BUDGET

DeMint: Cut, Cap and Balance Is the Best Plan

Updated: July 19, 2011 | 10:12 a.m.
July 19, 2011 | 7:28 a.m.

For the small-government hardliners in the tea party, the only palatable way to increase the debt ceiling is to implement the Cut, Cap and Balance Amendment. And tea party-favorite Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. agrees.

In an op-ed for USA Today, DeMint says the amendment is the “only way we can guarantee that Washington will stop spending more than it’s taking in and avert the coming debt crisis.”

Cut, Cap and Balance does what it says. It allows for an increase in the debt limit on three conditions: the budget must be cut next year; there must be a spending cap over the next decade at historical averages; and there must be a constitutional amendment sent to the states to force Washington to balance the budget.

The proposal may pass in the House this week, but would certainly be dead on arrival in the Senate. Still, bringing the amendment to the floor may pave the way for House Republicans to eventually support a Plan B, most likely one being crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

DeMint, however, says that President Obama's proposal and the Reid-McConnell plan, which would give the president more power to raise the debt ceiling on his own, are both unacceptable.

“The 'big deal' that President Obama is seeking never balances the budget; it simply makes the debt bigger,” he writes. “It actually spends $6 trillion in new debt over the next decade and contains no long-term spending reforms. Worse, the new 'fallback plan' being discussed by Senate leaders gives the president a blank-check debt limit increase with the fig leaf of another commission that will be ignored like the last one.”

Get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox. Sign up for National Journal's morning alert, Wake-Up Call, and afternoon newsletter, The Edge. Subscribe here.


Leave A Comment
The National Journal Group has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.
Comments powered by Disqus
Follow National Journal
Related Content

 

Columns
Charlie Cook: The Cook Report

Republicans Should Go Easy on Obama, At Least in Public

May 16, 2013
As a tactical matter, a subterranean campaign will score more direct hits on the president.
Ronald Brownstein: Political Connections

How the White House Scandals Could Hurt Republicans, Too

May 16, 2013
By enraging the base and strengthening the faction least willing to compromise with Obama, the IRS and Benghazi affairs could hurt a GOP shot at the presidency.
Norm Ornstein: Washington Inside Out

Eric Cantor’s Caucus Thwarts His Push for an Alternative Agenda

May 16, 2013
Cantor has learned that the tea-party movement he helped foster won’t fall in line behind his efforts to push an alternative conservative agenda.
More Columns »