GOP vows to stand ground on next major fiscal debates Debt-ceiling rhetoric ‘frightens’ Democrat

Congress hasn’t even settled the 2011 spending fight and many lawmakers already are looking ahead to the next big battles over raising the country’s debt ceiling and the 2012 budget — with top Republicans beginning to draw lines in the sand.

A growing number of Republicans say they will not vote to raise the country’s debt limit unless it is accompanied by big changes to the way the government taxes and spends.

“If all we do is go in there in three or four weeks or in a couple months and extend the debt limit again and do nothing else, the world is going to look at us and say America and its political leadership is not serious about dealing with this incredible issue,” Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

That drew condemnation from Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat, who has been working with a bipartisan group of senators on a framework for bringing government spending and taxing into balance. Mr. Warner said the responsible option is to raise the debt limit so the government can borrow funds to pay for its operations.

“It just frightens the heck out of me that anyone responsible would say, ‘Let’s go ahead and light the fuse that might create the next economic meltdown,’” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
As lawmakers fanned out across the Sunday political talk shows, spending and record deficits dominated the debate.

This week, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, will present a budget blueprint for 2012. Beyond that, he said, lawmakers will cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, including slowing the growth of spending for Medicare and Medicaid.

“We intend to not only cut discretionary spending and put caps on spending, you have to address the drivers of our debt,” he said, previewing his plan on Fox.

He said his budget will tackle entitlement spending for Medicare and Medicaid, and he accused the White House of ignoring both of those programs’ long-term problems in the budget that the president sent to Congress last month.

Mr. Ryan also said he expects Democrats will attack the GOP for the slower pace of spending: “Yes, we will be giving our political adversaries things to use against us in the next election, and shame on them if they do that.”