Republican Party

Adventures In Republican Grab-Assery

Even though the reality is setting in that they must pass an increase to the debt ceiling over the next two weeks, House Republicans are going to delay the eventual vote for an increase as long as they can while they continue to voice symbolic opposition to it.

Scores of House Republicans say they won't vote to raise the debt limit unless a Constitutional balanced budget amendment has been sent off to the states for ratification. And so whatever Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Congressional leaders decide about the real path ahead, he'll hold votes next week on a major spending cut and spending cap plan that includes a hike in the debt ceiling, and, separately, on a balanced budget amendment. The latter would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate and, in its current form, stands little chance of passing either chamber. [...]

At a Friday press conference after a meeting with the GOP caucus, Boehner let slip, subtly, that the plan will go nowhere.

"The cut cap and balance plan that the House will vote on next week is a solid plan for moving forward," he said. "Let's get through that vote and then we'll make decisions about what will come after."

Ironically, the last person to both increase the debt ceiling and balance the budget at the same time was a Democrat, and he did so by raising taxes. Not by playing grab-ass and holding symbolic votes on a disingenuous balanced budget amendment which will never come to fruition.

A balance budget amendment will never -- never -- become a reality. It wouldn't even be fiscally possible to implement such a thing overnight as Republicans are suggesting without annihilating society as we know it. And John Boehner knows this, but he's going to hold on a vote on it anyway as a token of good faith to his Tea Party overlords.

And just in case anyone forgot -- House Republicans already voted for Paul Ryan's inherently imbalanced, fiscal 2012 budgetary road-map which would balloon the national debt and the deficit to new heights.

The cognitive dissonance on display in the House of Representatives is astonishing.