Free Republic

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) argued that President Joe Biden should use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit unilaterally if the House — which has passed a bill to raise the debt limit — “will not act” and “refuses to do its job.” And that he believes that “if things can get done by executive order — and then let them play out in the courts. Host Andrea Mitchell asked, “In 2011, you were one of several Democrats urging then-President Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment during that debt limit crisis....

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the assistant House Democratic leader, said the debt limit bill backed by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate. Clyburn said Saturday in an interview on MSNBC that he does not believe the Lift, Save, Grow Act — which the House narrowly passed in a 217-215 vote on Wednesday — itself will bring President Biden to negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, but negotiations can start after the House bill is dead.

President Obama has been this generation's Teflon president. Whether it's the poorly handled Benghazi attack and cover-up, NSA's information gathering, or the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the blame has always rolled off the President's back. Even when the majority of Americans polled didn't want Obamacare and remain concerned about Washington's deficit spending, when Republicans tried to use the budget and debt fight to derail the Affordable Care Act, it was the GOP who received most of the blame for Washington's partial shutdown and debt-limit standoff. But with the mainline media coverage, it's amazing that citizens didn't hold...

According to the AP, President Obama just promised to cut the US deficit in half as a percentage of GDP by 2013. This is consistent with Obama's prior budget projections, and it would certainly be a start. Of course, it won't make a dent in the long-term problem.) So can we get Congress to commit to that? If so, we'd be a lot more supportive of additional near-term stimulus spending (which, otherwise, we think will just become long-term structural overspending). Obama also said a lot of other stuff:

Republicans would accept a "mini" deal with the Obama administration on raising the debt limit, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a Republican leader, said. Cornyn said today on "Fox News Sunday" that while Republicans would prefer a long-term settlement, they would accept a shorter-term agreement if that's all they could get done. The U.S. Treasury Department has projected that on Aug. 2 the U.S. will no longer be able to meet obligations if the legal debt ceiling isn't raised