READ: L.A. Times Op-Ed Featuring Ben Quayle: Tells Colleagues Must Pay Our Bills, Even If Administration Is "Fear Mongering"

Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle (R-CD3) is featured in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times.  He is held up as an example of the group of freshmen Republicans in the House of Representatives who have had a major impact on the recent deficit-reduction negotiations tied to raising the nation's debt ceiling.

Quayle talked about the need to make sure that the U.S. does not default on payments on the debt (or Social Security, Medicare, military and veterans), but also noted that he believes that the Executive branch is "fear mongering" on the consequences of not getting the issue resolved before August 2:

Quayle was elected with "tea party" support, but he's not a bomb-thrower; he says he's willing to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling at some point. "I do not want to have a default," he said. But he's not willing to compromise easily. The debt ceiling, he says, gives conservatives the leverage they need to force deep spending cuts. "This is the time for us to rein in federal spending," he said.
. . .

And there's a deep divide of mistrust between House conservatives and the Obama administration. Like many Republicans, Quayle says he's skeptical of the administration's claims that Aug. 2 is a real drop-dead date and that the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic.

"There has been a lot of fear-mongering coming out of the administration," he said. Even if the debt ceiling doesn't rise, he said, "I believe we can still pay the interest on our debt, pay Social Security and Medicare, pay military salaries and veterans' benefits. And they can do some prioritization after that."

Quayle says his constituents back home in Phoenix expect him to rein in the budget — and to hang tough.

"Some don't want us to raise the debt ceiling at all," he said. "I tell them that even though we don't like the debt that's been accumulated, we need to honor it. You have a teenager who misuses a credit card, you tear up the card, but you still have to pay the bill."

The veteran Washington reporter McManus (who wrote the op-ed) notes that Quayle and his colleagues are going to have to figure out if they can agree to a deal with most - but not all - of what they and their Tea Party supporters were looking for.  (Read the entire op-ed here.)


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WATCH: Rep. Grijalva Reacts To President Obama's News Conference On Debt/Deficit Talks

Tucson Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-CD7) was interviewed on MSNBC this morning after President Obama's news conference.  He reiterated that members of the Progressive Caucus are still committed to making sure that any agreement contain tax increases as well as cuts in core social programs.


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READ: Sen. Jon Kyl Statement On His Leaving Deficit Reduction Talks

A couple of months ago, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the Minority Whip, was named to represent Senate Republicans at deficit reduction talks headed by Vice President Joe Biden.  Today, Kyl and House GOP Rep. Eric Cantor left the talks.  Here is the statement that Kyl has made (along with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell):

“The White House and Democrats are insisting on job-killing tax hikes and new spending. That proposal won’t address our fiscal crisis, our jobs crisis, or protect and reform entitlements. And a bill with new spending and higher taxes would fail with bipartisan opposition – as it should. President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes, or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can’t have both. But we need to hear from him.”

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WATCH: Arizona Rep./Senate Candidate Jeff Flake Yesterday Re: Debt Ceiling

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-CD6) spent 45 minutes yesterday on C-Span TV talking about the latest news about raising the federal debt ceiling, budget cuts and related matters.

(link, in case embedded video takes to long to load: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Flakeo)



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(Quickie) FACT CHECK: Arizona Rep. David Schweikert (One Of Many GOP'ers) Misleading Re: Healthcare Reform This Week

The Tweet from Arizona Rep. David Schweikert (R-CD5) caught my eye: "The cost of #Obamacare would buy you all 32 NFL Teams, 30 NBA Teams , 30 MLB Teams , and 30 NHL Teams almost 8 times."  Honestly, my first thought was how that action would affect whether the Phoenix Coyotes stay in town.  My second thought was that that figure needs to be fact checked.

First stop, the document Schweikert cites in the Tweet.  Not much help, just a brief Republican talking point from the Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  It indicates that the CBO's (the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office) latest estimates put the "cost of Obamacare has increased by $500 billion", for a total cost of $1.445 trillion.  Unfortunately, the GOP does not bother to cite where they received that from.

The next stop was to Rep. Schweikert's website, to see if we could glean more details.  The figure is there in his news release, along with the claims that last year's law includes "$670 billion in new taxes and counting", that it is "job-killing" and that his vote for repealing it "is a much better way."

Still no hint on where the $500 billion increase/$1.445 trillion total is gleaned from.  Next stop, the CBO's own website.  Nothing there on their "health" page - not since February 18, that is, when the CBO made it clear that they thought that the House Republicans' repeal would make our federal budget deficit WORSE by $251 billion between 2012-19!

Perhaps the Republicans are speaking of this CBO analysis of the President's 2012 budget submission, dated March 18, 2011.  However, after wading through the wonky document - particularly pages 14-15 and the table on page 22 - I could only find evidence that the CBO has concluded that changed estimates had a positive (downward) effect on the budget deficit over the next ten years.

Without being able to know what data Schweikert - and, the GOP in general - is relying upon, it is impossible to fully evaluate their claims.  However, what is certain is that they are leaving out the most important part of the data - the bottom line.  The CBO has scored the healthcare reform law as being positive for reducing the federal budget deficit (and the overall U.S. economy, for that matter), and has blasted the GOP's reform as increasing that deficit.

Misleading, at best.

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