GOP 2012 Candidates Circling Obama's Wagon: Praying For His Failure

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Presidential Candidates Warn About Debt Deal

The decision by House Speaker John A. Boehner to scale back budget talks with President Obama unfolded as Republican presidential candidates were campaigning against any outcome that smacks of compromise, underscoring divisions in the party over whether to raise the federal debt limit.

The action by Mr. Boehner, which was announced Saturday night, illustrated just how difficult negotiations had become in this political climate to reach agreement on a sweeping plan to lower the deficit without an infusion of new tax revenues.



Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota seized on the issue and used the first television commercial of her campaign to highlight her opposition to raising the debt ceiling. She drew enthusiastic applause on Saturday as she amplified her position.

“It’s time for tough love,” Mrs. Bachmann told supporters at a rally. “Don’t let them scare you by telling you that the country’s going to fall apart.”

Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, who was critical of the deal brokered this year between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner that averted a government shutdown, said he was not convinced of the dire consequences predicted by Democrats if no deal was reached and the government lost its authority to borrow on Aug. 2.

“I hope and pray and believe they should not raise the debt ceiling,” Mr. Pawlenty told voters here last week. “These historic, dramatic moments where you can draw a line in the sand and force politicians to actually do something bold and courageous are important moments.”

The sharp stances, which have been building for days, complicated efforts to reach an agreement by Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican; Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader; and Mr. Obama, who were scheduled to resume deliberations at the White House on Sunday evening. The Republican leaders faced the prospect that their party’s presidential candidates were criticizing their efforts, which could complicate the leaders’ efforts to find the votes they would need.



With their own campaigns only a year away, many Republicans in Congress are turning to the party’s presidential candidates for an early sign of how the budget issue is playing in the minds of voters. The grass-roots conservative opposition to a deal that includes any kind of tax increase or fails to cut government spending substantially has been frequently aired at town-hall-style meetings with the candidates and in calls to talk radio programs, and it has overshadowed discussions of the potential economic fallout should the government actually default.

Fellow Republicans say Mrs. Bachmann’s position would influence House colleagues who see her as a reliable measure of the Tea Party zeitgeist.

“Michele is a good barometer,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia. “The Tea Party really likes her.”

Despite the effort that Mr. Boehner had been putting into structuring a deal that Republicans could support without breaking any no-tax-increase promises, his announcement Saturday evening underscored the political reality that many Republicans in both houses were opposed to increasing the debt ceiling no matter what concessions they might win.

On the presidential campaign trail, Representative Ron Paul of Texas said Republicans should not accept any deal that includes a tax increase, calling it a “ploy.” While Mrs. Bachmann has suggested that virtually no bipartisan deal would be acceptable, Mr. Pawlenty told voters last week that “if it comes to a point where they feel that they must,” he said a balanced-budget amendment was an essential trade-off.

Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has said he would agree to increasing the debt limit only if a deal was “accompanied by a major effort to restructure and reduce the size of government.” Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah, has said spending cuts must be equal or greater than the value of any debt ceiling increase but told reporters Saturday in Florida: “I have every confidence that cooler heads are going to prevail.”

Nearly three dozen House Republicans and another dozen in the Senate have joined most of the Republican presidential candidates in signing a pledge that they will not vote to support the debt limit increase unless Congress approves a balanced budget-amendment to the Constitution, which is unlikely. (Mrs. Bachmann declined to sign the pledge, because she wanted to include a repeal of the Obama health care plan.)

Much of the freshman class that provided the party with its majority in the House has been skeptical of warnings about economic upheaval that would follow a government default, as well as of the Treasury Department’s insistence that there will be nothing more it can do to keep the government solvent after Aug. 2.

Republicans could face harsh consequences if they oppose a debt ceiling increase, the government defaults on some of its obligations and there are calamitous financial repercussions.

But many Republicans see supporting any agreement as carrying more political risk. Put into power in part by the Tea Party movement, Republicans who vote to raise the debt limit could suddenly find themselves looking at challenges from within.

The relative newcomers to Congress say they are weighing the issue extremely carefully and are awaiting the specifics of any deal. They know the hazards and are comparing it to the vote in 2008 to approve the bank bailout, a vote that has come to haunt some Republicans.

“This, I think, will be one of the toughest votes that any member of Congress is going to have to take,” Representative Aaron Schock, Republican of Illinois, said in a recent speech.

The situation in the Senate is markedly different from the House. Senate Republicans are in the minority, which is something of a luxury because Democrats will be called upon to produce most support for a debt deal.

Seeing themselves within reach of winning the Senate majority in 2012, Republicans are eager to watch threatened Democratic incumbents forced to vote for a package that could represent a politically unappetizing trifecta: a debt ceiling increase, reductions in popular social programs like Medicare and possible tax increases.

The importance and the intensity of the budget debate was clear in interviews with Republican voters last week who came to see some of the presidential contenders speak in Iowa. Whenever a candidate spoke about the debt limit, crowds expressed dismay at the idea of raising it.

At a rally on Saturday afternoon, the crowd cheered when Mrs. Bachmann declared her intention to vote against any compromise. She referred to Congress as “a dysfunctional family.”

“We need a new day in Washington,” she said. “We need a new sheriff.”


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