If President Obama hadn’t cynically played the Granny Card (you know, telling poor Granny she may not get her Social Security check if a debt ceiling agreement isn’t reached), I would refrain from referring you to this wicked item.
Entitled “Plan Nine from DNC,” the item is Hotair’s answer to this question: If the CCB bill gets through the House and the Senate would Obama really veto it? CCB stands for “cup, cap, balance” and it is an attempt to tie a debt ceiling measure to a balanced budget amendment. Before we get to Hotair’s answer, here is how a news story from the Washington Post answers the question:
The White House formally threatened Monday to veto a Republican measure requiring congressional approval of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution before the nation’s debt ceiling can be raised.
House Republican leaders denounced the veto threat and said they would go ahead with a scheduled vote Tuesday on the proposal, which would impose strict new spending caps and require that Congress give the balanced-budget amendment the two-thirds vote necessary to send it to the states for ratification before the debt limit could be raised.
So the real life answer to the question is ,yes, the president will veto the CCB bill if it gets to his desk. Hotair agrees but it goes beyond a mere affirmative to Jazz Shaw’s cynical prognostications of what is going on behind closed doors to prepare for the veto:
While I have absolutely no way to confirm this right now, I would bet you dollars to donuts that there is a person (or, more likely, team of people) in the White House right now who are coming up with a list of bills coming due. True, some will be looking at the things that have to be paid. But more importantly, there is a list of bills that could conceivably not be paid, and those will be based on the ones that cause the greatest possible political damage. Think of it as Plan Nine from the DNC.
It could look innocent enough at first. Let’s say… a check for some program which funds bulk discount reimbursements for medical equipment such as ace bandages, cleaning agents, or… replacement oxygen bottles. Nothing anyone pays much attention to on a day to day basis.
But the first time that check doesn’t get mailed, some of the day to day functions in the program begin to get gummed up. And that’s where my second guess comes in. Someplace deep in the bowls of the DNC there is a team of media specialists who are already cooking up a television advertisement that’s going to begin running on the afternoon of August 3rd. It will feature a sad faced mother and her son… let’s call him Timmy. It’s a great name for tugging on heartstrings. And of course, he’s in a wheelchair. (Because if Timmy’s not down a well, he may as well be in a wheelchair.)
As for that ad, Ms. Shaw has created a funny (or maybe not so funny) mock up of one to help out–just in case somebody is really planning one. Here is the kicker: “Call your representative and ask them…Why does John Boehner hate America? And Timmy?”
I hope this is a too cynical take. And, as I said, if it weren’t for the president’s outrageous attempt to traumatize America’s senior citizens, I would not have shared Ms. Shaw’s post with you…