It may have slipped past you during the past week's round of Scandalopoly (no, you can't be the thimble; Louie Gohmert's storing his brain there) but we're just now beginning to round the far turn and heading for home on the debt ceiling again, and the Republicans are suited up like the SLA for some serious hostage shopping.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Next_Round_Of_NonsenseHe links to the Washington Post:
The bad news for President Obama: Republicans will demand some kind of prize for voting to raise the debt limit, preferably some policy that serves to reduce the debt. They say they will not simply roll over again, as they did in January when they voted without much fuss to suspend enforcement of the debt limit through this weekend.
...
But what should they ask for? On that, Republicans are all over the map. With the budget deficit falling far faster than anyone expected, House leaders have backed off their insistence that any debt-limit increase be paired with budget cuts of equal value. Now, it seems, the sky’s the limit.
At the meeting, 39 lawmakers lined up at microphones to offer suggestions. They ranged from tax and entitlement reform to approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to passage of a bill that would require congressional approval for any federal regulation that would impose more than $100 million in new costs on business.
At least one person wanted to take on late-term abortion in the wake of the murder conviction of Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell. Others suggested repeal or delay of Obama’s health-care initiative. But for the most part, lawmakers tried to be “realistic,” aides said, suggesting measures that could reasonably be expected to both improve the economy and pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-gop-debt-limit-demands-ban-late-term-abortion-and-approve-keystone-pipeline/2013/05/16/5dff0c68-bdaf-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.htmlIt won't surprise you to learn that the bag of virulent pus known as Paul Ryan is at the centre of this. Now that the credibility of "we're doing this because the long term economy demands it" has been shot to smithereens, the GOP want to demand some other way of diverting money to their supporters, in return for allowing the US government to continue to function.
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