Details that have emerged about a potential debt-ceiling deal have done nothing to pacify South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, as the Washington Examiner‘s “Beltway Confidential” reports.
He explained that “the plans released by both parties today fail to take our debt crisis seriously and will invite a downgrade in America’s credit rating,” argued Demint. “Moody’s and S&P say we must have credible, long-term reforms to lower our debt or we will likely lose our AAA rating. But instead of serious reforms, both punt the hard decisions and create another useless deficit commission that won’t offer real solutions and would likely result in tax increase recommendations that destroy jobs.”
Demint went on to criticize Republicans for engaging in what he considers a Democratic strategy to “create a better political debt deal instead of a debt solution” saying that “Republicans are playing a lose-lose game. This is bad policy and bad politics.”
In a thinly-veiled shot at House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, Demint observed that “it seems our leaders have learned nothing from the Continuing Resolution disaster that promised big spending cuts but was just smoke and mirrors.”
Demint pledged to oppose both the Republican and Democratic plans for a debt deal, affirming instead that he would push for the House-approved “Cut, Cap, and Balance” act that would cut and cap spending while implementing a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Demint praised “Cut, Cap, and Balance” as “the only plan on the table that will ensure our AAA rating and the only plan that will ever allow us to pay down our debt instead of perpetually increasing it.”