I have praised Mitch McConnell before, when he was fighting an almost impossible battle to hold the line in the Senate on a variety of issues when the Democrats had a filibuster-proof or near filibuster-proof majority.
Now McConnell may have set the narrative for 2012 on the most important issue facing the nation, the national debt. That narrative is that no real deal is possible so long as Obama is President, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
A “real solution” to U.S. fiscal problems isn’t possible as long as President Barack Obama remains in office, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, heightening the rhetoric surrounding the debt-ceiling debate. Mr. McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), both blamed President Obama for the stalemate in the debt-ceiling and deficit-reduction talks, and urged the White House to break the impasse. Negotiations were to resume for a third-straight day Tuesday afternoon. Mr. McConnell said he had gone into negotiations in good faith over how to formulate a deficit-reduction package to accompany an increase in the statutory borrowing limit….Mr. McConnell said he concluded after the latest negotiations that the administration had “expressed a fundamental unwillingness” to agree to significant spending cuts. “But after years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable,” Mr. McConnell said in a Senate floor speech.
Update: Did I sing his praises too soon? McConnell has issued a proposal which I don’t fully understand, but which is meeting with much derision. When I understand it better, I’ll comment on it.
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