As of yesterday, one of House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) key demands to prevent a crisis next week is two separate debt-ceiling votes. He wants one vote this week, and then wants the country to go through all of this again early next year.
Greg Sargent has tried to find someone — outside the House Republican caucus — who thinks this is a good idea. He didn’t come up with much.
With House Republicans now pushing for a temporary extension of the debt limit, which would mean another fight along these lines a few months from now, it’s worth asking: Is there anyone significant or credible out there aside from them who is willing to say this is a good idea?
Greg noted concerns from independent financial analysts, who consider this the wrong move, as well as a 1985 report showing the Reagan administration considered short-term increases evidence of Congress “shirking its responsibilities.”
So, let’s review. President Obama doesn’t want two separate votes. Senate Democrats don’t want two separate votes. As recently as last month, leading congressional Republicans didn’t want two separate votes. The financial industry doesn’t want two separate votes. Even Ronaldus Magnus didn’t like the idea of two separate votes.
As we talked about earlier, this is pretty straightforward. Forcing two votes is bad for the economy, bad for public sanity, bad for Congress as an institution, and even bad for House Republicans themselves.
And yet, at least as of today, John Boehner consider this critical. He must assume that he can’t pass a bill without this provision, but I honestly don’t know why the House GOP would consider this unnecessary and widely-loathed provision a deal-breaker, other than to make a fuss about the White House and congressional Dems rejecting one of his ideas.
The sooner the Speaker drops this one point that no one likes anyway, the sooner this Republican mess goes away.
