Posted on 10/14/2013 6:46:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Why Giving Republican Bullies a Bloody Nose Isn’t Enough
Now is the time to lance the boil of Republican extremism once and for all.
Since Barack Obama became president, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party have escalated their demands every time he’s caved, using the entire government of the United States as their bargaining chit.
In 2010 he agreed to extend all of the Bush tax cuts through the end of 2012. Were they satisfied? Of course not.
In the summer of 2011, goaded by an influx of Tea Partiers, they demanded huge spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling. In response, the President offered an overly-generous $4 trillion “Grand Bargain,” including cuts in Social Security and Medicare and whopping cuts in domestic spending (bringing it to its lowest level as a share of gross domestic product in over half a century).
Were Republicans content? No. When they demanded more, Obama agreed to a Super Committee to find bigger cuts, and if the Super Committee failed, a “sequester” that would automatically and indiscriminately slice everything in the federal budget except Social Security and Medicare.
Not even Obama’s re-election put a damper on their increasing demands. By the end of 2012, they insisted that the Bush tax cuts be permanently extended or the nation would go over the “fiscal cliff.” Once again, Obama caved, agreeing to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $400,000.
Early this year, after the sequester went into effect, Republicans demanded even bigger spending cuts. Obama offered more cuts in Medicare and a “chained CPI” to reduce Social Security payments, in exchange for Republican concessions on taxes.
Refusing the offer, and seemingly delirious with their power to hold the nation hostage, they demanded that the Affordable Care Act be repealed as a condition for funding the government and again raising the debt ceiling.
This time, though, Obama didn’t cave — at least, not yet.
The government is shuttered and the nation is on the verge of defaulting on its debts. But public opinion has turned sharply against the Republican Party. And the GOP’s corporate and Wall Street backers are threatening to de-fund it.
Suddenly the Republicans are acting like the school-yard bully who terrorized the playground but finally got punched in the face. They’re in shock. They’re humiliated. They’re trying to come up with ways of saving face.
With bloodied nose, House Republicans are running home. They’ve abruptly turned negotiations over to their Senate colleagues.
And just as suddenly, their demand to repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act has vanished. (An email from the group Tea Party Express says: “Are you like us wondering where the fight against Obamacare went?”) At a lunch meeting in the Capitol, Senator John McCain asked a roomful of Republican senators if they still believed it was possible to reverse parts of the program. According to someone briefed on the meeting, no one raised a hand — not even Ted Cruz.
It appears that negotiations over the federal budget deficit are about to begin once again, and presumably Senate Republicans will insist that Obama and the Democrats give way on taxes and spending in exchange for reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling for at least another year.
But keeping the government running and paying the nation’s bills should never have been bargaining chits in the first place, and the President and Democrats shouldn’t begin to negotiate over future budgets until they’re taken off the table.
The question is how thoroughly President Obama has learned that extortionist demands escalate if you give in to them.
If it was, then it sure was a bad deal.
She has no sense of irony and doesn’t know history.
The KKK was a Democrat group created just after the Civil War.
So she’s just lying.
Well, there is no doubt in my mind that McCain and Graham need to be send home
Communists, lunatics. What difference does it make? They are the enemies
You can't. All you can do is put it out of it's misery.
Point taken
President show up and vote present: “I’m negotiating.”
The adoring prestitudes: “See, he’s negotiating!”
President show up and vote present goes into private photo-op meeting with Republicans.
President show up and vote present: “I’m not negotiating.”
President show up and vote present goes to mike in rose garden.
President show up and vote present: “I tried to negotiate with the hostage takers.”
The adoring prestitudes: “He tried to negotiate with the hostage takers!”
Lunatic implies they no not what they do.
I feel like it’s Berlin in 1933, and my name is Goldstein.
One difference: we’re armed. Thank you, Founding Fathers.
“After careful analysis of the comprehensive report compiled by the Department of Defense and thorough consideration of the testimony provided by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, I support repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law,” Snowe said in a statement. “However, as was stated in the letter I signed along with all of my Republican colleagues to the Majority Leader on Dec. 1, we must first fund the government beyond Dec. 18, and prevent the largest tax increase in our nation’s history from affecting all Americans on New Year’s Day before addressing other legislation.”
the repeal of DADT was tied to holding marginal rates at the Bush levels. Olympia Snowe can GTH.
Exactly. There will be no boxcars or gulags until they can disarm us.
But there may be all-out civil war.
“Will Obama Stop the Music This November?”
Huh? That moron surely is confused
You know, if the President continues to claim to be held hostage, a hostage rescue team should go into the White House and remove him. I’m afraid the hostage rescue team will be composed of RINO’s.
And he was right
I am a conservative and a pacifist - a heavily armed, highly trained pacifist.
It never runs as easy as they think. They have much less support then they think and we have much more ammo than they think.
Stunning comment!!
And, should such a real economic calamity occur, the kind where people's lives and livelihoods are directly impacted, will not violent actions follow?
Are the recent Black on White crimes a road map as to how the MSM will cover for the Left’s violently lashing out at enemies of the stale for which Obama’s rhetoric is, and has been, building?
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