Posted on 01/11/2012 6:24:39 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Yesterday, as the New Hampshire returns rolled in, I tweeted wearily, “I’d hoped for something different.” The incomparable Stephen Kruiser tweeted back, “You’re young. Get used to saying that if you plan on staying in the GOP.”
That wisdom returned to me this morning when I read this from CNSNews.com:
When the Republican-controlled House approved its first CR on March 4, 2011, the national debt was 14,182,627,184,881.03, according to the U.S. Treasury. As of the close of business on Jan. 9, 2012, the national debt was 15,236,506,139,986.86.
That means the debt increased by $1.05 trillion over the past ten months.
That equals approximately $8,964 for each of the 117,572,000 American households estimated by the Census Bureau.
At the current rate, the Republican-controlled House is agreeing to allow the U.S. Treasury to borrow approximately an additional $896 per month in the name of each American household.
Already, I can hear the excuses, starting with, “We’re just one-half of one-third of the government; what did you expect us to do?” Yes, but take away excuses and all that’s left are results. Complacency is not the way to change the status quo, as John Hawkins reminds us:
If you want to see a great example of how weak kneed much of the conservative movement has become, look back to the Bush years when the GOP controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. What did the GOP do to move the country to the Right? Nothing of consequence besides the Bush tax cuts, which weren’t even permanent. In fact, you could make a good argument that the most significant piece of legislation during the Bush years was Medicare Part D, which moved the country to the LEFT, not the right. During the Bush years, there was even a push for comprehensive immigration reform, which was a politically suicidal attempt to pass legislation that was anathema to conservatives, would have hurt America, and would have handed several million additional votes to the Democratic Party. That is how cowed and intimidated many conservatives have become.
The refusal of conservatives in power to show the courage it takes to move the ball forward for conservatism puts the rest of the movement in an impossible position. We’re like a football team with a great defense and a mediocre offense that’s down by 21 points at the start of the fourth quarter. How do we catch up? We end up throwing Hail Marys in hopes that we’ll get lucky. We get overly excited about incendiary rhetoric, “pure” but unelectable candidates, or huge, almost impossible-to-pass bills. We propose Balanced Budget Amendments, the Fair Tax, The Ryan Plan — and it’s not that these are bad ideas. To the contrary, they’re great ideas that would be phenomenal for the country if they passed. But, there’s the rub. The American people are instinctively skeptical of big changes, every Democrat will oppose these bills, and we’d probably need 65 Republicans in the Senate to pass anything of consequence because they’re so meek. So, in the end, we propose these massive changes, we talk about them endlessly, and yet very few small steps to the right actually happen in practice. This is the political logjam conservatives have lived with from the late-nineties onward.
Perhaps Republicans in the House think they are thinking for the long-term. They are, no doubt, thinking about their own reelections, fearing the smears Democrats are so skillful at spreading. In every CR fight, they’ve shuddered at the thought of a government shutdown because they assumed they’d be blamed. Perhaps they were right — but, in the end, perhaps they might also have accomplished something had they allowed that to happen. If they really feared a shutdown for non-political purposes — that is, if they really thought a shutdown would be too harmful to government workers and others who couldn’t afford to sit in darkness for a week or two — then they should have passed legislation like Rep. James Lankford’s to forestall it — and to ensure that any time Congress came up against a shutdown, they’d be forced to make spending cuts.
To be sure, the Democratic Senate is largely to blame for the spotty way in which Congress has managed the nation’s fiscal affairs. The Senate has not passed a budget in more than 1,000 days. That was and is and will be inexcusable for as long as they refuse to put a plan to paper. But I’ve come to expect that from this crop of Ds. From the new Republican majority in the House, I’d hoped for something different.
They are getting ready to ask for another 1.2 Trillion.
Um, I think that the Obama White House had something to do with this.
They erase their own reelection platform... we need men to run against them in primaries
We are getting another trillion soon. That is on the agenda during this term. I wish I could write a check for 10 grand for my family portion of the debt and then the government must leave me alone. I and many others would do that in a heartbeat. I actually thought our debt per family was higher. Most families could pay that fairly easily. They should just have a pay debt day and watch the debt disappear. We could have a hot dog sale. lol.
If only we had Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum as president. They wouldn’t have let this happen and would have actually cut the debt by a couple of trillion dollars. /sarc
Does that mean they won't be able to go out for that pizza after all?
If you think your share of the national debt is $10K you had better sit down.
The article says 8,000 (a little over. not sure of exact figure) and then another 900 per American family. I actually added up. It is not quite 10,000 dollars. We are in much better shape than I had thought.
RE: If only we had Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum as president. They wouldn’t have let this happen and would have actually cut the debt by a couple of trillion dollars. /sarc
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Have you forgotten the BUDGET SURPLUS this country had when Newt was Speaker and Santorum was Senator?
That’s just for the last Trillion.
times that by 15.
RE: Um, I think that the Obama White House had something to do with this.
Yes, and Congress STILL controls the purse strings. How many of these men have balls anyway?
At some point markets will lose faith in the dollar and stop trading in dollars, then the real fun will begin we will be forced to buy Euros or Yen to buy our oil. The standard of living here will not be nice. $20.00 a gallon anyone?
You are kidding right? They are talking about the past 10 months deficit. Do you know what the national debt is? Do you know what unfunded liabilities are?
Throw all the bums out!
Except my congressman.
and then add unfunded liabilities. Just to make the math easy, try around 100 trillion.
Please point the way to the Right Wing Utopia where all that this woman (the author) wants happens as quick as she want it.
Politicians are much braver when the will of the people is clearly spelled out and as i see the world nobody is very clear about what they want
Did anyone ever notice there are 2 opposing parties jostling for power.
Its things like that that make the utopia she seeks so difficult to find
The previous compromise last summer was supposed to put this out of sight during the presidential campaign by raising the debt limit enough so that the money would last past the election. The super-committe was a compromise that was supposed to fail, then kick in the default cuts (which no one voted on and therefore cannot be blamed for). Obama has played this to his own constituents, by announcing the military cuts and not announcing the entitlement cuts which are mandated by the August bill. He will delay announcing any entitlement cuts, which would go directly against people he wants to vote for him, until after the election.
But this is blowing up early, so take advantage of it. The house should cause another stalemate an a debt ceiling increase, and force Obama to lay out a plan for entitlement cuts before the next vote. It will force him to spell out how he is going to screw his supporters before the election. It needs to become a campaign issue to spell out which agencies these candidates will cut. Republicans can safely talk about this, but Obama cannot. He already played the military cuts card. From now on, its his voters.
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