Jim DeMint: Sure, We'll Vote To Raise the Debt Ceiling. As Long As It Is Accompanied By Massive Cuts In Spending.

From John King's State of the Nation on CNN:

JOHN KING, HOST, "JOHN KING USA": ….. Many have said now that the Republicans have a majority in the House, more conservatives in the Senate, where will we know, when will we know if you're serious about keeping your promises about spending and the debt. If there's a vote in the Congress on raising the debt ceiling so that the government can continue to print money and spend money, should Republicans say no?

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I think Republicans will say no, unless that raising of the debt ceiling is accompanied by some -- some dramatic spending cuts, something that would direct us toward a balanced budget in the future, Republicans will not support an increase in the debt limit.

What I hope you'll see from Republicans right out of the box, as soon as we get back, is a moratorium on earmarks. Americans and connected the dots. They realize if we're all up there trying to bring home the bacon, we're going to bankrupt our country. And if Republicans in the House and the Senate both take a pledge to not ask for earmarks and to have a moratorium on -- on them in the Congress, I think it will show Americans, at least at the beginning, that we are serious.

So there are a number of other things we need to do to demonstrate that we're -- we're serious. And one of those is to de-fund Obama Care, and, as soon as we can, hopefully, have a vote on balancing the budget.

The Democrats' big strategy is to impel the Republicans to own a piece of their failure. They want us to own their failure by voting to lock it in place.

We should decline. And yes, that means shutting down the government if necessary (and it probably will be necessary), and yes, we have to do that anyway, even knowing the risks.

The public elected us to cut spending. We have to cut spending. We start with a 5% across the board cut (except for the military) and and freeze in federal pay raises (except for the military) and then on top of that begin zeroing out as many programs as we can, and cutting others as much as we can.

We need to cut $100 billion every year. That is going to be tough -- both politically, and practically (I don't think a lot of people are aware of how hard this will be), but we need to do this.

There are going to be some extremely tough votes: Like voting to cut aid to college students.

Parents are not going to like that. Republican parents are not going to like that. Conservative Republican parents reading this site right now are not going to like that.

But these are the things that have to be chopped to really have a chance of cutting $100 billion. We're not going to cut that much simply by reducing foreign aid. We're going to have to cut a lot of things that people actually... well, kind of like.

We have to do this. Whether or not we'll be punished epically in 2012 like the Dems were in 2010, I don't know. But we're locked in to this now.

I hope everyone understands what we've voted for, here.

It's not just going to be "fat" and money that goes to other people. To be serious about cutting federal spending, we have to cut popular subsidies for the middle class.

But again, we have to do it.

posted by Ace at 09:03 PM

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