Restaging debt-ceiling drama is not governing - USA Today editorial

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"...threatening to replay last year's debt-ceiling fiasco — when markets sold off, the economy slowed and the public made its discontent abundantly clear — is an exercise in irresponsibility."[/font]


http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-05-21/debt-ceiling-Boehner-McConnell/55123092/1

(all emphases my own_Bill USA)

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Since Barack Obama was elected president, Republicans in Congress have largely been about confrontation, defending party purity despite controlling only one house, and using deadlines as a chance to generate crises and negotiate for advantage.[/font]

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Last year, House Republicans walked out of what appeared to be promising bipartisan talks between Boehner and President Obama to cut $4 trillion of borrowing over 10 years. They then forced a much smaller, less satisfactory deal, which was designed to force a compromise late this year by automatically triggering program cuts in domestic and defense spending so harsh that neither party wants them. Now, instead of following through and avoiding that pain, House Republicans are trying to undo the deal, passing a budget that goes above the caps on defense spending.

And after all this, they seem to think that they can brand themselves as the party that cares about the deficit. Just recapture some of the magic of last year, when they pushed the nation to the brink of default, sent markets into turmoil and [font color="red"]did palpable harm to the economy[/font] and — presto! — the public will see things their way.

[font size="3"]But there's a difference between deficit cutting, which the public wants, and the Republicans' larger goal of radically scaling back government, on which the public is divided. Every bipartisan group to examine the issue has concluded that both spending cuts and tax hikes will be needed. Yet a grand bargain to curtail the major entitlement programs and impose responsible tax increases is nowhere in sight.[/font]