When I read National Review reporter Jonathan Strong’s piece this morning that some House Republicans weren’t happy with their first offer to President Obama in return for raising the debt ceiling, I was shocked. The offer is basically everything House Republicans could ever want and they weren’t happy with it?! But as I’ve thought it over, it actually makes a bit of sense. From Strong’s article:

“It definitely has a lot of goodies in it – things that arguably would grow the economy and arguably would generate revenue. But still you have to address the spending problem,” said Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama.

“The reason that we have to raise the debt ceiling is because we have deficits. The reason that we have deficits is because we spend a whole lot more money than we bring in in revenue. And this debt-ceiling package does not fix the underlying cause of the problem, which are the deficits,” he added.

Other House Republicans expressed similar sentiments. This is actually consistent with what House Republicans have been screaming about for years: more spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling. Now, our deficits are falling fast and the long-term debt has decreased significantly so it’s absurd to be cutting spending more. But this makes more logical sense then the christmas tree list of demands in the Republicans first offer.

The ironic thing is (and always has been) that by having the U.S. risk default, it actually drives up our borrowing cost and increases our debt. If we were to breach the debt ceiling, it would likely increase our long-term interest payments by nearly a trillion dollars. So it makes absolutely no sense to use the debt ceiling as leverage to extract spending cuts or anything else from the president. It’s a crazy, irresponsible tactic. The debt ceiling should be forever abolished.

But at least some House Republicans haven’t lost sight of the fact that their original reason for using the debt ceiling as an extortion device was because of the long-term debt. Business Insider’s Josh Barro wrote today that all of this shows that “the pretense that debt limit fights are about the public debt is over.” For most Republicans, that is certainly the case. But Strong’s article demonstrates that there are some who are still sticking to that principle. They are reckless, rash and stupid for holding the debt ceiling hostage, but unlike the rest of their colleagues, they are also consistent.