This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 30th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President is blaming congressional Republicans for failing to pass an increase in the federal debt limit.

Republicans meanwhile are trying to get as many short-term spending cuts as possible, matched with a long-term

budget cap.

Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, comments.

Where is everybody on trying to get significant spending reductions in the federal spending and also raising the debt limit in the short run.

The oddest answer is, I have no idea because both sides are obviously engaging in a lot of finger-pointing and bickering.

Republicans at least claim that they want to get some serious reforms on the spending side of

the budget.

Obama is trying to maneuver Republicans into a tax increase trap, sort of a budget summit

like they had in 1990 with the first President Bush because that always turns out to be a disaster politically and

economically for the GOP so you can understand his motives. If I had to guess

the final outcome of all this and we may not know for another month or month and a half

is it'll be something like what we got with the government shutdown government slowdown debate

earlier this year where it's mostly a lot of smoke and mirrors but Republicans don't give in on

tax increases but Obama doesn't give in on reducing the size of government.

When people talk about spending cuts they're they're all for them until you tell them what they are.

And that's probably something that, at least for most Republicans, is fine as long as all they have to talk about is spending cuts as

a general matter.

Clearly Republicans are braver about going after big government when they're limited to just the abstract concept.

When it comes time to actually have the rubber meet the road, they tend to get a little bit more squeamish,

...