Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), formerly a wunderkind college Republican attack dog, but now sort of a journeyman big league Republican attack dog, thinks that a regular old deficit commission is a bad idea. What’s needed is a deficit commission that takes tax hikes completely off the table and recommends spending cuts only. Grover Norquist calls this a “grown-up idea,” but Pat Garofalo isn’t impressed:
How, exactly, does taking taxes off the table from the outset represent a “grown-up” way to make “hard choices”? The whole premise behind a commission is that it will be empowered to make politically unpalatable suggestions (like raise taxes) that Congress wouldn’t normally touch….Getting deficits under control on the spending side alone is economically impossible. Exempting interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending (which Republicans never agree to cut), “the rest of the budget needs to be cut by 51 percent to have a balanced budget in 2014.” So the numbers just don’t add up. Of course, from the outline of McHenry’s plan, it’s pretty clear that gutting those entitlement programs is his ultimate goal, as they are the only things that he cites as needing reform.
I say: bring ’em on, baby. We should let McHenry have his commission, make sure it’s well stocked with Republicans, force them to put down on paper just exactly what spending programs they want to gut, and then put it to an up-or-down vote in Congress. We liberals are always demanding that Republican “fiscal conservatives” should tell us just what spending they want to get rid of, and now here’s McHenry volunteering to commit political hara-kiri by setting it all down in a nice, official report and then forcing Republicans to put their votes where their mouths are. That would be great.
For Democrats, that is. Sadly, my guess is that the actual grownups in the GOP will put the kibosh on this idea pronto. But I can still dream.
