LibriumArcana.Games

DEREK THOMPSONSEP 26 2013, 9:47 AM ET



0

inShare
More
In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling. How is that any different than what the Republican Party is doing today? people all over cable news keep asking.

This is how. Obama's vote was a silly symbolic vote that had no consequence, but, crucially, it was also supposed to be a silly symbolic vote that had no consequence. Like many minority parties before them, Democrats used the debt ceiling to make a stink about fiscal policy, but they didn't try to hold the White House—or the international financial community—hostage.

This time is different. National Review snags the details of the House's debt-ceiling demands, and once you get through them, you'll be surprised they didn't ask for free ice cream, a lifetime pass to Disneyland, and a bill to rename the capitol "The Reagan Dome."

One Year Debt Limit Increase

Not a dollar amount increase, but suspending the debt limit until the end of December 2014.

Similar to what we did earlier this year.

Want the year long to align with the year delay of Obamacare.

One Year Obamacare delay

Tax Reform Instructions

Similar to a bill we passed last fall, laying out broad from Ryan Budget principles for what tax reform should look like.

Gives fast track authority for tax reform legislation

Energy and regulatory reforms to promote economic growth

Includes pretty much every jobs bill we have passed this year and last Congress

All of these policies have important positive economic effects.

Energy provisions

Keystone Pipeline

Coal Ash regulations

Offshore drilling

Energy production on federal lands

EPA Carbon regulations

Regulatory reform

REINS Act

Regulatory process reform

Consent decree reform

Blocking Net Neutrality

Mandatory Spending Reforms

Mostly from the sequester replacement bills we passed last year

Federal Employee retirement reform

Ending the Dodd Frank bailout fund

Transitioning CFPB funding to Appropriations

Child Tax Credit Reform to prevent fraud

Repealing the Social Services Block grant

Health Spending Reforms

Means testing Medicare

Repealing a Medicaid Provider tax gimmick

Tort reform

Altering Disproportion Share Hospitals

Repealing the Public Health trust Fund

Give us everything we want or else we'll destroy the country! is the sort of demand that only a broken party inside a broken system could possibly hope to make. The debt ceiling should not exist and the rules of the Senate and House shouldn't allow a minority to repeatedly extort the majority, but, well, you go to debtmageddon with the government you got. Republicans, inching away from shutdown, are all in on an apocalyptic strategy to trade the full faith and credit of the country for their agenda.

To be fair, some are saying this list is less a ransom note than a menu. Fine. If it's a menu, it's the most expensive prix fixe meal in modern political history.