Why I love Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), reason No. 821 (heh — look at that, the same number as the number of days the Senate hasn’t passed a budget) … Here’s video of the excellent floor speech he delivered this morning (an excerpt of which I published in an earlier post):

“The president said—really—this is what the president said a week ago: ‘The only bottom line that I have is that we extend this debt ceiling through the next election, until 2013,’” Sessions says in the video. “The president thinks this is about him. It’s all about him. This is about America, and what’s good for this country. It’s not about the president. It’s not about politics.”

That’s the point. It might be a tired talking point, but it’s still true: Republicans haven’t been looking for a deal or for easy decisions that will ensure their reelection. They’ve been looking for a solution. But Democrats haven’t even been able to agree on what the problem is. The problem is not that our present fiscal situation might require politicians to make hard choices that cost them their seats in Congress. The problem is that our present fiscal situation has to be addressed if freedom and a limited social safety net are to be preserved.