Senate GOP mulls new debt strategy

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The DeMint opposition is interesting, because it puts Republicans on the Hill overtly at odds with one another on the issue.

As many have already noted, there are pretty transparently political motives behind McConnell's proposed "solution;" it does force Obama to take the "heat" for raising the debt ceiling while GOPers get to object each time.  But there is also a structural shift going on here, because the McConnell plan would in effect hand a power that till now belonged to Congress over to the president.  Of course, Congress tacitly cedes more and more power to the executive branch all the time, but this change is pretty dramatically overt.  And it sets a bad precedent.  Congress passes federal budgets, presidents get to edit them a little or veto them, but given its responsibilities, raising the debt ceiling should be the job of Congress.

So, that's two really bad governing precedents the GOP have set this year.  The first one was attaching a policy agenda to raising the debt ceiling.  Granted it was a policy agenda relevant to the debt ceiling, as their goal was long-term spending reductions.  Nonetheless, even under the most dramatic spending cut program, we are going to run government budget deficits for a while longer, whether a Democrat or a Republican sits in the Oval Office, and this gives the opposition party in Congress a free hand to jam the president on the debt ceiling whenever they really want their goodies badly enough. 

But, I guess precedents don't matter anymore.  We're all confirmed political nihilists by now anyway.