McConnell: GOP Will Likely Take Debt Ceiling Hostage For Spending Cuts — Again

Republicans and Democrats agreed to increase the debt ceiling for three months at the end of January, but with another deadline approaching in May, the top Senate Republican is hinting that the GOP will again demand spending cuts in exchange for any increase.

That is par for the course for Republicans, who have repeatedly threatened to let the nation default on its obligations if President Obama and Senate Democrats don’t agree to cut spending, but this time, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the GOP will likely demand cuts to America’s entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — to agree to an increase in the borrowing limit, The Hill reports:

“Until we make our entitlement programs fit the demographics of our country, you can’t save America, you can’t save the healthcare system,” McConnell said. “There is no revenue solution, I would say to you.”

“We all anticipate that the president’s request of us to raise the debt ceiling, which we’ll probably do sometime this will generate another, hopefully, another discussion about solving the real problem,” he said.

Republicans continue to crow about entitlement reform, ignoring that Social Security is fully solvent for at least two decades, that Obama extended Medicare’s solvency by nine years as part of his sweeping healthcare law, and that at least one of the major reforms Republicans favor — raising the retirement age for Medicare enrollees — would do nothing to improve the program’s health. Meanwhile, the GOP refuses to actually put forth specific entitlement reform plans that would do anything other than end the programs as they exist today.

Using the debt ceiling to extract such cuts is an even less reasonable position, given the pain the GOP’s debt intransigence has already inflicted on the economy. The 2011 debt fight led to increased borrowing costs, hampered job growth for months, and created the automatic budget cuts that went into effect at the beginning of March — all of which burdened an economy that is still struggling to fully recover from the Great Recession. That brinksmanship has led leading policymakers like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, as well as a vast majority of economists, to call for the abolition of the statutory debt limit.

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Sen. McConnell touts support of Rand Paul filibuster in campaign email

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) touted his support for Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) filibuster last week of John Brennan's nomination for CIA director in a new campaign email on Monday.

"Thirteen hours on the Senate floor with no breaks. Thirteen hours of pushing back against an out of control Obama Administration who often refuses to work with or even acknowledge Congress," McConnell, who is up for reelection in 2014, said in the email, sent out to supporters. "Thirteen hours of capturing a nation's attention to both an important issue and an important new voice for our party."

On Wednesday Paul filibustered Brennan's nomination in order to pressure the Obama administration to answer questions about its drone policy. The filibuster lasted more than 12 hours and a number of Republican senators joined Paul. McConnell eventually came to the floor to praise Paul's effort to push the Obama administration to answer his questions.

"Rand stood in their way last week and I was thrilled to join him. But I stand in their way all too often for their tastes. So in addition to standing with Rand, I hope you'll help Team Mitch today," McConnell continues in the fundraising email.

President Obama and his congressional allies are "out" for Paul, McConnell added.

"You and I know that I am their number one target this year. They want me to pay for standing up to them. They want to control the agenda and the power in Congress," McConnell said.

McConnell said Obama has put a "target" on his back and is likely to start planning to push Paul out of the Senate as well.

"President Obama has put a huge target on my back and will no doubt soon start eyeing Rand as well," McConnell concludes in the email.

Among Democrats, actress Ashley Judd has signaled strong interest in challenging McConnell. Tea Partyer Matt Bevin is also considering a challenge to McConnell.

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Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul Join Bipartisan Bill To Legalize Hemp

While most Republican members of Congress have been lukewarm at best to the prospect of legalizing marijuana, senators introduced a bipartisan measure this week to legalize industrial hemp. Riding on the passage of recent Kentucky Senate bills to ease hemp growing, the state’s Republican senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, joined Oregon Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden in introducing a bill to legalize production of the strain of cannabis used in the production of goods.

Hemp is a plant in the cannabis family with significantly lower levels of the psychoactive component, THC, than most varieties that are smoked or consumed. It is used to make textiles, paper, paints, clothing, plastics, cosmetics, foodstuffs, insulation, animal feed and other products, according to NORML. Hemp is nonetheless lumped in with all other cannabis products, which are classified as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive of the five schedules designated for those substances considered dangerous with no currently accepted medical value.

The bill, which would would remove hemp from the controlled substances list and define it as a non-drug so long as it contains less than 0.3 percent THC, is a small demonstration of fading hysteria over anything “cannabis” that emerged in the era of “Reefer Madness.” It also raises questions, however, about federal support for legalizing at least those strains of medical cannabis that have very low levels of THC, as well as those chemical compounds extracted from marijuana that are low in THC.

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McConnell Demands Spending Cuts To Offset Unemployment Insurance Extension

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday punted negotiations over how to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” back to the Senate, but in that chamber, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is now demanding spending cuts to pay for an extension to the federal unemployment insurance program that expires at the end of the year.

Without an extension, 2 million Americans will lose unemployment insurance on January 1; another million will fall out of the program in the early months of 2013. But with the Senate rushing to act before the end of the year, McConnell is again asking for spending cuts to offset the program’s extension, the Associated Press reports:

For the Senate to act, it would require a commitment from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell not to demand a 60-vote margin to consider the legislation on the Senate floor. McConnell’s office says it’s too early to make such an assessment because Obama’s plan is unclear on whether extended benefits for the unemployed would be paid for with cuts in other programs or on how it would deal with an expiring estate tax, among other issues.

More than 500,000 have already lost unemployment insurance because Congress restricted eligibility the last time the program expired, and America’s unemployment program is one of the world’s stingiest. Still, it kept 2.3 million out of poverty last year alone, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that a full, year-long extension would lead to the creation of 300,000 new jobs.

Opponents of the federal unemployment program, which George W. Bush signed into law in 2008 (unemployment insurance is generally handled by states), have argued that it creates a culture of dependency and laziness. But the federal program requires recipients to search for a job while receiving payments, and one study showed that people on unemployment search harder for jobs than those who are not receiving money from the program.

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A Nobody With No Audience Gets Noticed by Mitch McConnell

Yesterday on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, she asked Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell about a recent Roll Call article that framed me as one of the loud leaders of conservatives opposed to Mitch McConnell. The Senator from Kentucky responded that he had never heard of me and I did not have an audience.

That sounds a bit like the child, when asked if he ate the cookie, replying that he had not and besides it did not taste good. If he’d never heard of me, how can he comment on my audience? If he states plainly I have no audience, how can he claim to not have heard of me? His remarks also came less than a day after I came out publicly against bronies, the adult male fans of My Little Pony. I hope that’s just a coincidence.

Mitch McConnell’s remark is just another example of him being vastly overrated as both a strategist and tactician. He claims to have advanced the conservative cause, but told Laura he has to be mindful that to govern Republicans must reach out to all Americans. Perhaps that is why in 2010, with the rise of the tea party, Mitch McConnell backed Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey, Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio (McConnell staffers went to Florida to help Crist), Robert Bennett against Mike Lee, and Trey Grayson against Rand Paul.

I grew up thinking Mitch McConnell was a right wing warrior. It turns out he’s just a typical Washingtonian appropriator who has presided over a massive expansion of the welfare state doing not much more than issuing bold platitudes as he cuts deals to expand government spending and along the way made some major tactical and strategic blunders that groups like ACORN were able to thrive.

Let’s review the record.

In the 1990's Mitch McConnell, then the Republican manager against the Motor Voter bill, made the brilliant tactical decision to not filibuster the motion to take up the bill. Consequently it passed. ACORN and other left-wing groups were emboldened to do what they’ve done over the past two decades. Yes, people forget that it was Mitch McConnell’s tactical decision to let Motor Voter get to the floor of the Senate despite the warnings of what would happen. Passage of that law made it ever easier to engage in voter registration fraud. McConnell had the votes to stop it from being considered, but once it got to the floor of the Senate everyone knew there were enough wobbly Republicans who would not dare go on record actually opposing it on passage.

In the early 2000's when McCain-Feingold went through the Senate, McConnell yet again cut out the legs of its opponents telling them not to worry because he’d let the Supreme Court do their dirty work for them and kill it. McConnell lost in the Supreme Court.

Mitch McConnell’s more recent record makes clear he is more interested in being Majority Leader than advancing any sort of conservative principles. It’s all about McConnell.

He is an appropriations cardinal in the Senate who has routinely stymied fiscal conservative efforts to rein in spending by Senators Coburn, DeMint, and even John McCain.

Recall, if you will, Senator McConnell didn’t just vote for the Wall Street bailouts, he rescued it from near defeat by adding earmarks to TARP after it failed in the House.

As I mentioned, in 2010 Mitch McConnell backed Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey, Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio, Robert Bennett against Mike Lee, and Trey Grayson against Rand Paul.

After House GOP made a stand on payroll tax this past winter, McConnell pulled the rug out and cut a deal with Harry Reid that paid for a payroll tax cut with increases to home mortgages. Allen West said he felt betrayed over this.

McConnell personally recruited Senator Roy Blunt to stop conservative Ron Johnson from winning a key leadership spot.

McConnell vowed to block conservatives from forcing votes on full repeal of Obamacare this year, then flipped and said he’d force votes in March when RepealIt.org threatened to run ads for him to resign, He has yet to keep his promise to force votes. McConnell’s loyal lieutenants in the Senate, at the time, explained that forcing full repeal votes on the Democrats would undermine their ability to cut deals with Harry Reid.

Senator McConnell just last week voted with Senate Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee against Paul Ryan’s budget spending levels. Last year McConnell refused to whip support for Ryan’s budget when it came up for a vote in the Senate.

Senator McConnell and his allies frequently say he has to do what he does because they must keep the moderates to be in the majority. Except 2010 gives the lie away. In races conservatives absolutely could win, McConnell sided with the moderates. Behind the scenes, on issues like Obamacare that remain hugely unpopular with the American people, McConnell cuts deals with the Democrats instead of forcing votes.

McConnell is emblematic of all that is wrong with Washington, D.C. He covets power relentlessly and only acts when it is threatened, then only doing so much as to stop the threat without actually leading. Along the way, he has been deeply complicit in putting our Republican in a position of bankruptcy.

I may be a nobody with no audience, but Mitch McConnell is a leader with no spine to lead.

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