Economy

McConnell: Temporary Increase of Debt Ceiling Possible

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling that the Republicans may be open to a temporary increase to the debt-ceiling.

(Reuters) - Congress and the White House could raise the debt limit for a few months while they seek a comprehensive, long-term budget deal, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday. [...]

McConnell said on Sunday the ceiling could be raised enough to last a few months so that negotiations can continue on a larger deal that would include changes to so-called entitlement programs like Medicare.

"The president and the vice president, everybody knows you have to tackle entitlement reform," McConnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"If we can't do that, then we'll probably end up with a very short-term proposal over, you know, a few months. And we'll be back having the same discussion again in the fall," McConnell said.

Are we going to witness a repeat of the battle over the remainder of the fiscal 2011 budget which brought us three temporary funding extensions to avert a government shutdown?

If so, I'm okay with that. The Republicans didn't fare very well in that battle, and I don't believe they will fare well this time either. Signaling that they may be open to a temporary increase to the debt ceiling tells me they know that they aren't going to get what they want in the end so they are seeking to punt down the road until the holiday season when the battle over fiscal 2012 will start to take shape.

To put it more simply: This is their way of passing a clean increase to the debt ceiling leading up to fiscal 2012 without appearing as if they are caving-in. If a temporary increase to the debt ceiling is passed, President Obama and the Democrats will have won the first round of the battle.