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Posted on 10/18/2013 6:56:45 AM PDT by cotton1706
The Republicans are desperately losing the government shutdown battle and they’re embarrassing themselves by continuing to fight. It begs many questions, but most importantly, why does the GOP continue to fight a battle with no clear goal at the expense of not just their party, but the fate of then entire U.S. government?
Maybe it’s because they’re actually winning.
Though the media has largely painted the GOP as the reckless, kamikaze caucus, Peter Beinart argues in a column for The Daily Beast that Republicans are not only in perfect control of the government shutdown fight, but that they’ll win in the long run no matter what happens.
To wit, Beinart points to the previous shutdown battle of 2011 which culminated in the Budget Control Act which agreed to cut spending by $917 billion over ten years. A part of that agreement led to the 2012 sequester, which ended up creating $1.2 trillion in arbitrary cuts. Though most have agreed that these cuts were “harsh” and “brutal,” the GOP managed to get all of the spending cuts it wanted without raising taxes once.
Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner boasted “I got 98 percent of what I wanted” out of the fight.
As recently as last month, GOP leadership said that locking in the sequester cuts through a “clean” continuing resolution that extended into 2014 would return to the country to a “pre-2008 level of discretionary spending.”
What does this mean? Basically, cementing the sequester spending cuts and creating a new baseline from which future negotiations must begin un-does much of the expensive work that President Obama has managed to accomplish in five years and prevents him from meaningfully moving forward on the reforms (immigration, energy, etc.) he promised during the 2012 election.
And taxes didn’t go up.
(Excerpt) Read more at inquisitr.com ...
If we keep this up, the budget SHOULD balance itself and there won't be any need for any further debt limit increases, since if the budget is balanced, there's no need to borrow.
The fly in the ointment, however, is the MANDATORY spending, that is, the entitlement programs including Obamacare, which will increase the need for extra money.
But if we can get discretionary spending ratcheted down, as we apparently have, we can then tackle the other issues.
On this issue, the republicans have actually used the democrats' lack of budget strategy against them. We'll see what happens in January and with this "budget conference." The democrats will no doubt, as Rush said, go after the Sequester cuts.
/johnny
Yep, I think that Obama and the media are overplaying their hands as they spike the football over this alleged great liberal Democrat victory.
I think the Tea Party has lived to fight another day.
We still have to resolve budget issues and the debt ceiling. If I heard correctly, the new target date at which we will exceed the debt ceiling is Feb. 7, 2014. We are going to have some similar battles leading up to that deadline. We will still see if Obama and Democrats try to evade the debt ceiling by invoking a bastardized interpretation of the 14th amendment. We will still see if these Democrats want to continue to operate government without a budget, as we have for the entire 5 years of the Obama administration so far. There are still unresolved issues which we will have fights over. The outcomes are not at all certain as of today. They battle will continue, as I see it.
What budget? We haven't had a budget in five years, and the debt keeps going up, up, up.
“My understanding is that if nothing comes out of the conference, then the sequester cuts continue, including the new round of sequester cuts in January.”
That’s my understanding too. It’ll basically be a replay of the “Sequester Scare” of earlier this year. And the democrats think we’ll be weakened enough to say “oh, please don’t yell at us again” and we’ll cave.
However, it WILL be an election year.
“What budget? We haven’t had a budget in five years, and the debt keeps going up, up, up.”
Well, by budget I meant our revenues in comparison to our outlays. The books will balance, even without an actual “budget.”
I think the Tea Party has lived to fight another day.
If it is as disastrous in its actual impact on tens of millions of Americans, this will end up being a HUGE win for the TEA party. I think that is the way it will play out and why Cruz did what he did.
Discretionary spending, comparatively speaking, is peanuts. Entitlements are the real dragon that needs to be slayed.
The books will balance, even without an actual “budget.”
Only if you ignore all the off-budget liabilities like Social Security that continue to accrue.
OK. I'm not a finance guy. But I don't see how the books can balance when there aren't any books. If you mean that annual spending will be at or below the annual level of revenue, I'll believe it when I see it.
Now is the time for us to begin planning strategy for the January timeframe when the exchanges are supposed to go live. Indications are this will be a disaster.
Let's get our act together to insure the entire country has a clear view of the dimensions of this trainwreck.
Republicans are stupid, stupid, stupid... the one message that everyone in the party should spout is the number of Americans and Business that will have to pay a fine. The headlines should read, 100,000 (generous) signed up for free healthcare with their subsidies, 50,000,000 Americans and 3,000,000 businesses have to pay fines (whatever the true numbers are) while 20,000,000 lost their health insurance due to the new regulation. Ted Cruz says this without facts and numbers so it is meaningless.
Someone needs to do the research on signups, fines and lost insurance and make that the central message.
EXACTLY.
This sideshow of Republicans vs. conservatives/tea party had me worried that they'd seek a delay in ACA; that would've cinched the '14 elections for the dems.
They own it. Let 'em lie in it.
Even if Obama had lost and been completely humiliated his toadies in the MSM would spin it as a brilliant victory.
The Republicans need to stop hoping for “fair” media treatment and go on the offensive in situations such as the shut-down.
True, Has MS-DNC even report about china and president downgrade?
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Right now, the Republican base is fired up for the Tea Party. This means that its primary goal, to purge the RINOs from the Republican party, will continue unabated. Maybe two or three RINO senators are going to be in for the fight of their lives in the primaries.
Oddly enough, if you look at history, it hasn’t been the Democrats that have thwarted conservatives at every turn, but the RINOs. If they are gone, the Democrats are going to be lunch meat. Conservatives can finally fight the Democrats without fear of getting a knife in the back.
We cannot underestimate the value of the SCOTUS reforming the Voting Rights Act, because for decades it has given the Democrats the unlimited ability to cheat, and suddenly, they can’t cheat as much. So the next elections are going to look like a huge demographic shift towards the Republicans. If the Democrats can’t cheat, in many places they will lose, where with cheating, they won.
Literally, this will mean that some blue states turn purple, that purple states will turn red, and that red states will turn bright neon, glow in the dark red.
So right now, more than anything else, the conservative Republicans need ideas and an agenda. The conservative rank and file need to send these Tea Party candidates and elected officials to Washington filled to the brim with new ideas.
At first, this is going to be very dramatic stuff, for the first 100 days of a conservative Republican congress, and in two elections, an honest to goodness conservative Republican POTUS.
My own personal list for Tea Party officials is pretty deep, but one that many conservatives would agree with.
1) Return most of the federal land takings of the last 100 years to the individual states, with the exception of Indian reservations, military reservations, and a few of America’s “crown jewels” national parks.
2) Reform the office of the president, to eliminate unconstitutional authorities it has assumed over the last 100 years. This means congress outlawing presidential signing statements, strict rules for executive orders and memos and proclamations and recess appointments and claims of executive privilege. Then pass laws reinforcing both the War Powers Act and the Posse Comitatus Act.
If there is truly a conservative POTUS, ask that he not waste two weeks of government time and a fortune in money, by not giving the State of the Union address, but send it to congress in writing.
3) Official rescission of all treaties and agreements signed by the POTUS, but not passed by the US senate. Strict rules on what can constitute “foreign policy agreements that do not require US senate approval.”
4) Create a federal office to recommend federal agency and office closings and downgrades, as well as the rescission of federal regulations, guidelines, and directives, led by the Vice President. Require an annual report be given to congress by the VP concurrent with the State of the Union message as to what parts of the federal government should be deleted.
5) Create a new federal law that makes federal employees personally liable for carrying out unlawful actions ordered by appointed supervisors. The “I was only following orders” Law.
6) That contempt of congress citations be sent to a federal judge to determine if the action resulting in the citation rises to the level of criminality, with the authority to issue the penalties for those actions.
7) A balanced budget amendment to the US constitution, if they are able to muster 2/3rds majorities in congress.
8) The dismantling of unconstitutional elements of the national Intelligence and federal police apparatus.
9) Structural reform of the federal district courts, such as splitting the 9th Circuit, and limiting the authority of federal judges to intervene in state death penalty cases, and other state “petty laws” that do not rise to the level of federal involvement. (I’m definitely thinking of the ‘Bong Hits for Jesus’ case, that appeared before the SCOTUS TWICE!) Right now, the SCOTUS gets some 8,000 appeals annually, of which it can hear a few dozen. This is a huge bottleneck.
10) Recreate American energy production and industry.
There is no way to cut the budget enough to balance without having complete control of Congress and the Presidency. What the GOP needs to be pushing is pro-growth and limit spending growth. that’s much easier calculus to win on. the current administration is the most anti-growth in history. Business has been choked off by their regulation and we are stuck with 1-2% GDP growth.
Do I have the numbers right?
We take in 2 Trillion$ per year in tax revenue, but spend about 3 Trillion$ a year
We have the following “liabilities”
Budget Deficit - 17 Trillion$
Unfunded liabilities - 220 Trillion$
Credit Swap derivatives - 1 Quadrillion to 1.5 Quadrillion$
Anything unsettling about this set of books?
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