The Plan as I Understand It

Harry Reid plans to put a long-term debt increase with no strings attached up for a vote in the Senate this week. He needs just six Republicans to join the Dems for a two-thirds vote, and Reid seems to think he can get that. If not, he will challenge Senate Republicans to kill it with a filibuster, making them own the default. If the bill does pass, it will pressure the House, somehow. Although I’m not sure how. The House appears to be too oblivious to be pressured.

Brian Beutler adds another twist:

Reid will likely use a mechanism to allow the president to increase the debt limit on his own, subject to a veto-able resolution of disapproval by the Congress. In other words, the only way the debt limit won’t increase is if two-thirds of both the House and Senate feel it must be pulled back into the realm of legislative horsetrading — something that will never happen absent bipartisan agreement.

I’ve been bouncing around checking out several news stories about this, and most are hazy on details. I’m not sure if the people writing the news stories quite understand what’s going on, either.

A mess o’ Republicans and their supporters have persuaded themselves that the dire predictions of disaster if the debt ceiling isn’t raised are just scare stories coming from the White House. Power Tool John Hinderaker explains that the United States cannot default on debt, because the 14th Amendment says it can’t, therefore God will send us the magic beans we need to find all kinds of surplus money sluicing around Washington.

All we have to do is prioritize, see. Just cut other stuff, like Medicare and the Marines, and we’ll be fine. Just don’t close war memorials.

In short, House Republicans will not see sense, and most Senate Republicans won’t, either, although maybe enough will to get a two-thirds vote.