debt.
5) I’d have a plan for eliminating the debt in 50 years (reduction to 0). That would probably include further actual cuts in spending. This would include a total reboot of the welfare state and social security.
6) Do this with no tax increases. $3 Trillion in revenue is MORE THAN ENOUGH.
Anything less than that is compromise. He can elect to have control over the cuts through the budget process OR we can force him to make cuts by not raising the debt ceiling.
[Update 2013-10-11 13:45:17] Charles Krauthammer agrees with me on the Obama lying part of this post (and he isn’t a conservative by any stretch of the means)
[Update 2013-10-13 08:42:35] Here’s an article yesterday that talks more about how Obama lied when he said he would sign a short-term debt increase bill
Image from barack obama via flickr