Columbus Dispatch...
Ohio lawmakers key players in debt debate
While Boehner looks for compromise, Rep. Jordan doesn’t fear a U.S. default
By Jessica Wehrman

WASHINGTON - Deep divisions among Ohio lawmakers mirror the broad chasm separating Democrats and Republicans on how to increase the federal government’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2. 

One Ohio lawmaker is a central figure in the debate. Another is a former White House budget director who is guiding his fellow Republicans on the technicalities of the debt ceiling. Another says it’s fine to make some cuts along with raising the debt ceiling, as long as Medicare and Social Security aren’t radically changed. 

A look at how key Ohioans are influencing the debate: 

More than anyone in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner is caught between those who want to negotiate a deal to curb spending and increase the debt ceiling, and those who breezily dismiss the dangers of a default. 

Within the next week or so, the suburban Cincinnati Republican must broker a deal with the White House that can pass the House. Here’s the high-wire act: He has to do it while satisfying a rowdy caucus of conservatives - some inclined not to negotiate - who seized the majority in 2010 largely on the promise that they would never vote to raise taxes. 

President Barack Obama argues that allowing tax cuts for American families making more than $250,000 a year to expire has to happen; the nation, he said, is broke. Boehner, who has made near-daily trips to the White House since last week, says the House never will approve an income-tax increase. 

“It takes two to tango,” he said, “and they’re not there yet.” 

As head of the conservative 175-member Republican Study Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, a 47-year-old former wrestler from Urbana, comes as close to being a de facto House tea party head as there is. 

His role: To drive the debate toward conservative ideals. 

He uses a catchy slogan to push the group’s plan to solve the nation’s spending: “cut, cap and balance.” By cutting spending, they reason, they could cut the deficit. By capping spending at 18 percent of the gross domestic product, they’d keep government spending from skyrocketing in the future. And by sending the states a Balanced Budget Amendment, they could set the stage for lower federal spending in the long term. 

On Friday, he saw a triumph: House leadership said it would take up the plan this week. 

Unlike many others in his caucus, Jordan does not predict disaster should Aug.2 come and go without action. He predicts a “glitch” but said the real hurdles would come later when entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security crash. 

The debate over the debt ceiling, Jordan reasons, gives conservatives bargaining leverage to “fix the financial and fiscal situation of the country.” 

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is willing to approve an increase in the debt ceiling. But Brown is adamant: Don’t mess with Medicare or Social Security. 

He said any deal should neither increase the retirement age for Social Security beneficiaries nor cut Medicare benefits for the elderly. 

He acknowledged that he could support ways to save money in Medicare, particularly by confronting the issue of those eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, which provides health coverage for the poor. 

He assailed Republicans, saying while Obama has “compromised and compromised,” they have been “willing to put a terrible blot” on the country in order to “protect their Wall Street friends and oil companies.” 

“It’s not going to be 100percent their way,” he said. “This has to be a compromise. I am very willing to compromise.” 

Rep. Pat Tiberi, who has served in the House since 2001, is worried about Congress and the White House allowing the Aug. 2 deadline to pass without action. 

“Some people, not just members of Congress, but some people in Ohio, say, ‘let it crash,’” the Genoa Township Republican said. “I can’t look at my daughters and say that’s the best way to do this.” 

Tiberi, 48, serves on the Ways and Means Committee, the powerful tax-writing panel that would examine a debt-ceiling deal first if one is reached. But the committee also has oversight of Medicare and Social Security. He sees the rapidly escalating cost of both programs in reports from their boards of trustees. “It ain’t pretty,” he said. 

Tiberi also is one of Boehner’s closest House allies, a position that gives him a view of the complexity of the negotiations. 

He said he knows that to truly tackle the problem, both sides are going to have to agree on spending cuts and entitlement reform. There is an endless array of elements that could be wildly unpopular with voters. But it is an opportunity to change the way Washington spends its money, he said. 

“We have to pay our bills,” he said. “But we should also show that we’re going to change the way we spend here going forward.” 

Long after much of Washington went to sleep on Tuesday, Republican Sen. Rob Portman was still in meetings about the debt ceiling. 

Portman, 55, lends a perspective other members of his body cannot: He served as the head of the federal Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. He said that background helps when he talks to his colleagues about the consequences of a default as well as “the tools Treasury has” to deal with the issue. 

“Just extending the debt limit without doing anything on the spending side is very likely to cause the markets to react negatively,” he said. “And an increase in interest rates is exactly the wrong thing for our economy right now.” 

He takes the Aug. 2 deadline very seriously. He does “not believe it’s acceptable” to allow the government to default on its debt obligations. Still, he said, the government has to tackle its underlying spending problem, or “it will hurt our economy in serious ways.” 

Portman, although hopeful for a “grand bargain,” acknowledges that both sides might have to settle for “credible reductions in spending.” 

“My focus is on the economic impact of it all,” Portman said. “This is not just a philosophical discussion.” 

Rep. Steve Stivers of Columbus is one of the 85 Republicans elected to the House last fall - a group that swept into office largely on the premise that they would not raise taxes. Voters, he said, sent him and other freshmen “to change Washington, to change the culture, to change the process of the way things happen here.” 

On Friday, he signed onto the “cut, cap, balance” bill as a co-sponsor. 

He takes the Aug. 2 deadline very seriously. If the U.S. defaults, he said, interest rates on house loans and car loans might skyrocket. The government might not be able to pay troops or pay Social Security benefits. College students might face difficulty securing Pell grants and student loans. 

“The people in my district would see a real impact to their daily lives,” he said. 

But raising taxes, he said, is not an option for him. 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch