Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Congress Passes Clean Debt Ceiling Hike Bill with 28 Republicans In Support

No limits.

We knew, previously, that many in Congress considered the fight against the debt-limit hike to be "theater."

Still, a “clean” debt-limit hike — one with no strings attached — has not been ruled out, and Boehner reiterated his desire to avoid a federal default.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) agreed. “It’s theater,” he said, commenting on the latest flurry of stories about possible GOP plans. “It’s going to end up being clean anyway. I don’t see anything they can put on the table that I would support as some sort of trade-off.”

Settling on a strategy that can win 200-plus GOP votes is Boehner’s chief goal, according to his aides. His whip team will fan out through the House this week to get a better sense of whether members are coalescing around a particular option. Months after the poll-sinking government shutdown and months before the midterm elections, Boehner is looking to keep the Republican drama to a minimum.

“Listen, I don’t do the vote counting,” Boehner told reporters when asked about House GOP dynamics. “The goal here is to increase the debt ceiling. Nobody wants to default on our debt. But while we’re doing this, we’ve got to do something” on jobs or the economy.

I remarked last week or the one before that I'm personally not enraged by this. We're getting beaten; we don't have the cards.

There is a bit of "theater," however, in the Republicans votes on this. As AllahPundit notes, the Republicans voting for the debt ceiling hike are either leadership, or blue-state Representatives who have to answer to blue-state constituents, or people who are, conveniently, about to retire.

And I guess I could be mad about that too, but that gets close to being angry to find some politics going on in politics.

I suppose I just think, at this point, there are more important things to be alarmed about.

posted by Ace at 06:39 PM

| Access Comments