Praise for Mitch McConnell

Yesterday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did something responsible, and he deserves a great deal of praise for doing it.

He proposed a compromise in the negotiations for raising the United States' debt ceiling that will work.

As I understand it, the Congress would pass legislation that allows the President to raise the debt ceiling on his own initiative, without the approval of Congress. He would have to do it in steps, and there are details to those steps, but they really aren't relevant to the core of the idea proposed by Senator McConnell.

However, to raise the debt ceiling at any of the steps, the President would have to notify Congress of his intention to do so and propose specific budget cuts equal to the amount by which the debt ceiling would be raised. The Congress would then have to pass a "resolution of disapproval" to take away the President's authority to increase the debt ceiling at that step. However, the President could veto the Congress' resolution, and unless the Congress could get two-thirds of each house to override the President's veto, the President could raise the debt ceiling on his own initiative.

Later, at the time the Congress approves the budget, they could enact the President's proposed budget cuts, or some of them, or none of them, or different ones.

It is an elegant and statesmanlike compromise.

If the President thinks the debt ceiling should be raised, he can do it, no strings attached, as it ought to be, but he takes full responsibility for doing it and he has to put our money where his mouth is and propose budget cuts in an equal amount.

If the Congress thinks the debt ceiling should not be raised, they can vote against it, but they can't stop it unless they can get two out of every three of their colleagues to vote with them.

Later, the Congress can debate spending when spending out to be debated - when the budget is adopted. If they think we shouldn't be borrowing so much money, they can vote to stop spending so much money.

And, if the Congress takes the budget cuts the President proposed when he raised the debt ceiling, he can't complain, because they were the budget cuts he proposed. If they don't - either because they made different budget cuts or weren't willing to cut as much as he proposed - they have only themselves to blame. And, by the way, the voters also have them to blame, if they want to blame someone.

No one can really keep the other from doing what they think is right, and voters can judge each elected official by what they do, not by what they were strong-armed into doing by the other side.

If there are enough adults in the room, it should work. If there are enough adults in the room.

Of course, if we don't do something to control global climate change, and soon, the debt ceiling crisis will look like a game of Trivial Pursuit, no matter how it comes out. None of this will really matter.