Part of the reason that the negotiations for an increase in the national debt ceiling are so difficult is political positioning for 2012:
Democrats want to include a tax increase (a/k/a revenue enhancements) in the bill to make it harder for Republicans to attack Democrats as the party of tax increases in 2012.
Republicans, on the other hand, want to include changes in entitlement programs (i.e., Medicare, Social Security) so Democrats can’t use “Mediscare” tactics against them next year.
Some legislators, like Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who has announced he is not running for re-election in 2012, and Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who is in his second term and has said he will only serve two terms*, seem willing to actually try to solve the problem. But too many people in Washington either don’t understand how serious the problem is, are so convinced of the correctness of their own positions that they won’t compromise, or, as I said above, seem to think it is more important to preserve their issues for next year’s election than it is to get this problem solved.
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* Senater Coburn was elected to the House in 1994 and pledged to serve just three terms. He did. He was then elected to the Senate in 2004.
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