John Hayward: Hells No

"I lean more toward the Palin prescription"
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In a Human Events opinion piece, John Hayward says Congress' “debt ceiling” is a lie if they keep raising it:

Back in March, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he said he would “vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit, unless it is the last one we ever authorize, and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”

On Friday, Sarah Palin said on Fox News, “Hells no, I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling. Otherwise it just shows the American people we’re not serious yet. We’re still going to incur more debt. No and we don’t have to increase the debt ceiling in the next few weeks. It turns my stomach to hear this assumption articulated that ‘well we have to,’ despite the fact we’re raking in, the federal government, six billion a day. Take that money and service our debt first and pay down some of that debt. Make sure that we’re showing the international financial markets and our lenders that we’re serious about getting our debt and our deficit problems under control.”

“Hells no” is an interesting turn of phrase. Dante said there was more than one hell – nine of them, to be exact. The ninth and worst hell was reserved for traitors. They spent eternity frozen in ice.

There’s increasing talk of demanding hard spending caps and a balanced budget amendment, in exchange for one last debt ceiling increase, as Marco Rubio proposed. I respect the arguments made by advocates of this approach, and it seems in line with the way Washington works – deals must be struck, compromises reached, and so forth. I lean more toward the Palin prescription, though… and really, aren’t she and Rubio saying essentially the same thing?

Take away Palin’s churning stomach and invocation of the infernal, and swap in Rubio’s list of demands that Congress will never meet, and you end up in the same place: the hells of no. If Rubio is serious about his terms, he’s just one disappointing Senate vote away from standing on Palin’s ground.

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Related: Mark Steyn, Hitting the Real Debt Ceiling

- JP