Last week, President Donald Trump undercut GOP congressional leaders by working with Democratic leaders. LifeZette News asked me to comment on the “idea of raising the nation’s borrowing limit…”
As you can imagine, I was not too pleased with this plan:
“I would love to be able to do that with my credit cards as well,” quipped Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots who now serves as president of Citizens for Self-Governance. “It’s called fiscal insanity.”
That Meckler guy is pretty harsh to the Republican leadership…don’t you think? But I wasn’t alone in my criticism. Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action for America, said “Getting rid of the debt ceiling is akin to getting rid of the fire alarm in your home.”
Also, Jason Pye, of FreedomWorks, said, “I’m old enough to remember when this president campaigned against raising the national debt.”
Pye described scrapping the debt limit as “wholly fiscally irresponsible” because it gives up the leverage conservatives have over the ceiling. “It’s the only opportunity to rein in the size and scope of the federal government.” But here’s my take:
But Meckler defended the president’s decision to side with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on a short, three-month extension of the debt ceiling. That will give Trump leverage during negotiations over spending for the rest of fiscal year 2018, he said.
Meckler said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both were advocating “in the most spineless way” to push back the next debt ceiling vote until after next year’s midterm elections.
The Republican leaders also refused, added Meckler, to back up Trump’s threat to risk a partial government shutdown over his proposed border wall.
“Any negotiating leverage the president might have had, they completely took away from him,” he said. “The sellouts are Ryan and McConnell … Those guys are the scumbags, and they’re the villains in this situation.”
Meckler agreed.
“It creates negotiating leverage for anyone who doesn’t think we should have unlimited spending,” he said.
Click here to read more from Mark's Patheos blog.
Tired of irresponsible federal spending? A Convention of States can propose constitutional amendments that force the feds to be fiscally responsible.
