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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and seemingly delirious with their power to hold the nation hostage, they demanded that the Affordable Care Act be repealed as a condition for funding the government and again raising the debt ceiling.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.
The "extreeemists" she references are demanding a return to fiscal sanity.
How can anyone reason with a person so far out of touch as this writer?
That was in return for the repeal of DADT. To me it was a bad deal.
I’m hardly a newbie and it certainly sounds like what McCain and Lindsay have been saying for the past several weeks.
—BA, longtime ‘Wackobird’.
The twit is on twitter? What a moron
Just what does the author mean when she says, “Now is the time to lance the boil of Republican extremism once and for all.”
The language of Obama himself and Democrats is clearly and calculatingly working to affix sinister motivation to Conservatives. Clearly, Conservatives are being set up for major scape-goating along with resulting consequences.
This is escalating, and at some point some nut is going to act out like the IRS and other government agencies acted out because they understood the thinly coded rhetoric of Obama. Only, this time people are going to act out violently. Just waiting for the sparking moment as history is filled with some totally unexpected flash-point.
And the corrupt MSM will totally support any violent acts of the Left as being totally justified.
With all my heart I wish it weren't coming, but it sure seems like things are being orchestrated to this end.
Wow. Such ignorance is breathtaking. But as Ronaldo Maximus once said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
that lunatic is a genuine moron
With RINOs (like Juan) being really 'Rats, there is no chance.
They forgot to take the guns first.
They keep forgetting that.
I was raised to prepare for the day they attack. I am not alone.
No, not a moron at all. Underestimation will kill you. She is a bloodthirsty, fascist mass-murderer. She wants to kill you.
They didn't forget. They were merely unsuccessful.
Thank GOD for our Founding Fathers. THEY understood.
The BATFE has already been there and done that.
It's typical liberal logic
James Mahley
Only two types of people vote Republican: the ones looking for a hand out and the ones too ignorant to know what a hand out REALLY is...
Does he live in a fairy land riding unicorns and throwing litter?
obama has never caved....wait may I live live in a fairy land riding unicorns and throwing glitter....yep that explains a lot
Let’s amend my meaning slightly then, to be more precise.
They keep forgetting that they’ve thusfar failed to take our guns first.
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