Michael Tomasky hits the nail on the head

This is exactly what the President should do:

[T]here are some legitimate legal questions surrounding the use of the 14th Amendment that could lead to political nightmares down the road, like an adverse decision from the Supreme Court. And after all, as long as the GOP controls the House, the odds would be at least decent that they actually would drum up some phony charges and impeach him, leading to a trial in the Senate. But in fact, this would in many ways be a gift to Obama. Calls for impeachment would likely perform the nifty trick of getting both left and center on his side, galvanizing his enervated left flank for battle heading toward reelection and persuading independents that the Republican Party needs to start holding its caucus meetings in rubber rooms (what, impeaching a president for ensuring the good credit rating of the United States?).

If Boehner, Cantor, and McConnell want to keep cow-towing to the dead-ender wing of the Republican Party and destroy the national economy to sharpen a political axe, Obama has to call their bluff with the 14th.  Go on national television, explain the stakes, and then dare them to impeach him, because short of a Supreme Court ruling from a Court that's been very sympathetic to broad executive power arguments in recent memory (which would effectively be a ruling saying that the 14th Amendment doesn't actually mean what it says on its face) the only remedy would be impeachment.

Josh Lyman had the right idea.



H/T: My wife, who spotted the article, and has gotten her fill of my desperation for Obama to just end the crisis by invoking the 14th Amendment.

GOP unseriousness on budget-cutting

Briefly, I have one major complaint with the strategy of Congressional Republicans with regard to the budget.  Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner have basically said they will kill any proposal to raise the debt ceiling without something on the order of a trillion dollars (that's $1,000,000,000,000) in cuts.  But whenever you ask them or the rest of their party to get specific about where those cuts should come from (aside from just naming entitlement programs in general), they get very quiet.

Here's the thing, defense spending, debt service, and entitlement spending make up something like 3/4 of the federal budget.  Obviously, there's no choice on debt service.  Bring up the possibility of deep cuts to the DoD (as Secretary Gates has done) and suddenly the GOP starts hemming and hawing about how every dollar the Pentagon gets is sacrosanct.  And entitlement spending, as someone on MSNBC brilliantly phrased it yesterday, is a political dirty bomb.  Social Security has long been called (correctly) "the third rail of American politics."  As in, "touch it, and you die."  Add Medicare to that score now, as NY-26 demonstrates.  Voters are awfully quick to which ever party wants to interfere in their entitlement programs.  So basically, the Republicans are complaining about the debt being run up, blocking any measure to, I don't know, raise revenue, opposing efforts to cut defense spending, and essentially expecting President Obama to either go along with the ridiculously unpopular Ryan plan* to blow up Medicare, or find another way to commit political suicide by proposing deep entitlement cutbacks.  President Obama may be many things, but a political neophyte he is not, and I'm pretty sure he's not in a hurry to commit seppuku just to do the Republicans a favor.

Personally, I think serious thought has to be given to a few things.  1) Raising the retirement age.  People are living longer, period.  You don't need to be an actuary to figure that out.  Unfortunately, say the words "raise the retirement age" to most people, and you get immediate hostility.  But if anyone could sell it, it would be President Obama.  2) Raising the payroll tax cap to ensure the long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security.  3) Raising corporate and individual income taxes generally, or at the very least cutting out some loopholes and deductions.  Revenue must increase.  If the Republicans weren't committed to being the Church of Cut My Taxes, they might realize that.

My point: One party is being serious about the debt.  The other is not.  I think we all know which is which.

*A plan which also would require the debt ceiling to be raised by another five trillion dollars.  Fiscally responsible, my ass.