Here’s how they fool the Tea Party: GOP votes to disapprove of selves

Here’s how they fool the Tea Party: GOP votes to disapprove of selves

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The face-saving “resolution to disapprove” measure seems to derive from a a 2011 McConnell idea that would have preserved the debt limit as a grandstanding ploy without actually risking default. In McConnell’s plan, the president would be allowed to increase debt limit a little bit at a time, and the Congress would then vote on whether to disapprove of the raises or not. It’s actually pretty brilliant politics, as it would have done two things:

• Forced President Obama to raise the debt limit, which is always politically unpopular, three times in one (election) year.
• Allowed every single Republican in Congress to vote against raising the debt limit without worrying that the U.S. would actually default.

Naturally, McConnell’s plan was declared rank RINOism and it went nowhere. This was in part because some conservatives believed that the plan removed the possibility of extracting massive concessions in exchange for raising the limit, but also because there simply are a lot of conservatives who oppose raising the limit at all, ever. The result of not listening to McConnell: Republicans had to vote to raise the debt limit anyway, conservatives now feel betrayed, right-wing Senate primary challenges are more likely, and non-far-right voters have more reason to be scared of allowing Republicans to govern.