McConnell, Boehner and the Republican Panic

The Republican Congressional party is beginning to lose its nerve.   Earlier today (yesterday?), John Boehner stated that the debt ceiling is the President's problem.  Not it's all of our problem, not we need to solve this; it's Obama's problem--as though this doesn't affect every single resident of this country!  I can't recall a more petulant, childish statement by a major political figure, and I hope the Democrats nail this quote to every single ad they run from now through 2012.

And today, Mitch McConnell proposed a "solution" to the debt ceiling standoff that is so cynical, so obviously gutless and cowardly that it would be laughable if it weren't actually a pretty good idea.  His proposal:  Congress would pass a law allowing the President to unilaterally increase the debt ceiling, but in stages (thus allowing the GOP to attack him three times between now and the next election), and allowing Congress to vote (no filibuster--because it would only be the Democrats who might conceivably want to take advantage of this tactic here) to oppose any particular increase.  Obama could veto this, and Congress could override the veto with a 2/3 vote in each house, but in the event of a veto, Obama would be required to state (on a non-binding basis) what budget cuts he would make to equal to the increase in the debt ceiling (no right to identify tax or other revenue increases!).

All of this proposal is for show, with opportunities for the GOP to try to embarrass the President.   It would dump the responsibility for the debt ceiling increase onto the President, since Congress is incapable of achieving a consensus.  Transparently, what the McConnell plan would do is: (1) Allow the Republicans in Congress to avoid forcing the country into either a default on its debt (with disastrous consequences) or a cutting off of current funding (including immediate benefit payments suspension), with either result hurting voters and thus ultimately hurting the Republicans; (2) allow the Republicans to vote against the debt ceiling increase, although the vote will have no real world consequences and will thus be meaningless; and (3) force the President to identify proposed spending cuts, thereby angering the "victims", even though this will be a purely academic exercise.

I should add that, in addition to being gutless and cowardly, this proposal is also obviously hyper-partisan and designed purely for political gain.  Nevertheless, it would result in an increase in the debt ceiling.

My second thought about this proposal, after thinking it actually could be workable from the Democratic perspective, with some modification, was that the Republicans in the House would never go for this because the net result is that the debt ceiling is increased and the Republicans get nothing substantive in return.  That is their worst case scenario, so of course they won't support it.  Sure enough, the Tea Party contingent has castigated McConnell.

It's astonishing to me that McConnell would be so out of touch as to think that the true believers in the House would accept this purely political "out".  They don't want an escape hatch; they want a real confrontation.  Perhaps McConnell realized that this would be the response within his own party, and was simply demonstrating to his corporate funders that he is trying to find a way to do the responsible thing.