EXCLUSIVE: Senator Spills on the Latest on the Debt Limit

Today I got a chance to talk to Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, about the current controversy regarding the debt ceiling. Although the situation seems quite easy for me to figure out (see my post Trying to Make Sense of the Debt Limit Debate?), it apparently is still such a complicated subject that confounds all of our major policy-makers, especially President Barack Obama (Democrat).

According to Senator Murkowski, her recent meeting with President Obama "did not go well" and she is "not optimistic about a deal." Both sides recognize that we need to figure out how to deal with the debt limit- but the center of the debate is how. There is simply too much borrowing being done by our federal government, and to cover that we will need to borrow more- the question is how much spread out over how long- Obama wants $4 trillion more that he thinks will get him through another two years, the GOP wants to figure out how to borrow a lot less than that while making responsible cuts to bloated and inefficient programs.

"On August 3, money will come in- but not enough to meet our obligations," Senator Murkowski said. At that point, we'll need to prioritize where our money goes and begin making decisions regarding what is important and what is not. Democrats and Obama don't want to make these decisions- they are hard and require you to have values- and instead simply want to throw money at everyone without asking questions. As Senator Murkowski said "we have a lot of obligations," and real decisions have to be made regarding those obligations, including changing those obligations and deciding that perhaps we don't really need all of those 'stimulus' programs or subsidies for 'green energy.'

As a side note, I found Senator Murkowski to be a personable, passionate, knowledgeable, and pragmatic person- like many Tea Party and conservative and libertarians, I may disagree with her on issues and work to defeat her in the primary, but in the general and in our Senate she is a decent enough Senator.

Incidentally, she was vastly superior in almost every way to my own Senator, Senator Stabenow, who I felt was partisan, shallow, divisive, and heavily dependent on talking points for her knowledge on issues. Read my post Senator Stabenow at DEC Event Details What a Political Economy Looks Like for more on my thoughts on Senator Stabenow.