Tea Party Caucus hears from Toomey
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WASHINGTON -- Several times in 2009 and 2010, throngs of tea party protesters stood outside the U.S. Capitol complex airing their grievances with the government. On Thursday, they strolled right in.
The inaugural meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus brought a few dozen activists -- a turnout likely dimmed by the previous night's snowstorm -- and only a handful of senators to a hearing room in a Senate office building. But it was a sign, according to caucus leader and freshman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that the tea party is "co-opting Washington."
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., spoke to the gathering but did not officially join with the caucus -- which counts freshman Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., among its co-founders -- displaying the balancing act he faces in representing a moderate state while acknowledging the conservative forces that swept him into office.
Mr. Toomey spoke to the group about his first bill, a measure designed to give deficit-minded Republicans additional leverage in negotiations about raising the "debt ceiling" -- or the maximum federal debt allowed by Congress. The government is scheduled to exceed that cap sometime this spring, and Mr. Toomey and other Republicans don't want to vote to raise it without extracting serious concessions on spending cuts and starting the process to long-term debt reduction.
Democrats claim the GOP is trying to play chicken with a federal default. But Mr. Toomey called such talk "factually untrue," and is seeking to codify that with a bill that would require the Treasury to put debt-service payments before other spending if the ceiling is not raised.
"I'm not advocating that we refuse under all circumstances to raise the debt ceiling," Mr. Toomey said. "In fact, I think if we can get a balanced budget [constitutional] amendment, if we can get the spending cuts we need, then that is a tremendous accomplishment, and we should try to get that done. But we should take off the table the false argument that failure to immediately raise the debt ceiling would result in a default on our debt."
First Published January 28, 2011 12:00 am
