Posted on 07/31/2011 11:33:36 PM PDT by Rabin
Edited on 08/01/2011 8:38:33 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
By JAKE SHERMAN & JONATHAN ALLEN | 7/31/11 7:17 PM EDT
House Republicans praised Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the deal he cut to avoid a national default during a rare Sunday night conference call, giving first-blush approval to a plan that must still be committed to legislation and passed by both chambers of Congress.
Now comes the hard part for the four heads of congressional caucuses: Selling the fine print. That’s the job that Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signed up for when each gave his or her word to President Barack Obama Sunday night that the deal was in hand.
It’s complicated, multi-dimensional and full of peril for the priorities of each side — so much so that while the White House pointed to the possibility of the Bush tax cuts expiring, House Republican leaders were telling their rank and file that the deal made that scenario less likely.
It’s not “the greatest deal in the world,” Boehner told his troops.
“But it shows how much we’ve changed the terms of the debate in this town,” Boehner said on the call, according to a transcript released by the speaker’s office. “There is nothing in this framework that violates our principles. It’s all spending cuts.”
Come Monday, all eyes will be on House Republicans because they seldom jump in line without a fight.
Boehner’s lieutenants, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), applauded the speaker for pushing the president as far as he could while avoiding the economic and political calamity that could result from a default on the nation’s debt — which the Treasury Department has said will happen after Aug. 2 if...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
So, as a tactical victory, this may pave the way for a strategic victory in 2012, when we can actually turn the tide. As it is, we just don't have the firepower to close the deal. It may be suicidally stupid, but the average American voter doens't understand the issue well enough to realize how screwed we are unless we start hacking down the debt. Grandma wants her check. The nice man promised her money during one of his fireside chats, and she intends to collect.
That mentality is too pervasive in America, and getting it under control is going to be incremental. So, if this is a step in the right direction, then let's be happy for it, and keep Obama's minions on the retreat.
I just checked out that Politico link, and it was a mostly positive article for the compromise. We are so screwed. It’s killing me because I have to miss what Rush has to say about this work of art today. Get ready for radio air wave melt down!
What makes you think we will win in 2012? Think about it, if the GOP runs on “getting the house in order, and smaller govt.” and the dems run on “freebies for all”, who do you think the huddled masses will vote for?
The chosen one will still get 114% of the holders peoples vote, 80% of the wall jumpers vote, and probably 70% of the student loan vote.
The dems will always get the moron vote, which I figure is at least 40% overall. The GOP will always get about the same from the common sense group.
We have to depend on the 20% of the “politics, what’s politics” group. That doesn’t inspire confidence in me...
You are right that this is really a big goose egg. There were other deals to be made, even the Gang of Six plan would have been better, for now anyway.
We just need to make sure we aren’t going to be like General Lee at Gettysburg and end up with a lost cause. This problem didn’t happen over night and it likely won’t be solved that way either. In addition to that we need to figure out whether the demands being made are really the essence of solving the problem. On that point, I have my doubts because capitulation to big government, in the permanent sense of amending the constitution, isn’t going to solve the problem and that is what the BBA does.
It doesn’t solve the “why” of government spending too much, or the effects of statism on the economy because there are other ways for government to get what it wants and make everyone pay for it indirectly, even if it had some limiting effect on government itself. In my perception, that is in serious doubt because after reading the various proposed BBAs and applying them to the last 10 years, I cannot find one aspect that would have been prevented from happening. We still would have had all the bailouts, stimulus, and ObamaCare, and still be in the same place with debt and spending we are now because of 1) the wars, and 2) Democrats had a supermajority 2009-10 and could override the caps.
The reason the BBA was put up is because it supposedly adds to the credibility that our government will get its liability issues under control to avoid problems in the market for debt. It has nothing to do with restoring constitutional government, and cannot even promise that. The only way to restore constitutional govt is to do it. Like the 13th and 14th amendments overruled Dred Scott, we need to overrule Slaughterhouse and other gross distortions of the commerce clause through the New Deal Court and beyond. Once we do that, spending and statism at the Federal level will be greatly mitigated, because the “why” of spending too much will be addressed.
Short of doing that, all we will get is a bunch of cost shifting, and a bunch of stuff being done under the covers that we will end up paying for anyway.
We add another trillion each year to the $14.4 trillion debt and pretend this is responsible?
##
Responsible hell! They are pretending the increases are cuts.
Doing nothing would have reigned in spending. It is a lame boneheaded move to buy into the default hype. This is the left's crises not the right's. Find a RINO website.
Well, we're close to the tipping point. If there's enough people left in the country that care about getting the house in order for the sake of their children and grandchildren, then we have a shot. If not, then we don't.
If we are already past the tipping point, and the parasites have a numerical lock on the government, then it doesn't really matter either way, does it?
It’s better that the tea party is pissed off and motivated to take scalps than democrats pissed off and motivated to take scalps.
You tried troll, now go back to your congressional cave and report to you RINO masters, FREEPERS aren't buying your turd sandwich. Your carping needs to end.
You’re both correct IMO but this forum is inundated by a gang of “my way or the highway” folks who seemingly have lost the ability of cognitive thinking.
AS outlined the plan STOPS growth of government and SHRINKS it by 100 billion per year immediately with mechanisms in place for a further 14 billion per year in cuts by years end. We will have to see the details of what cuts will be made by the trigger if the comm. cannot reach agreement.
One very important and overlooked aspect of this whole thing is that the public has now become glaringly familiar with the huge spending problem in Washington. And since more and more spending is the only way the liberals can get elected it presents for them a serious issue which they will have a difficult time explaining away as they continue to attempt to buy votes.
Their response: “Where are those super duty shredders? We have a lot of stuff to cut up!”
“The only other option is to shut down the government,”
And this will insure Obamas reelection?
But. Caving in and giving Obama a major political victory
and exposing the spineless republican party for what they
are won’t insure Obamas reelection?
I’m not upset either.
The media is our enemy, so the PR battle is always uphill.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
We have successfully shifted the debate from a growing government with more taxes to the need to cut spending.
We win this round. It will help us have a better chance at winning the Senate and WH in 2012.
Then we can have REAL cuts. REAL tax code revision. Real regulatory reform.
As bad as it has been since January 2009, at least people are getting an education.
It could have easily ended another way. They could have not raised the debt ceiling.
Ok, so how’s this for a winning strategy. We kick the can down the road. We dig ourselves deeper and deeper and debt. Obama loses the next election, a Republican gets in, JUST IN TIME for the economy to REALLY collapse.
I am sick to death of this political strategy BS. If we don’t cut now, we’ll have to cut later. So what the heck is the difference? You think it’ll be easy to cut social security then? You think seniors will love it then?
It HAS to happen. Mathematically HAS TO. And the longer we wait, the worse it gets.
Forget the (@&$( strategy and do the right thing.
Exactly. This house of cards will collapse...it’s just a matter of when.
Some folks posting here don’t understand that the debt will be $17 trillion when the next President takes office. It’s 14.5 now, they’re clearing the way for 2 more.
Annual revenue will still be around 2 trillion - if we’re lucky.
Annual expenses will go up from the 3.8 trillion now, probably approaching 5 trillion. Because Washington, DC thinks that it is fine.
The next President will take office with deficit approaching 3 trillion - every year deeper in debt.
And to have the markets continue to buy U.S. Treasury bonds in a scenario worse than right now, with 14.5 trillion in debt and a 1.5 trillion deficit ? They won’t because they really can’t. Default is certain if we don’t see the economy come roaring back in 2012. Which is impossible.
We are looking at an enormous financial collapse. Not politics - finance. A financial collapse.
By not raising the debt ceiling, the House could start a much smaller bubble burst now - and Obama is in the WH. If THAT does not stick to him - how will Repubs blame Dems when the collapse happens even worse after 2013.
Limping through is exactly what GW Bush did at the very end. A big turd was handed to the Dems. And it was good, because the turd was mostly created by their policies since WWII, but admittedly Repubs all along went along.
Some folks are into politics - this economic collapse is not about politics - it’s not going to be a recession that becomes just a political football. I wish those in Congress would wake up. If wait too long to pop the bubble, it’s going to be bad, utterly bad. The kind of bad that starts wars, famines, etc. The government spending bubble needs to be popped immediately.
Oh, well, this is monumentally depressing.
Correct and the first step is to fire the current leadership, and that is all of them not just one.
This does not stop the growth of government at all! Stopping the growth of government would require a spending freeze (i.e., not spending one dollar more next year than was spent this year). The cuts anticipated by this deal do not even come close to doing that. Only in the Beltway world of "baseline" budgeting, where growth of government is assumed and sacrosanct, would this even be considered a cut at all.
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