Default

Who's Really Responsible For U.S. Debt Downgrade

Brian Beutler | August 17, 2011, 10:00AM

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

This article was updated at 10:00am Eastern on August 17, 2011 to include additional names pointed out by TPM readers.

Now that Standard & Poors has confirmed that the chorus of default doubters in the GOP was part of what spooked them into downgrading the U.S. credit rating, Republicans will do all they can to pretend that they never questioned the risk of missing payment obligations, or allowing borrowing authority to lapse. But they sure did! Here's a long, partial timeline of influential Republicans either vouchsafing default, or downplaying the consequences of passing the August 2 deadline without raising the debt limit.

Read more »

John Boehner

After Tempers Flare, GOP Tries to Smooth Over Differences

Susan Crabtree | July 27, 2011, 4:09PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

House GOP leaders spent Wednesday afternoon trying to smooth over deep divisions in their party that erupted into public view after a heated conference meeting in which Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (OH) was dressed down for an aide's attacks on Speaker John Boehner's (OH) debt-limit proposal.

During the morning meeting, Jordan professed not to know about his top staffer's e-mails to outside conservative groups complaining about Boehner's proposal and urging the groups to launch coordinated assaults on the plan and its lack of a balanced budget component.

Read more »

John Boehner

CIVIL WAR: GOP Coalition Splinters Into Open Conflict Over Debt Ceiling

Benjy Sarlin & Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 27, 2011, 6:00AM

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Speaker Boehner

The Republican leadership's efforts to avert a debt ceiling crisis with a two-tiered set of cuts is turning into the most divisive wedge issue the party has confronted since President Obama took over in 2009.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may have thought his face-saving plan, which he hoped to bring to the floor Wednesday, offered a path to victory. However, since treading upon it he's been beset from all sides. It's not just that the President is threatening to veto the bill, should it ever make it past the Senate; it's that Boehner's fellow conservatives are sniping at him with (not so) friendly fire. Now the vote he'd hoped to bring triumphantly to the floor Wednesday looks delayed until at least Thursday, and even then the outcome is uncertain.

That's because the GOP is teetering on the brink of a debt-based civil war. More traditional Republicans and big business types are desperate to avoid a recovery-crushing default. But their Tea Party colleagues are leading a rebellion of epic - perhaps even galactic - proportions. Cue the John Williams music and find out who stands where in this stand-off between the Establishment's storm-troopers and the Rebel Alliance.

Read more »

Debt Ceiling

Jim DeMint: Boehner Plan Doesn't Have The Votes

Benjy Sarlin | July 26, 2011, 3:07PM

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), one of the leading hardliners on the right in the debt ceiling fight, is predicting Speaker Boehner (R-OH) will not be able to pass his new plan for a two-tier deficit reduction package without help from Democrats.

Read more »

Debt Ceiling

NOPE! Top House Conservatives Says Boehner Lacks Sufficient GOP Support To Raise Debt Limit

Brian Beutler | July 26, 2011, 12:25PM

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

One of the most influential conservatives in Congress says he's confident his own Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will lack the votes to pass his plan to raise the debt limit in the House of Representatives.

Complicating matters further for Boehner -- the Dems' top vote counter wryly suggested at a simultaneous press briefing that few, if any, Democrats will vote for the GOP's bill, since there is a preferable Democratic plan waiting in the wings. That suggests House conservatives are holding the line against any debt limit increase that can plausibly pass the Senate -- and that Democrats will have added leverage to muscle their own plan through both chambers.

Read more »

Republicans

Pandemonium! Dems Jam Republicans With Even More Conservative Budget

Brian Beutler | April 15, 2011, 12:29PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

What was supposed to be a routine vote in the House -- to knock down an amendment authored by conservative Republicans -- turned into pandemonium on the House floor Friday, as Democrats tried to jam the plan through, and hang it around the GOP's necks.

The vote was on the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget -- a radical plan that annihilates the social contract in America by putting the GOP budget on steroids. Deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, more severe entitlement rollbacks.

Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn't hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes -- from "no" to "present."

Read more »

Jeff Flake

Flake Joins GOP Frosh Fray, Won't Vote for Next CR

Susan Crabtree | March 14, 2011, 6:35PM

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a longtime fiscal conservative who is running for Senate, is closing ranks with his fellow Tea Party loyalists in rejecting the latest stop-gap spending measure crafted to avoid a government shutdown and which has the backing of the House GOP leadership.

"How are we ever supposed to tackle the grave fiscal challenges before us like the debt ceiling, the debt, and the FY2012 budget when we just keep punting on FY2011 spending?" Flake said in release Monday afternoon.

Read more »

Chuck Schumer

Schumer: Boehner Needs To Ditch Tea Party GOPers For Budget Compromise

Brian Beutler | March 14, 2011, 2:26PM

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Reacting to a recent statements from conservative Republicans, who say they will oppose all stop-gap efforts to avoid government shutdowns, the Democrats' point man on messaging and policy says Tea Party-backed Republicans would rather trigger a crisis than compromise on domestic discretionary spending cuts.

In a statement sent my way, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is now urging House Speaker John Boehner to dismiss the conservatives in his party, and forge a compromise with moderate Republicans and Democrats on a long-term spending package.

Read more »

Debt Ceiling

'Pay China First' -- Republicans' Wild Plan To Avoid U.S. Debt Default

Brian Beutler | January 31, 2011, 9:30AM

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)

New Republican legislation in the House and Senate would force the U.S. government to reroute huge amounts of money to China and other creditors in the event that Congress fails to raise its debt ceiling.

"I intend to introduce legislation that would require the Treasury to make interest payments on our debt its first priority in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised," Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) wrote in a Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

If passed, Toomey's plan would require the government to cut large checks to foreign countries, and major financial institutions, before paying off its obligations to Social Security beneficiaries and other citizens owed money by the Treasury -- that is, if the U.S. hits its debt ceiling. Republican leaders insist they will raise the country's debt limit before this happens. But first, they're going to try to force Democrats to accept large spending cuts, using their control over the debt limit as leverage. That means gridlock, and the threat that they'll come up short.

That's where Toomey's idea supposedly comes in. And yet, according to the Treasury Department, his plan wouldn't actually avoid a default, or its catastrophic consequences.

Read more »

CPAC

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan Also Boycotting CPAC

Jillian Rayfield | January 11, 2011, 6:17PM

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has said that he is joining the conservative boycott of CPAC.

Read more »