The minority leader of the U.S. Senate now admits that any kind of bi-partisan agreement on spending cuts and an increase in the debt limit is not politically possible. As many of us expected, the people who were elected to do the people's business are so idelogically and politically polarized that they are unwilling to agree on anything except their personal desires. They are fully prepared and willing to run the country off a financial cliff for personal, political purposes.

So the GOP leader is proposing that the President and the President alone can prescribe budget cuts so long as they equal the amount that the debt limit is increased?

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...debt-limit/?hp

This is a complete abdication of the responsibility of members of Congress. It's as if the Congress--at least the GOP leader in the Senate--is saying "...Congress is completely broken and cannot work, so lets just appoint the POTUS as king..."

Unbelievable! I wonder what the framers of the Constitution would say about this? Or if they could ever have foreseen how broken our political system would become, whether they'd have written the Constitution they way they did.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama...it-plan-7-2011

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/20...-sixth-graders

Now that the details of Senator McConnell's totally politically-motivated proposal are becoming known, it's even worse than I thought.

McConnell's proposal says the following...

• The President can increase the debt limit on his own authority in three traunches totalling almost $2.5 trillion dollars. (That's about a 15% increase in the amount of debt that the U.S. would be permitted to issue.)

• Each time the President proposed to increase the debt limit it would be voted on by Congress, but without debate and on an accelerated timetable. Should the Congress fail to ratify the President's actions (an almost total certainty with a Republican House and Democratic Senate), rules will permit the POTUS to immediately take the action without Congressional approval.

• Similarly, should the Congress actually refuse to approve the POTUS's proposal to increase the debt limit, rules would be put into effect to permit an almost immediate veto by the President so the debt limit can be increased.

• The "flip side" of giving the President the unilateral authority to increase the debt limit is even more appalling. The President would be required to propose spending cuts that would at least equal the amount that the debt limit is increased. But Congress would have the authority to use all the normal rules--committee hearings, tabling, amending, debating and then could vote down the spending cuts proposed by the President. Again, with a "split" Congress, it's clear that any significant spending cuts, however logical and justified, would be turned down by the Congress.

So where would the proposal set forth by Senator McConnell leave the country? Our debt limit would be increased at least for a year or two, long enough to get us to the 2012 election. But there would be no guarantee that there would be any cuts in government spending. In fact, given the toxic partisan politics in the Congress, it's pretty certain that there would be no spending cuts at all. So the result would be that the President's political opponents could blame him for increasing the debt limit, but prevent any of his proposed spending cuts from going into effect.

This is the most disgusting and irresponsible politically-driven proposal that I've ever heard come from a member or group from the U.S. Congress. While driven completely by their desire to avoid responsibility for the fiscal crisis we're facing and "blame" the President for both increasing debt but not decreasing spending, the final results will be the same--our national debt would continue to skyrocket and everyone's favorite spending priorities will be protected, including all those of the special interests who have bought and paid for our Congress.

I think what the members of Congress are overlooking is that there are other parties at the negotiating table--the debt rating agencies and the creditors who lend us money. They will almost certainly "veto" McConnell's proposal in a very simple and powerful way. The rating of our debt will be reduced and those who had been lending to us will either slow or stop financing our irresponsible fiscal habits. I hope the President realizes this as well and indicates that he will veto the McConnell/GOP proposal if it hits his desk. He might as well, the end result will be the same either way.

If the "other parties at the table" finally take the only action available to them given the complete abdication of responsibility by our Congress--and I'm pretty certain that they will--who will McConnell and all the other members of the House and Senate blame then?

Remember the old axiom--follow the money. In the end, those that are financing our profligate spending will tell us what must be done. It's going to affect all of our lives in very short order.

If there was ever a reason to elect a totally new House of Representatives and Senate, this should convince everyone. It's either that or somehow come up with a new system of government other than democracy that has a chance of working.