Graham: GOP has no one 'to blame but ourselves'
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded Wednesday that he and his fellow Republicans are now eating their own words as they try to convince the country they are working to stave off a federal default.
“Our problem is we made a big deal about this for three months. How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit.’ You know, Mitch [McConnell] says, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit unless we talk about Medicare.’ And I’ve said I’m not going to raise the debt limit until we do something about spending and entitlements.’
So we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves,” Graham told reporters after a GOP caucus lunch.
“We shouldn’t have said that if we didn’t mean it.”
Graham’s comments were in response to a question about comments McConnell, the Senate minority leader, made during a radio interview Wednesday in which he defended his plan that would have Congress cede power to President Barack Obama to hike the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling without approving spending cuts first . McConnell told radio host Laura Ingraham that a default could hand President Obama and other Democrats “an opportunity to blame Republicans for a bad economy” and “destroys” the GOP’s brand.
Graham disputed that contention. “Most people who got elected in 2010 didn’t come up here worried about the brand, they came up here worried about the country,” he said. “You go explain to them why they’re wrong [when they] say that the country’s on an unsustainable path. I don’t think they are wrong.”
The South Carolina Republican said he hopes House Republicans can pass legislation that raises the debt limit while also structurally changing the way the government spends money. One proposal calls for deep spending cuts, statutory spending caps, and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
“If they can’t, then Mitch’s idea makes sense,” Graham said. “But if they can pass something out of the House that raises the debt limit that changes the reason we got in debt, that would be a fundamental new direction for the country, I think we should support that.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0711/Graham_GOP_has_no_one_to_blame_but_ourselves_.html
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