Last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) demanded Social Security cuts in return for voting to raise the debt limit. A separate slew of Republicans have demanded everything from severe spending cuts to Constitutional amendments in return for their vote to ensure that America pays its bills on time.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), in a USA Today op-ed, added one more demand to the list — a two-thirds majority requirement for tax increases:

Washington will never voluntarily shrink its size until it is forced to by law. Republicans should oppose another debt limit increase unless Congress first passes a balanced budget amendment that requires a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.

A balanced budget amendment is sorely needed now because the debt is rising bigger and faster than it ever has, like a wave cresting with more force and power as it approaches land. Without anything to block it, the debt wave will break and overtake everything in its path.

Of course, failure to increase the debt limit could lead to catastrophic consequences, with the U.S. ultimately defaulting on its debt obligations. Even House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently agreed, saying, “you can’t not raise the debt ceiling. Default is the unworkable solution.”

It’s bad enough that DeMint would mess with the credit worthiness of the United States. But he’s doing so while demanding a truly problematic tax policy. DeMint’s proposal for a mandatory two-thirds majority to raise taxes is the foolish twin of California’s Prop. 13, which lies “at the root of California’s misery.” As Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo wrote, Prop. 13 left California “no choice but to cut its budget to ribbons during the economic downturn. California has had to gut public education, slash social services and health care programs, close prisons, and lay off record numbers of public employees.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned last week that the debt limit was not “something you want to play around with,” and said “not to focus on the debt limit as being the bargaining chip in this discussion.” Bernanke further pressed the catastrophic implications of not raising the debt limit:

Beyond a certain point … the United States would be forced into a position of defaulting on its debt. And the implications of that on our financial system, our fiscal policy and our economy would be catastrophic.

DeMint and his colleagues are conveniently not listening to the experts nor paying attention to the recent budget troubles in California, so that they can play a risky game of political brinkmanship with America’s credit rating.

– Paul Breer

Yesterday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released the responses he received to a request he made last month for business, trade associations, and think tanks to identify regulations that they’d like to see eliminated or reduced. Many of the responses took aim at the Environmental Protection Agency, but there was plenty of concern reserved for regulations from both the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Issa is pitching this product as the manifestation of Congress finally listening to “job creators.” In fact, his new website for soliciting further responses is located at “americanjobcreators.com.” “This project is an opportunity for private industry to put forward detailed and specific examples so that both the American people and policymakers can determine for themselves what actions can be taken to create jobs,” Issa said in a statement paired with the release of the responses.

But who actually responded to Issa’s request? According to a ThinkProgress analysis, more than half his responses came from lobbyists and trade organizations, not actual business owners:

– 106 lobbying organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the Business Roundtable

– 47 businesses, including American Express, Boeing, Ford, and a group of small businesses

– 26 individuals (18 of them unidentified)

– The Heritage Foundation and George Mason’s Mercatus Center

See a full list below.

Of course, all of these lobbying organizations are hired and paid by actual companies. But their goal, as lobbyists, is not to facilitate job creation. It’s to bend government policy in the direction that most benefits their clients, often to the detriment of competition, innovation, and job creation.

For instance, the fact that IBM can use tax loopholes to dramatically lower its tax rate is bad for domestic job creation, bad for IBM’s competitors, but very good for IBM. Therefore, lobbyists representing IBM do all they can to preserve its ability to shelter income, even if that means less domestic investment and job creation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of which IBM is a member, has gone to bat several times to protect corporate tax loopholes. The Wonk Room has another example of this regulatory gamesmanship from the Financial Services Forum.

As Matt Yglesias put it, “business groups like the Chamber of Commerce represent the interests of the firms that spent yesterday winning the future. They’ll of course gladly accept subsidies for their own R&D, but they have little objective interest in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.” Yet, its groups like the Chamber of Commerce upon which Issa is depending to guide his decisions on economic regulation and job creation.

None of the ten biggest publicly owned employers in the U.S. responded to the survey as an individual company, nor did any of America’s top 30 job creators (as compiled by the Daily Beast).

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

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Yesterday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released the responses he received to a request he made last month for business, trade associations, and think tanks to identify regulations that they’d like to see eliminated or reduced. Many of the responses took aim at the Environmental Protection Agency, but there was plenty of concern reserved for regulations from both the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Issa is pitching this product as the manifestation of Congress finally listening to “job creators.” In fact, his new website for soliciting further responses is located at “americanjobcreators.com.” “This project is an opportunity for private industry to put forward detailed and specific examples so that both the American people and policymakers can determine for themselves what actions can be taken to create jobs,” Issa said in a statement paired with the release of the responses.

But who actually responded to Issa’s request? According to a ThinkProgress analysis, more than half his responses came from lobbyists and trade organizations, not actual business owners:

– 106 lobbying organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the Business Roundtable

– 47 businesses, including American Express, Boeing, Ford, and a group of small businesses

– 26 individuals (18 of them unidentified)

– The Heritage Foundation and George Mason’s Mercatus Center

See a full list below.

Of course, all of these lobbying organizations are hired and paid by actual companies. But their goal, as lobbyists, is not to facilitate job creation. It’s to bend government policy in the direction that most benefits their clients, often to the detriment of competition, innovation, and job creation.

For instance, the fact that IBM can use tax loopholes to dramatically lower its tax rate is bad for domestic job creation, bad for IBM’s competitors, but very good for IBM. Therefore, lobbyists representing IBM do all they can to preserve its ability to shelter income, even if that means less domestic investment and job creation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of which IBM is a member, has gone to bat several times to protect corporate tax loopholes.

In another example, the Financial Services Forum wants to prevent bank regulators from singling out systemically risky banks for increased regulation. Putting stricter standards on “too big to fail” banks would be good for the economy and level the playing field between smaller banks and the behemoths (who receive a ton on benefits from being considered “too big to fail,” like decreased borrowing costs), thus increasing market share for smaller firms. But the Financial Services Forum wants to see no such thing, since it is not in the interest of the biggest banks.

As Matt Yglesias put it, “business groups like the Chamber of Commerce represent the interests of the firms that spent yesterday winning the future. They’ll of course gladly accept subsidies for their own R&D, but they have little objective interest in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.” Yet, its groups like the Chamber of Commerce upon which Issa is depending to guide his decisions on economic regulation and job creation.

None of the ten biggest publicly owned employers in the U.S. responded to the survey as an individual company, nor did any of America’s top 30 job creators (as compiled by the Daily Beast).

Read more