Lying Sleaze Bag of the Week Eric Cantor(R-Va) Opposed Short-Term Debt Ceiling Increase, Now Calls Obama’s Opposition to Short-Term Increase ‘Indefensible’
Today, Speaker John Boehner(R-OH) told the House GOP caucus that he is preparing a short-term bill that would raise the debt ceiling for about six months, despite Obama’s pledge to veto such a measure. On the call, Majority Leader Eric Cantor blasted Obama for opposing it. The Wall Street Journal reports:Republicans are playing politics with the debt ceiling - they raised it seven times during the Bush administration without taking the economy hostage. There are currently 130 right-wing nuts in Congress who voted to raise the debt ceiling during the Bush era. Certainly this is all confusing to even those who have been paying attention - some days the debt ceiling is important some days days it is not according to conservative fanatics like Michele Bachmann(R-MN) who has said the debt ceiling should never be raised.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor indicated in his remarks during the conference call that Republicans don’t want to give President Barack Obama a debt-ceiling deal that lasts past the 2012 elections. Mr. Cantor called the president’s insistence on a deal that carries through the election purely political and indefensible.
But late last month, Cantor himself vehemently opposed a short term deal:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pushed back hard Tuesday against Senate Republican suggestions of a scaled-back, short-term debt deal, saying it’s “crunch time” in White House budget talks and “if we can’t make the tough decisions now, why … would [we] be making those tough decisions later.”
“I don’t see how multiple votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we want to go,” the Virginia Republican told reporters. “It is my preference that we do this thing one time. … Putting off tough decisions is not what people want in this town.”
Standard and Poors, a credit rating agency, agrees that a short term deal would be bad for the nation’s credit. In a July 14 release S&P wrote “We may also lower the long-term rating and affirm the short-term rating if we conclude that future adjustments to the debt ceiling are likely to be the subject of political maneuvering.”
