By David Rogers
Congress approved a record $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase Thursday together with Democratic-backed legislation to reinstate pay-go" rules credited with helping to rein in deficits in the 1990s.
Final passage took two highly partisan House votes but the end product was something of a coup for the embattled leadership cheered on by a flash from their past: former President Bill Clinton.
With new unemployment numbers out Friday Democrats now can afford to turn their full attention back to the economy without fear of Republicans bleeding them to death with more painful debt votes before the November elections. By adding statutory pay-go rules the leadership also hopes to have found a new message and budget compass by which to steer in the sea of red ink facing them and President Barack Obama.
Obama himself welcomed pay-go as a return to what he called a simple but bedrock principle: Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere."
But the day belonged more to Clinton who returned like an old coach bucking up his team and suggesting a few new plays of his own.
This is important for our party because it reminds people that for the last 30 years we have had a better record on fiscal discipline" Clinton said joining a conference call with reporters and House leaders. This is one of those things that has the benefit of being both symbolically and substantively beneficial" he said. And Democrats he predicted will find it easier to sell some of their reform initiatives now because of the pressure to find offsets to pay for services voters want.
Weeks of negotiations led by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) the White House and Senate leadership preceded Thursdays twin votes.
On the first Democrats narrowly prevailed 217-212 despite 37 defections. On the second less directly about the debt increase but still decisive to the whole package the Democratic lines held and a proud Hoyer announced the outcome from the speakers chair: 233-187.
Reinstating pay-go was most important to winning over Blue Dog fiscal moderates and
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) worked the floor together with
Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) a prominent leader of the coalition. To appease Senate moderates Obama has pledged to create by executive order a new 18-member fiscal commission empowered to recommend further deficit reduction steps to be considered after the elections.
Republicans continue to send mixed signals as to whether they will even participate in the commission. If its truly going to be a bipartisan effort then the creation of the commission ought to be done in a bipartisan effort" said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
And in almost a preview of the fall campaign Texas Rep. Pete Sessions angrily attacked the debt bill as deceitful" and a ploy to hide what they said was the failure of Obamas costly anti-employer" economic policies.
They took out a monster loan that didnt pay off" said Sessions a member of the House Rules Committee and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Americans k-n-o-w what is going on" Sessions spelled out; adopting a mocking tone he portrayed Obama as a frustrated anti-business sourpuss.
Every time I look up our great president Barack Obama has an ax to grind with somebody and its generally employers."
Hours after the votes NRCC attack spots targeting vulnerable Democrats echoed the same sentiment. What Democrats saw as a double win was a double whammy" raising the debt ceiling and approving a provision that could force Democrats to hike taxes to pay for their runaway spending agenda."
In truth pay-go dates back to a Republican president: George H.W. Bush. Clintons famous 1993 deficit reduction bill he called it the Democrats only" budget Thursday melded savings with some higher tax rates. While his party paid a huge price in the 1994 elections he went on to success with a booming economy and high-tech bubble that yielded much greater revenues than anyone had imagined
The very opposite is the case today with weak revenues and Democrats torn between deficit reduction and new government investments to spur employment.
The best deficit-reduction plan is full employment" said Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.). But pay-go has become an article of faith for many Democrats after watching the tax cuts and Medicare prescription bills enacted under the Bush administration together with two wars overseas.
By contrast the whole health care debate in this Congress has been prolonged by self-imposed Democratic pay-go discipline that has made the process that much harder for the majority.
Even so the pay-go legislation now is more of a hybrid recognizing some political realities.
Up to $1.5 trillion in exemptions over the next 10 years are included; chief among these are those Bush-era tax cuts that most benefit the middle class and will cost about $1.3 trillion over the same 10 years.
Holding up the bill Sessions said 32 pages of the 56-page bill were devoted to exemptions. And Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee denounced the process as a fiscal charade."
But with the exception of the middle-class tax cuts which Republicans want to keep as well the most costly exemptions will be phased out in two to five years.
Hoyer admitted weaknesses but argued that the legislation is still a step forward in the face of the deficits ahead. The perfect ought not to be the enemy of the good" he said.
