The way I read House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's announcement from earlier today, House Republicans were planning to authorize a three month temporary debt limit increase to give the Senate and House time to pass a budget. If that sounds like what he said, that's because it is what he said. Word for word. And the message was clear: As far as the debt limit goes, House Republicans were announcing surrender'for at least three months. Cantor did add one strange wrinkle, but it had nothing to do with the debt limit. The wrinkle was this: "Members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay."
More on the substance of that in a second, but Cantor's statement said nothing about holding the debt limit hostage in order to turn the "no budget, no pay" slogan into a piece of legislation. Aside from being just plain weird, demanding that in exchange for a debt limit increase would be a bait-and-switch: Cantor announced House Republicans were raising the debt limit. He didn't say he was changing their ransom note. If you announce you're releasing the hostage, and you want to get credit for releasing the hostage, you really need to release the damn hostage.
It would be a stunningly stupid move for Republicans to pull, but let's say Eric Cantor was indeed pulling a bait-and-switch. What then? Well, according to Greg Sargent, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is saying she won't support a "gimmick" from the GOP on the debt limit.
(Continue reading below the fold.)
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