Why Republicans will vote to raise the debt ceiling

You not only don't get the cuts.... You get humiliated by having to cave in the end. And you get opinion polls ranking you below head lice and colonoscopies in popularity.... The debt-ceiling deadline is coming up. You can demand commensurate spending cuts, the usual, reasonable Republican offer. But you won't get them. Obama will hold out. And, at the eleventh hour, you will have to give in as you get universally blamed for market gyrations and threatened credit downgrades.

The more prudent course would be to find some offer that cannot be refused, a short-term trade-off utterly unassailable and straightforward. For example, offer to extend the debt ceiling through, say, May 1, in exchange for the Senate delivering a budget by that date — after four years of lawlessly refusing to produce one.... Republicans should develop a list of such conditions — some symbolic, some substantive — in return for sequential, short-term raising of the debt ceiling. But the key is: Go small and simple. Forget about forcing tax reform or entitlement cuts or anything major. If Obama wants to recklessly expand government, well, as he says, he won the election. [Washington Post]

He can have a long-term debt-limit increase if he agrees to cut spending, or he can have repeated, short-term increases without spending cuts. If the president continues to dodge the country's long-term spending problem, the solution is to force him to ask Congress every few months to give him the authority to borrow more while facing questions about why he refuses to restrain spending.... Congressional Republicans would explain that they will support the first alternative — a long-term debt-limit increase coupled with spending cuts. They will allow short-term debt increases to occur — but they will not support them.... Then he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would have to ensure that all 197 House Democrats vote aye. House Speaker John Boehner would commit to delivering only the 20 or so Republican votes that are needed to ensure the bill passed.

It's hard to overstate how much members of Congress in both parties hate to vote for a debt-limit increase, and how entitled to ducking the vote House Democrats feel because they're in the minority. The point of this strategy is to force Democrats to take responsibility for more borrowing without spending cuts, over and over again.... If Mr. Obama now not only refuses to lead, but prevents others from doing so, then congressional Democrats should bear the political weight of voting to raise the debt limit every three months until voters make their choice in the next election. [Wall Street Journal]