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Checkmating Obama...
By Dick Morris
Published on TheHill.com on
July 19,
2011
The
House Republicans can checkmate
President Obama by passing two one-house bills in the coming week:
1)
Allow a conditional increase in the
debt limit of up to $200 billion for use only to avoid default. The
money could
be borrowed only if the Treasury secretary certifies that the funds
will be
used only for debt service and that there is no other source of funds
available
for the purpose. Take away the default argument from the president.
2)
Prioritize the use of tax revenue
in the event of no increase in borrowing authority so that military pay
and
Social Security checks would not be affected.
Obama’s
entire political position on
the debt limit is based on a giant bluff: that default looms and “I
cannot
guarantee that Social Security checks will go out” if the limit is not
raised.
It’s a bluff, and he knows it.
The
60 cents of every dollar that the
government spends that come from tax revenue -- not from debt -- will
continue
to flow into the Treasury. These funds are more than adequate to pay
for the
really vital expenses. But they are not adequate to pay for the entire
federal
bureaucracy. Amtrak,
EPA, Interior,
State, Justice, Energy, Education, Medicaid, the NLRB, NASA, the FTC,
HUD and a
myriad of other bureaucratic alphabet-soup agencies will have to take a
back
seat and wait for the debt limit to be raised.
But
Obama can hardly go to the
ramparts demanding funds for Amtrak or the FTC, so he hides behind the
so-called risk of default and a shutoff of Social Security and military
pay to
make his case for an increased debt limit. He trots out expert after
expert to
warn of “catastrophe” or “Armageddon” if the limit is not raised.
But
if the additional borrowing is not
authorized, Obama will himself have to make the choice as to what to
fund. If
he chooses to pay for Amtrak, not Social Security, that’s his decision,
and he
will have to live with it politically.
In
an ideal world, this point would be
obvious. But trying to get the liberal media to cover it is beyond the
realm of
possibility. The major news outlets will still predict disaster and the
markets
will get suitably nervous. The ratings agencies will chant their
warnings and
the Dow will begin to teeter.
But
if the House makes it clear that
there will be no default by passing a small conditional debt-limit
increase
earmarked exclusively for debt service, it will call Obama’s bluff,
reassure
the markets and totally cut his bargaining position out from under his
feet.
Even
the liberal media will see his
predictions of disaster as unduly alarmist, and his crying wolf will be
increasingly seen as spooking the markets and postponing recovery.
Obviously,
the Senate will not pass
the conditional debt-limit increase or the prioritization of the
expenditure of
tax revenues. But no matter. Once the House votes it, the ball is in
the
president’s court. It will then be up to him whether a failure to raise
the
debt limit will cause default.
Remember
that President Clinton only
won the government shutdown battles of 1995 and 1996 by first laying
out his
plan for a balanced federal budget. Once the president showed that the
Republican spending cuts were not necessary to eradicate the deficit,
the GOP had
no leg to stand on.
The
mainstream media wouldn’t cover
that there was a path to balance the budget without the Republican
cuts. So, in
frustration, the Clinton White House began to buy TV ads to explain its
view to
the American people, and the president addressed the nation to lay out
his
plan.
For
the Republicans to win the coming
debt-limit fight, they must take similar prophylactic steps to ensure
that they
win it.
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