ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

     Here we are, 3 days until the debt ceiling is reached, and our elected officials are still playing politics. I, for one, have had enough of both parties. The Senate voted down the House bill, and now the Senate has voted down their own bill, put forth by Senator Harry Reid.  Senate Republicans want a 60-vote threshold for a debt-limit bill to pass the chamber, which Senator Harry Reid is on record as saying has to happen for anything to pass. Now, Reid is claiming that the Republicans are stalling by requesting the 60 vote threshold. All this is a ploy to keep Americans scared.
     The only people in Washington trying to get America's economy straight is the Tea Party. But, because they are standing their ground, Democrats in the Senate are comparing them to the Taliban. WTH? This is like watching a bunch of 5th graders on the playground trying to see who is the baddest kid in class. Name-calling is not going to settle this battle of wills. BO has now said he was not going to sign any bill that raises the debt-ceiling if it also contains spending cuts without tax reform. This means he won't be signing a bill by the Democrats or the Republicans.
     Moody's Investors Service said that the "limited magnitude" of both debt plans put forward by congressional leaders would not put the nation's AAA credit rating back on solid footing. It added that "prolonged debt ceiling deliberations" have increased the odds of a downgrade.
     Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, held a 4 p.m. afternoon press conference in which they both said a deal was close. Two hours later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, asserted the claims of his Republican counterparts were simply "not true."
     Despite the House's pre-emptive rejection of the Reid plan, Senate Democrats say they are moving forward with its consideration. The Senate is tentatively scheduled to take up Reid's proposal beginning at 1 a.m. ET on Sunday -- part of that chamber's arcane procedural path required to get something passed before the Treasury runs out of funds. Any proposal put forward by Reid will ultimately need the support of at least seven Senate Republicans in order to reach the 60-vote margin required to overcome a certain GOP filibuster. Forty-three of the Senate's 47 Republicans sent a letter to Reid Saturday promising to oppose his plan as currently drafted. Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Massachusetts' Scott Brown, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski declined to sign it, but these "Republicans" do not surprise me.
     Mitch McConnell urged Reid to hold a quick vote on his bill in order to clear the way for new talks. McConnell told Reid on the Senate floor, your plan "will not pass the Senate. It will not pass the House. It is simply a nonstarter. Hold the vote here and now" and let's "not waste another minute of the nation's time." Reid responded by accusing the Republicans of wasting time on the Boehner plan, and criticized the Senate GOP for not allowing his plan to be considered with a simple majority vote.
     Democratic leaders vehemently object not only to the balanced budget amendment, but also the GOP's insistence that a second debt ceiling vote be held before the next election. They argue that reaching bipartisan agreement on another debt ceiling hike during an election year could be nearly impossible, and that short-term extensions of the limit could further destabilize the economy.
     Boehner's plan, which has since been revised, proposed generating a total of $917 billion in savings while initially raising the debt ceiling by $900 billion. The speaker has pledged to match any debt ceiling hike with dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. His plan would require a second vote by Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a combined $2.5 trillion -- enough to last through the end of 2012. It would create a special congressional committee to recommend additional savings of $1.6 trillion or more. The plan also calls for congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment before the second vote to raise the debt ceiling, which would likely be required at some point during the winter.
     Reid's plan would reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.4 trillion and raise the debt ceiling by a similar amount. It includes $1 trillion in savings based on the planned U.S. withdrawals from military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reid's plan would establish a congressional committee made up of 12 House and Senate members to consider additional options for debt reduction. The committee's proposals would be guaranteed by a Senate vote with no amendments by the end of the year. It also incorporates a process, based on a proposal by McConnell, that would give Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling in two steps while providing Congress the opportunity to vote its disapproval.
     In his weekly address, this morning, BO said, "Republicans in the House of Representatives just spent precious days trying to pass a plan that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate had already said they wouldn’t vote for." But, the House passed the cut and cap bill, the Senate voted it down, and it contained more cuts than either of the latest two bills. BO has no legal right to even be involved. It is up to Congress to pass the bills and the president's responsibility to sign or veto a bill.
     I think the best way to handle this situation is to put the gloves on Boehner and Reid, the winner's bill goes forward and the winner then takes on BO.