Tom Cole is the kind of Republican President Obama will need to raise the debt ceiling. The Oklahoma congressman is certainly a conservative, but he’s also a pragmatist and a realist who urged Republicans early on to lock in income tax rates for almost all Americans, rather than risk the possibility of them automatically rising for everyone. He was one of only 85 House Republicans who voted in favor of the ‘fiscal cliff’ compromise on January 1.
But when it comes to raising the debt ceiling, Congressman Cole is adamant that he will not accede to President Obama's unequivocal demand to raise it without any spending cuts.
“I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that," Cole told me in a phone interview.
"We didn’t downgrade our credit [in 2011] because of the debt ceiling fight. We downgraded in my view because when we had the fight we didn’t cut enough," Cole said. "Just raising the debt ceiling with no compromise sends the wrong message—that we think we can willy-nilly go on forever."
"If there are not serious cuts, the Republican votes are not going to be there," Cole continued.
Every budget showdown over the past two years--the continuing resolution, the debt limit fight of 2011, the "fiscal cliff--has ended in roughly the same way with a last minute compromise that failed to
- the election, 2. the default was all ... it was utterly insane.
“To me, the logical place to start are some of the ideas that the president himself has put on the table or indicated he’s favorable toward. Chained CPI is one of them,” he said, referring to Social Security. “Gradual raising of the age on Medicare is something that ought to reappear. … I personally think one of the places Republicans are prepared to be pretty tough is means testing for higher income individuals, at least some sort of sliding scale similar to what we have Medicare Part D. On the discretionary front, I would expect some of the sequester to actually stay.”
There's no election, and Obama shows no willingness to compromise this time around.
JIM JORDAN:
“We want to meet our obligations. We want to pay for the essential things in our government. But we also understand that if we don’t have an intervention, there’s going to be a crash.”
“If we don’t deal with this problem now, it’s going to get a lot worse later.”
“We have to let the country know we’re serious about the spending problem.”
“We haven’t decided” on particular spending cuts to attach to a debt limit hike, but if history is any guide it's hard to imagine the most conservative members of the conference agreeing to anything less than the "cut, cap, and balance" plan.
GOP officials tell Politico that "more than half of their members are prepared to allow default unless Obama agrees to dramatic cuts he has repeatedly said he opposes," and the authors of the Politico story entertain the possibility that Speaker Boehner might therefore allow "a vote that a majority of his members would oppose." Boehner's right flank will likely never agree to raise the debt ceiling if it's tied to spending cuts
The problem is that Republicans need something
--COLE ON WHERE TO START:
But if mainstream Republicans like Tom Cole are refusing to vote for a clean debt limit hike, it's unclear that such a bill could even muster the small number of House Republicans needed to pass it with unanimous Democratic support.
The mainstream Republicans need some spending cuts, and Obama insists that he will give them nothing. WHAT COLE WANTS:
But the bigger problem is that Obama is refusing to even negotiate on spending cuts that compromisers like Tom Cole say are necessary
Cole is not a firebrand. Conversations: They haven't picked out anything, but it's hard to imagine them voting for a debt limit increase unless if it's tied to anything left of "Cut, Cap, and Balance" or the Ryan budget
WHY THINGS ARE DIFFERENT?
--THE ELECTION IS OVER...
--OBAMA REFUSES TO GIVE ANY SPENDING CUTS
SO WHAT DOES A DEFAULT?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-debt-ceiling-not-negotiation_693488.html
Conn Carroll notes,
14 out of 17 times, attached to http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-could-harry-reid-pass-a-clean-debt-limit-hike/article/2518590?custom_click=rss#.UPV3VKHXkiU
Cole is adamant that he won't vote in favor of –
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324595704578239773128108906.html
But Cole is not adamant that he will not accept Obama’s unequivocal demand that Republicans raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts. ….
But Cole is not …