Cantor made his comments to ABC



Backing off his earlier stance, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is warning colleagues that the Treasury Department's deadline to raise the debt ceiling before a catastrophic default is the real deal. "Secretary Geithner feels August 2 is his deadline," Cantor told ABC News in an interview released on Monday. "I don't question the Secretary of the Treasury other than to say we're trying to get in place real spending reductions -- trillions of dollars of spending reductions -- if the president wants us to increase the credit limit of this country by trillions of dollars."

So here's the latest from Eric Cantor on the debt ceiling:

On the surface, you'd think this was a sign that Cantor is trying to walk back from the ledge. By accepting the proposition that what Geithner says about the debt limit is accurate, Cantor is acknowledging the fact that unless the debt limit is raised, the United States will begin defaulting on its obligations in early August, and that the economic and financial consequences of the default would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy.

But while he acknowledges this, Cantor is also saying that he doesn't care. According to him, the GOP's real objective is cutting spending—it's the President who wants to raise the debt limit. Cantor's position is that it's more important to cut spending than to raise the debt limit, and that Republicans won't do the latter without the former.

That's been the Republican position all along, and as we start to get closer to August 2, it's looking more and more like the GOP is planning to run its bluff to the wire. Democrats need to prepare for that—and need to steel their resolve to not cave in the face of Republican threats.