The bedrock issue is whether we should have a larger and more expensive federal government. Over many years federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of gross domestic product.◼ Presidential flummery andquestions left unasked - Hugh Hewitt/Washington Examiner
Bravo, Jake Tapper.There’s a Reason We Have a Debt Ceiling - Jonathan S. Tobin/Commentary Magazine via Lucianne
Finally from a member of the increasingly supine White House press corps came a question that demanded of the president specificity as to his alleged willingness to "upset his base."
Tapper asked the president on Friday to "tell us one structural reform that you are willing to make to one of these entitlement programs that would have a major impact on the deficit?"
The president spoke a long time in response but provided no such specificity about even one such reform, revealing again that the would-be Emperor of the Big Deal has no plan beyond a political operation to assign blame for any unpleasant consequences of a collision with the existing debt ceiling.
◼ Spengler on the Debt Ceiling - Stanley Kurtz/National Review Online
The redoubtable Spengler of the Asia Times (channeled by David Goldman), offers a sobering and entirely plausible scenario showing how Obama could take advantage of the debt ceiling battle to undercut the Tea Party and the Republicans, stoke class warfare, secure re-election, and get the banks to fund his favored projects to boot. Spengler is a fan of the Tea Party, but thinks the McConnell plan as the best way to prevent Obama from off-loading the onus of the bad economy onto the Republicans. Whatever you think of the debt ceiling quandary, Spengler’s case is worth a look.◼ Disregard what pols are saying about the debt debate - Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post
◼ Nick Gillespie's three reasons the debt-ceiling debate is full of malarkey - Mark Tapscott/Washington Examiner
◼ Obama's 2012 prospects tied to debt ceiling deal - Brian Hughes/Washington Examiner
