July 15, 2011 08:24 PM UTC

Republicans Prepare to Punt Budget Ball to Obama

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Los Angeles Times reports:

A plan by the Senate’s two top leaders to allow President Obama to raise the debt limit without congressional approval is emerging as the most likely strategy to avoid a looming federal default…

…Conservatives, particularly in the House, seem likely to oppose it. But with efforts to deliver a larger deficit-reduction deal still at a stalemate, the new plan – which builds on a proposal put forward earlier in the week by McConnell – could provide a way out of a dead end that has become politically and economically perilous.

Republicans seem content at this point to let President Obama essentially make the decision on the budget/debt ceiling debate. The GOP appears convinced that letting Obama play the adult in the room will somehow make them look better to voters, despite recent polling indicating that most Americans are holding Republicans responsible for the lack of progress thus far. By a more than 2-to-1 margin, Americans also continue to blame former President George Bush — and not Obama — for the nation’s economic woes.

With all of that in mind, could someone explain the logic here?

Under the emerging proposal, Obama would be able to order increases in the debt ceiling on his own, without congressional approval. Congress would vote on legislation to block an increase, but if such a resolution passed, as is likely, Obama would veto it. If the veto were sustained by Congress, the debt limit would be increased.

Republican strategists think that scenario would force Obama to take full political responsibility for the rising national debt, a prospect that White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama could live with.

“The president is willing to take responsibility for leading, and he is willing to do what it takes to compromise to reach something significant, and he is willing to own it, if other people won’t.”

Obviously Republicans are quietly hoping that Obama’s decisions will fail so that they can scream about how nobody listened to them, or something. But it’s hard to point fingers when you publicly removed yourself from the debate. Even if this plan fails and the economy gets worse, Republicans will still be open to attacks that they did nothing to help. After all, it’s really hard to put a spin on a decision to do nothing; right or wrong, at least Obama will be in control of his own message.

Perhaps Republicans just see this as the only option to get out of their own way on the debt ceiling while not angering a Tea Party base that is forever threatening Primary challenges for those deemed insufficiently obstinate. But we don’t see how sitting on their hands will help Republicans with General Election voters, and specifically with Independent voters. We’ve thought for awhile now that Republicans were backing themselves into a corner here; they may finally be surrounded — by each other.