While the President won a victory for the Middle Class in the fiscal cliff settlement, he must now convince Americans that the debt limit must be raised. Is it prudent to keep borrowing when it is clear that spending must be brought into alignment with the nation’s capacity to produce?
Now, this is where true leadership happens, when political expediency must give way to difficult decisions. It is time for America to buck it up.
Most Americans got behind the President in reaching a fiscal cliff settlement because the argument was in their favor. Reconciling the American checkbook and credit limit, most people don’t want the offer of additional credit cards when they are uncertain about carrying the maximum they already have.
The President would do well to turn the tide in his own party against the propensity to keep spending. This is my last report from London as I am coming home.
“The consequences of failing to extend the country’s borrowing limit are catastrophic, the president said just after the House vote on Tuesday, and he simply won’t negotiate over it.
Obama’s success rests on a strategy that served him during both his 2012 campaign and the high-stakes fiscal cliff talks: define his opponents early and drive up public opinion in his favor.
He will cast Republicans as reckless as they pursue steep cuts to popular entitlement programs in exchange for a debt limit increase. White House officials don’t view the sell as a difficult lift because, as they see it, Republicans are threatening to topple the world economy to slice benefits for elderly Medicare recipients — not exactly a winning message, Obama aides snicker.
The president is likely to follow the playbook of the fiscal cliff fight and almost every other major policy battle over the past 18 months, initiating a campaign to persuade voters and mobilizing small businesses, labor unions, corporate America and Wall Street to exert pressure on lawmakers.”
Read more: www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obamas-debt-ceiling-gambit-85755.html#ixz...
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