Baucus Wants Long Term Debt Hike

Aaron Flint posted on December 04, 2012 11:12 :: 884 Views

The only way to deal with your credit card debt, is to increase the limit on your credit card.  That apparently is the advice coming from Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), the chairman of the *powerful* US Senate Finance Committee, when it comes to our nation’s finances.

When it comes to dealing with the long-term budget crisis, Baucus says part of the way to avoid long term-overspending, is by allowing for even more long-term overspending saying, “Any year-end agreement must also include a long-term extension of the debt ceiling.” 

Politico’s Playbook has this:

FIRST LOOK – Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee: “Good morning, and thank you for the inviting me to the ‘Fixing the Debt Conference.’ I want to commend Erskine Bowles, Senator Alan Simpson and the entire Coalition for your laser-like focus on this issue. … The stakes could not be higher. More than $7 trillion of tax cuts, Medicare payments and programs for the unemployed will expire just 27 days from today. Adding to these spending cuts and tax increases are sequestration cuts of almost 10 percent to both defense and non-defense programs and cuts of 2 percent to Medicare.  It would be hard to find a single American not affected by these changes. … It’s time to bite the bullet and make the tough decisions – and make them now. … Any year-end agreement must also include a long-term extension of the debt ceiling. America cannot afford another debilitating fiscal showdown early next year. It has to be a package deal. … We need real, significant new revenue this month.  Once that revenue is locked in, we can then turn to overhauling our tax code for the modern economy.”

While Baucus is likely to take some heat for calling for a long term extension of the debt ceiling, the political calculation of this move seems fairly clear.  Max Baucus is up for re-election in 2014.  He certainly doesn’t want another vote hiking the debt ceiling closer to 2014.  If he can get it done once and for all now, he can then hope the voters have 2 years to forget all about it.    

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