Posted on 01/19/2013 7:42:05 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Okay, it’s official. According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. debt jumped to $16.1 trillion in 2012 from $14.8 trillion in 2011. That’s a $1.3 trillion deficit for the last year. Remarkable. During President Obama’s first term, the federal debt rose by roughly $6 trillion.
Now, if they are bold, House Republicans will take advantage of these dismal numbers. Bold means bold spending cuts, as in cut spending like there’s no tomorrow. Bold means implementing the $1.2 trillion spending sequester. Bold means an absolute rock-solid commitment to spending cuts. A new Rasmussen survey shows that 62 percent of Americans favor across-the-board spending cuts. That includes every program of the federal government, according to the survey.
So Republicans can persuade the public about bold spending cuts. They can make it their key message and central marketing strategy. If they don’t, they risk losing the House in 2014.
Voters are smart. Another Rasmussen poll shows that 68 percent of Americans say cutting government spending is the solution to our economic problems. Support for cutting government spending has generally remained in the high 60s to low 70s over the past couple of years. Voters realize full well that a private, free-enterprise economy that holds on to more of its hard-earned money while the government share of the economy shrinks is pro-growth. Limited government is a tax cut.
Unlike the recent fiscal-cliff tax-hike deal, we need to let successful earners, investors, and risk-takers keep more of what they earn as an incentive to remain the activists who drive the economy. Of course, Obama wants another $1 trillion in taxes. But Republicans must just say no. (While they’re at it, the GOP should cut tax rates for large and small businesses to 25 percent.)
As an extension to this hard-line spending message, the GOP must make it clear that spending cuts equal economic growth. Think Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan — all Nobel prize winners who argued that less spending means more growth.
And the GOP should stop paying people not to work as part of their spending-cut campaign. With unemployment falling modestly in the last couple of years, food stamps have exploded by 7.2 million recipients. That’s 10,000 per day, according to Ohio University professor Richard Vedder, even in an expanding economy. Social Security disability payments also have exploded. So have long-term, extended-unemployment benefits.
It’s this simple: If you pay people not to work, they won’t work. And if they won’t work, the economy won’t grow.
This is part of the spending-cut message. The GOP has to repeat this message again and again.
Now, we know President Obama is against spending cuts. In his debt-ceiling speech this week, all he did was demonize the Republican party, saying the GOP is making America a deadbeat nation. Obama continues to blame Republicans for throwing old folks, young people, military troops, and others under the bus. Sheer demagoguery. Awful, divisive, non-compromising, non-leadership rhetoric.
But the GOP can make hay on this with a strong spending-cut, shrink-the-government message. With no gimmicks, please.
It’s okay to extend the debt-ceiling increase for another three months (as announced by Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in Williamsburg, Va., this week). It’s also okay to use a continuing resolution to force short-term spending cuts, and maybe even get some long-term spending-cut plans going. Perhaps even the Democrats, who haven’t passed a budget in 1,360 days, will finally put one out in response to these Republican House measures.
But the idea of allowing the borrowing limit to expire, and using some kind of prioritization of payments while the government runs out of money, will not only damage the current economy, it will absolutely sink the Republican party for the 2014 midterm elections.
The bipartisan Policy Center projects that on March 1, the U.S. government will receive $20 billion in revenues to cover $84 billion in committed spending to obligations like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, military pay, and so forth and so on. Sure, we can cover the interest on the debt, which is only about $20 billion a month. But what about these other commitments? And how would such a dysfunctional approach look to world financial markets and credit-rating agencies?
That’s why gimmicks like this should not be used. They will snatch political defeat from the jaws of a potential spending-cut victory.
But the moral of this story is that congressional Republicans must develop an effective spending-cut message. And that message should be linked to economic growth and job creation. If they do that, they will help the economy and their political futures. If they don’t, they’re going to lose the House and undermine the economy.
I think it’s that simple.
– Larry Kudlow, NRO’s economics editor, is host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report and author of the daily web log, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.
Boehner is a loser, and the House Republicans were spineless jackwagaons for reelecting the feckless jerk. He’s squandering whatever advantages we have!
A premise disproved by the recent Presidential election.
“Voters are smart.”
********
I admire Kudlow and watch him every night. But it amazes me how he can make this statement. The long list of knaves, scoundrels, crooks, and phonies that the people of this country elect to high office says otherwise. And our self-inflicted massive and unsustainable deficit and debt are additional proof. The average American voter is a naive fool.
GOP official: House to vote to lift debt limit
12:08PM Friday
January 18, 2013
video
This is their last chance for me. If they cave on either the debt ceiling or gun control, I’m changing my registration.
I truly believe that the Repulsicans are dead.
Period.
Just as with an plane in full stall, we may have to lower the nose and accept an altitude loss whilst we jettison these b*stards and get some real men and women who have morals and actually have done things.
And, yup, I still love Sarah....who accomplished more in her Alaska governorship than the b*stard-in-chief/felon/dork is done in his (its) “voting present” sorry-*ssed lifetime.
“Boehner is a loser, and the House Republicans were spineless jackwagaons”
******
Boehner is indeed a loser, and therefore an ideal “leader” for the House Republicrats who talk a good game but always folds in the end like a cheap lawn chair. They are simply not up to competing against the vicious infighters that the Democrats are.
In a rare case of competences and conviction, Scott Walker stood up to the Dems and their union thugs — and won big. Too bad the rest of the spineless Republicrats can’t follow his example.
I’m done with the Republican Pary.
Long as the republican and democrat big wigs are making bundles of cash they won’t do squat
RINOs deserve to lose. Bhoenehead will then be disgraced and forced to retire.
Let obama/soetoro have at it. He`ll do the the neo-marxist democrat party what bhoenehead is doing to the RINOs
“So Republicans can persuade the public about bold spending cuts. They can make it their key message and central marketing strategy. If they don’t, they risk losing the House in 2014.
Voters are smart.”
Voters are smart? They just reelected the biggest spender in US history.
If voters are so smart, why would they turn the House over to Nancy Pelosi again, giving the Rats control of both the House & Senate, knowing full well that the Rats will NEVER cut spending.
Now, I understand why conservative voters would be mad if the House continues to cave in to the Rats, but giving Rats control of the House & Senate IS caving in to the Rats by the voters - same thing they seek to avoid.
Pubs may be doing a lousy job of stopping Obama, but giving him a Rat dominated House & Senate is apparently what the voters want if that becomes the case.
All last year we heard & read of such negative numbers against Obama. They all proved to be BS when it came election time. So, I'm doubtful when I hear of 68% want spending cuts. The election says to me that 50%+ of voters think spending is just fine.
The Demoncrat/Media Complex has perfected election fraud to the point that it would not be a surprise to see them “win” a House majority nearing 400 seats.
Why is it that, whenever the Left gets its way and pushes through damaging policy, the Right takes the hit whether they stop it or let it happen?
I stopped reading right there. Voters are dumb as hell. Look at the Marxist cretin they just REelected.
GOPe rhymes with toast
Actually, the Dems are in the process of allowing us to keep the House, given their gun-grabbing talk going on.
...it’s already changing people around me.
That's because Dems are so much more likely to cut spending. /sarc
Your still giving them chances? Time ran out for that a long time ago. It is obvious that the GOP leaders are Democrats.
Neither party is more likely to cut spending if you judge from history
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