Posted on 04/10/2011 4:38:57 PM PDT by smoothsailing
OPINION
APRIL 10, 2011
The Tea Party's First Victory
Obama opposes spending cuts right up to the time he calls them historic..
This is getting to be a habit. President Obama ferociously resists tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cutsright up to the moment he strikes a deal with Republicans and hails the tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cuts as his idea. What a difference an election makes.
This is the larger political meaning of Friday's last minute budget deal for fiscal 2011 that averted a government shutdown. Mr. Obama has now agreed to a pair of tax cut and spending deals that repudiate his core economic philosophy and his agenda of the last two yearsand has then hailed both as great achievements. Republicans in Washington have reversed the nation's fiscal debate and are slowly repairing the harm done since the Nancy Pelosi Congress began to set the direction of government in 2007.
Yes, we know, $39 billion in spending cuts for 2011 is less than the $61 billion passed by the House and shrinks the overall federal budget by only a little more than 1%. The compromise also doesn't repeal ObamaCare, kill the EPA's anticarbon rules, defund Planned Parenthood, reform the entitlement state, or part the Red Sea.
On the other hand, the Obama-Pelosi Leviathan wasn't built in a day, and it won't be cut down to size in one budget. Especially not in a fiscal year that only has six months left and with Democrats running the Senate and White House. Friday's deal cuts more spending in any single year than we can remember, $78 billion more than President Obama first proposed. Domestic discretionary spending grew by 6% in 2008, 11% in 2009 and 14% in 2010, but this year will fall by 4%. That's....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The old joke still applies:
The Democrats propose to tear down the Washington Monument, and the Republicans respond with a plan to do it in three stages.
That pie analogy is off the mark.
Boehner pushed Democrats to nearly $39 billion in additional current-year cuts — when 0 was what they originally wanted. Granted, it doesn’t have a large impact on the deficit this year, as your pie shows, but that was never going to be the case.
It was an important victory because Boehner has made the debate about how much to cut. Boehner’s action also lowered the budget baseline for next year’s fight, an important and little understood part of this battle because of its multiplying factor over the years to come.
It’s not an “analogy.” It’s a truthful visual representation of the reality of the numbers.
But, if you want one, here’s an analogy for you:
Trying to bail out a basement being flooded by a broken water main...with a thimble...isn’t gonna work.
It looks like we’re pretty much done with the 2011 budget.
I think Boehner did OK, the dynamic has shifted to cutting as opposed to spending. I think it has laid the groundwork for Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget fight and the debt ceiling debate.
From your comments, I don’t expect either one of you to agree with me. No problem.
I’m just not so anxious to throw in the towel. I think Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan will do just fine until we can elect more conservatives in 2012.
New tagline...
G’Night EV.
Good night.
Ref. your Post #9: I’m down for it. It’s time for Conservatives to take to the streets and we can start by barnstorming the offices of the wimpy, GOP, pu**ies we sent to Congress who failed us miserably right out of the chute. HOW ABOUT SOME RECALL ELECTIONS TO SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF THEM?
I was so hoping they would part the Red Sea.
I was thinking of having on one side: “Party like it’s 1773”, and on the other, “De-fund Planned Parenthood abortion mill”.
I use a fold-up cardboard sewing cutting board so each side has a lot of space.
Then crawl off the path into a corner, suck your thumb and wither away.
The rest of us who are too damned dumb or idealistic to quit will keep on fighting, but at least don't lay around in the way as something to trip over.
Marine, my ass!
I wish liberals and Democrats like you.....
I wish liberals and Democrats like you.....
Is there a word missing? Please explain.
Recognizing that your ship is going down does not equate to giving up the fight, Redleg. It means you'd better have an avenue of escape or face decimation. I'm still fighting, but it has become clear that we are merely delaying the inevitable.
In Speaker Boehner, we have a general with no stomach for a fight -- a leader who held a strategic advantage and refused to employ it. Before the battle even started, he promised that he wouldn't use it. After witnessing this humiliating collapse before a winnable fight, do you honestly believe these RINO cowards will stand the heat of the coming fight over the debt extension?
As a previous poster alluded, we are bailing a flooded basement with a thimble -- and calling it a victory. I can count and I can measure, and we are drowning in debt. We can fire that thimble on full auto for eternity, but we will still drown. Because we elected the mighty flood, and then we elected the little thimble.
Thanks Clintonfatigued.
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