It's funny as the deadline is approaching for Debtageddon, that various Republicans are speaking out against this farcical partisan fight over something that should have never happened. Here's Sen. Bob Corker saying as much:
Maybe the debt ceiling was the wrong place to pick a fight, as it related to trying to get our country's house in order," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Thursday. "Maybe that was the wrong place to do it."
Speaking from the Senate floor, Corker said Republicans demanded linking the two issues because the Senate hasn't passed a budget in more than 800 days. "I credit both sides for that," he said. But now, the inability of the White House and Congress to agree to a spending deal -- and ensure a timely debt ceiling increase -- is "helping our great nation go into decline."
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During his Senate remarks, Corker said the dozen Senators from both parties that he had dinner with on Monday all expressed "tremendous frustration" with the way electoral politics have taken hold in the Senate as a potential debt default looms.
"I won't mention their names, to impugn them in any way," the Tennessee Republican added, referring to his dinner company. But all agreed that "most Senators in this body are nothing but two-bit pawns ... as a political fight is under way, basically, to lay out the groundwork, if you will, for 2012 elections."
Originally the Democrats wanted a clean vote on the debt ceiling that had been raised many times under George Bush with a clean vote, but the Tea Party/Fox News Republicans seized on their spending cut mania and have put the country's credit ratings and financial well being in jeopardy over the ploy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham just said that it's their own fault that we're at this point too, but that was before he joined in the Debtageddon chorus.
Senator Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., on Wednesday lamented his party's having made such "a big deal" about its opposition to raising the debt ceiling, and conceded that now Republicans were struggling to walk back their statements.
"Our problem is we made a big deal about this for three months," said Graham of the debt limit debate, according to Politico. "How many Republicans have been on TV saying, 'I'm not going to raise the debt limit'? You know, Mitch [McConnell] says, 'I'm not going to raise the debt limit unless we talk about Medicare.' And I've said I'm not going to raise the debt limit until we do something about spending and entitlements.'"
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Graham says now Republicans should have tempered their language early on.
"We shouldn't have said that if we didn't mean it... We've got nobody to blame but ourselves," Graham told reporters.
Graham also disputed the argument, made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday, that Republicans couldn't vote for the debt ceiling because it would destroy the GOP "brand" and put the party at risk of being blamed "for a bad economy."
Now there's talk of Grand Bargains and refusals to honor our country's commitments abroad. It's been brutal and disgusting to behold. I really can't stand writing about it anymore. The media and the GOP suddenly have amnesia over the fact that ex-President George Bush actually had a surplus to work with when he took office.
