After the Plan B Meltdown
NRO’s Robert Costa captured what amounts to word pictures of the craters left after last night’s debacle in the US House. Everyone in the GOP caucus, including those who most stridently opposed Plan B, were shocked that the bill actually died without a vote.
Since the meeting lasted only a few minutes, several members, such as Representative Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, missed the session. As Huelskamp, a leading “Plan B” adversary, rushed to get there, he saw a stream of his colleagues leaving. They were on their phones with aides and family members, sharing the news. They’d be coming home for the holidays since the House was in a state of chaos. Some of them, however, seemed bewildered by the turn of events. They walked slowly down the basement hallway, whispering with other members. One freshman asked a senior member, “Are we really not coming back?” The senior member simply nodded. Almost everyone avoided the press. Feelings were raw. Representative Steve King of Iowa, a frequent Boehner critic, looked at me, shook his head, and said, “I have nothing to say.”
Circumstances drove Boehner’s plan to push Plan B in the first place. The fiscal cliff allows President Obama and the Democrats to achieve three of their long-standing goals: Raise taxes broadly, which in their view will bring in more revenue for the government to spend; cut defense spending, which year in and year out is always the first and only government spending they seek to cut; and divide their Republican opposition while blaming them for the tax hikes.
Plan B was an attempt to gain some leverage by putting pressure on the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a package that included preserving current tax rates on everyone making less than $1 million per year. Allowing the tax cuts on those making above that level was a concession, to reality: Obama still controls the White House and the Democrats still control the Senate. No deal that pleases all conservatives will ever get past either of those Democratic stopping points. The stage has already been set for the Republicans to be blamed for damage resulting from going over the fiscal cliff.
That Speaker Boehner called Plan B to a vote, or nearly did, without actually having the votes to pass it does not speak well of his leadership. He has failed to wring anything meaningful out of the Democrats, and he has failed to clearly point out why: They’re not dealing in good faith. Last night’s near vote cost him any leverage he might have had in ongoing talks with the president and the Democrats’ leader in the Senate. His speakership is hobbled but there are no challengers rising up to replace him or offer any better leadership. The conservatives in the GOP caucus who fought Plan B chose the wrong hill to die on. They were never going to get everything they want. Now they’re likely to get nothing that they want. The Republicans on the Hill are divided going into the holiday recess. We’re a fortnight away from seeing our taxes go up and our national defenses shorn to pre-World War I levels. Republicans are likely to bear the brunt of the blame, despite the fact that they oppose all of this and have been the only ones striving to prevent it.
If you don’t get flamed for telling the truth, here, at PJM…I’ll be greatly surprised.
“Bread and circuses”
When you bring a primary school teacher to a Union thug meeting to negotiate, in most cases, they are going to run over the teacher. This guy refused to even listen to conservatives, kicking them out of committee assignments for literally no good reason. Now he is disappointed that he doesn’t have votes to raise taxes!! who is he kidding!! He is the textbook example of the Peter principle and he has clearly been elevated to his level of incompetence. He negotiated with himself, and when he ran out of ante, Obama came in for the kill. Some one needs to tell this guy to step down. Kind of like how they do it in the Dems caucus.
Your analysis is defeatist. The House is supposed to control the purse strings under the Constitution. Our problem is that the leadership in the House doesn’t have the stomach to play their biggest cards, the debt ceiling card and the continuing resolution card. No debt ceiling increase until Obama and the Senate come forth and PASS real cuts, not cuts in the increase, but real cuts to things other than defense and don’t pass any more continuing resolutions until the Senate and House agree on a budget. I know that the government would be shut down but if we give any more ground to these communists than the Republic is lost. We have a current leadership in the House that seems incapable of articulating the case for conservativism and making the case that bankrupting our children and grandchildren must stop and stop now!!! Even Paul Ryans budget didn’t balance the budget for 28 years, what a joke.
Oh, I like it, WD. Let Harry Reid decide between passing a budget that averts “sequestration”, or passing a continuing resolution that includes making ALL of the Bush era tax rates permanent, or failing that, taking all the blame for going over the fiscal cliff?
CONGRATS!!! You’re the first person ‘I,ve noted’ on here that is remotely on the right trail.
The leadership in the House has plugged along performing their constitutional mandates presenting and passing relative bills sending them to the Senate where that democrat leadership has failed its constitutional mandated duty.
Now if only a “UNIFIED” GOP would standup and communicate such to the world, it would not be so easy for the democrat progressives to point the finger of ’cause/blame’ towards the GOP.
The House leadership has NOT been stupid!
Sir, I have to disagree;
“Republicans are likely to bear the brunt of the blame, despite the fact that they oppose all of this and have been the only ones striving to prevent it.”
That statement is both true and inaccurate. Economic collapse is inevitable. The only questions are when and how bad. The longer it takes the worse that collapse will be.
Since the media is a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Democratic party, the ONLY viable option for the GOP consists of taking the media out of play.
The way to do that is by Republicans voting present. Explain that they DO NOT support the Donks plan to re-distribute wealth but since the voters wanted it, they won’t stand in the way.
That leaves the media with no leverage to spin the issue.
That won’t happen for the same reason the GOP lost the election last month. Republicans are NOT conservatives. They are pale shadows of liberals. Until that changes, conservatives WILL NOT support the GOP. Think about it. Since there is very little difference between the two parties, why should conservatives support the GOP?
So the GOP pols can steal tax dollars instead of the Dem pols?
Thank you but no thanks. I want more then that and will withhold my vote until I get it.
And when things go to ‘ell, I’m ready.
Bring it on!
Bingo.
Conservatives in D.C. were holding out for…cutting automatic raises in increased spending…and raising taxes less than the tax increases proposed by the Dems.
Now, we’ll get higher raises in automatic increases in spending (which is above and beyond current spending) and higher raises in taxes than the Pubbies were after, themselves.
Oh, my. Isn’t that a great big win.
The small government, fiscally responsible party wins again. Yea, go team…
You know, if conservtives think that’s a win…there’s a chance that you’re probably legally insane.
Win: Slash government spending by at least fifty per cent.
Win: Eliminate entire departments of government.
Win: Slash remaining government departments by fifty to seventy perent (including DoD and Pentagon – after we get out of Southwest Asia, win, lose or draw.)
Win. Balanced budget. With a positive bank balance.
Win: Lower hidden costs of doing business equals more employment.
Those are wins. A lot of conservatives are celebrating getting their asses kicked, yesterday.
Don’t forget that it was Boehner who one year ago crafted the idiotic “sequestration”, which has now been renamed as the “fiscal cliff” by the left. What he should have done back then was refuse to increase the debt limit. That would have forced the nation’s CEO to live within a 2.3 TRILLION dollar budget. Boeher (MY representative) is a pathetic fool.
The next step should be both easy and obvious. DON’T INCREASE THE DEBT LIMIT! Require the nation’s CEO to live within a budget, just as private company CEO’s are required to do by their boards of directors. Problem solved.
Why is it so few remember that this ‘fiscal cliff’ was fashioned in large part by Boehner? I doubt he was ever any good at chess. The Dems upon seeing the ‘cliff’ remind me of Br’er Rabbit pleading not to be chucked into the briar patch. They know the compliant MSM will help them blame the GOP. Boehner should be removed from his speakership – sooner rather than later.
No, that’s not the problem. The problem is, Boehner is playing chess while the game is poker. And Boehner tipped his hand before making a bet. When Obama, or whoever pulls his strings is forcing Boehner to go all in with a pair of deuces, the only option that makes any sense is to fold the hand and deal yourself some more cards.
No, that’s not the problem. The problem is, Boehner is playing chess while the game is poker. And Boehner tipped his hand before making a bet. When Obama, or whoever pulls his strings is forcing Boehner to go all in with a pair of deuces, the only option that makes any sense is to fold the hand and deal yourself some more cards..
Boehner in or out makes no never-mind, pal. Desperate conservatives keep hoping the GOP will “get it.” I think good people willfully misunderstand because the truth frightens us too much to face squarely. Take a deep breath. Think! Republican leaders are consciously and willfully and consistently complicit in the destruction overtaking us. The RNC is statist to its core. How can we change that in time? Answer: We cannot. Ask the Tea Party. There may be a way, but there is no will.
I realized Obama’s game the minute we started hearing about this “fiscal cliff”. He spent all of the money and set up the tax rates to expire 01/01/2013 (they were originally supposed to sunset 01/01/2012). Republicans allowed him to get away with it. They have only themselves to blame. Ascribing pure motives to your enemy (remember, Obama has instructed his legions of followers to “punish their enemies”)will only get yourself hurt.
Fiscal Cliff’s Dirty Secret: It’s Not About Taxes At All, But Too Much Spending.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/121812-637557-fiscal-cliff-tax-debate-skirts-real-issue-too-much-spending.htm
Over the cliff is always where we were going…that was baked in from the start. All the kabuki has just been about who gets the blame.
After the cliff, O will come back with the same proposal…minor tax cuts for the “middle class”, more stimulus, bogus entitlement reform down the road somewhere…and the only way to stop it will be to shut down the government. If the GOP lacks the stomach for that, they have already lost.
Agree. Obama never bargains in good faith, it’s not in his nature. Over the cliff we go and he’s to blame. Four more years of the worst president ever. Fabulous.
You are a scumbag racist! To call Obama a communist is on the same level as calling a mouse an elephant. The differences are so striking its impossible not to know anelephant is not a mouse. Any educated person knows the difference betweenMarxism and communism (they are not the same) and Socialism and Fascism. They are not the same either. So go ahead name call, for those here who come to enjoy the comments know that when the name calling starts it means the name caller has nothing left to defend their absurd POV.
When the Republican held Congress stated unequivocally that they would not work in a bi-partisan way to pass legislation then writes completely partisan bills and sends them to the senate what do you expect to happen? You’re blaming Obama for the same thing your Republicans in congress are doing. Aside from that you’re being a complete idiot and a revisionist on history, leaders in congress said immediately following the election that their sole purpose was to ensure Obama was a 1 term president, They didn’t say, our goal is to fix the economy,
Your party is has been dang near treasonous in it’s operations over the last 4 years. If this was a different era, your party would have it’s members hanging from lamp posts all the way to DC. Because you’ve been ANTI-AMERICAN for 4 years, Forcing the economy to stall during a recession JUST so you can try to regain power during this Country’s worst recession.
All you have to do is read the hateful comments about black people on conservative sites like this to realize how RACIST you people really are…
Is Barack Obama a traitor to America because of the events in Benghazi? NO but it was a horrendous mistake…..President Johnson did something similar
Is Barack Obama a Marxist? NO… he has socialist leanings but not a Marxist
Is Barack Obama an evil man? NO….incompetent but not evil
Is Barack Obama a communist? NO
Is Barack Obama a dictator? NO
Does Barack Obama hate America? NO
Is Barack Obama Anti-American? NO
Is Barack Obama a Muslim? NO ….he is what he says he is. And your racist fear-mongering, hate-mongering BS is the reason why you lost the election!
You lost because you a hateful racist that hate having a minority leave the country. It’s obvious you believe blacks only belong on the streets, not in the oval office!
According to your argument there won’t be another election in the US, or are you just angry that people didn’t accept your absurd argument that Obama is not eligable for President? And you are eligable to speak for God, does he talk to you directy via voices or does he leaves signs for you. (Seek serious help if either are true) Or are you making an assumption that you know what God wants?
President Obama was reelected in what was basically a landslide. Maybe you should file more frivolous lawsuits. President Obama was born in Hawaii and is undoubtedly a “natural born citizen.”
Obama is not trying to destroy the country. Most people who run for office aren’t. They merely have different priorities than you do. This does not make them evil, selfish, or The Devil.
Man I was right again, Anyone who hates Obama Is in fact a racist!
what a bunch of sick, ridiculous, hateful posts!
Calling the POTUS a POS and a fraud seems to the the usual calling call for you right-wing racists and bigots like you!
ha ha ha ha haaa!
That racist stuff is about the funniest thing I’ve read today, with the exception of the other identical cut ‘n pastes on other articles here on PJ Media.
Is that all you’ve got ?
I’ve got better stuff:
http://hillbuzz.org/is-barack-obama-gay
Hello…. [tap...tap...tap] is this damned thing working? [tap...tap...tapp]
NOW HEAR THIS!!!
The Dems aren’t dealing!!!! They don’t want to, nor do they need to negotiate! All the “Negotiate at all costs” GOP Establishment – and its useful puppet Boehner are doing are beating themselves up, and then going to hand the final nail to the Dems to hammer into the GOP Coffin (a vote for tax increases!)
Please… for the love of all that is at liberty understand this! The Democrats do not intend to negotiate on anything. They are demanding full surrender! Plan B was Plan Z was Plan NADDA…. It wasn’t going anywhere. To continue the charade is to continue fecklessness and institutional agony.
1. Forget the Defense Department. The Dems are going to eviscerate it regardless of its budgets. They will do it through bureaucratic strangulation, and continued program cutting. The “saved money” will just be spent on Sexual Harassment Training, Pollution Mitigation, Gay Pride Parades, and other non-military insanity. The only thing that will save the DoD from four years of further oblivion is a Divine miracle. So quit worrying about it.
2. Taxes are going up. They were going to go up. The Bush Era Tax Cuts were going up on people making more than $250K, that number will be quickly whittled down (using the AMT calculation and more Democrat bullying in the Congress) to $100,000 and lower. The Democrats must break the Bourgeois Class (Middle Class) in order for their modernized Marxism to take effect. The Commissariat (Federal Bureaucracy) is already being substituted for the middle class.
3. The only thing left for the GOP to stop this madness before it completely destroys our economy and the Marxist Leviathan reduces us to the indolent Proletariat is our firm stand that taxes are too high, and government spending is destroying us. The only tactic left is to refuse to play “the game” any longer. The GOP must go home… and stay home. It must refuse to meet, refuse to legislate, refuse to form a quorum… it must allow the debt ceiling to be implemented and it must go on a dedicated firm two year advertising/education offensive.
Any compromise at this point is surrender, because the voting public is now officially irrational. It cannot be reasoned with, and it is arranging to destroy the nation in order to grant itself what it thinks is an never ending gravy train of subsistence.
Enough is enough.
r/TMF
Wow, that is one loony screed, Fahvaag…
Ah yes..an Alinsky troll arrives… calling names, hurling insults, and poisoning discourse. I am not a loon, and I refuse your attempt to belittle my educated and experienced opinion via ridicule. Go back to the “Rules for Radicals” and see what to do about someone who fights back.
If the DNC or its agents pay you by the word, you aren’t earning very much.
Obummer and his owners are dedicated Marxists.
The Left now owns the education system of this nation and can re-educate without the negative effects of the camps. The Left owns the media and thus the message.
You prove my point about the voting public.
Well said, well said!
I agree. Instead of occupying the halls of Capitol Hill, congressional Pubs should engage in permanently ongoing campaign trail mode in attempts to educate the masses. Perhaps some of these irrational, low-info voters can be turned around. I am not holding my breath though.
You’ve got a point. There is nothing productive that Republicans can do in Washington at this point. Obama will grab the power to appropriate spending and raise the debt limit by decree, and the Supreme Court will meekly go along with it. At that point, budget-wise, Congress is reduced to a rubber-stamp body.
What Republicans need to be doing is going back to their home states and campaigning for their state legislatures to call for a constitutional convention. They also need to start working out the framework for how such a convention will take place, to ensure that the Democrats have absolutely no say-so. They need to work out an agenda for a package of Constitutional amendments that will kill off the Constitutional bases that the Supreme Court has cited for the expanding federal powers, and include clauses that absolutely forbids the executive from seizing these powers. For instance, if the Surpremes insist on using the Commerce Clause as a source of unlimited regulatory authority, then eliminate or place restrictions on the Commerce Clause.
This is the only way aorund Washington. If a Convention can agree on a package of Constitutional reforms, these can then be presented directly to the states. Conservatives are very close to controlling enough states to get such a package of amendments ratified. There is nothing, short of all-out usurpation, that Washington can do to stop it. Take that energy that is going into beating our heads against no-win budget cliffs, and secession petitions, and put it into this instead.
Agreed, except that they can do one more thing. They can pass intelligent bills, with the necessry cuts- including continuing resolutions- and then let them hang out there for Obama and Reid to ignore, attack, or, eventually, when they run out of money, attempt to reconcile with their own garbage. And when it’s garbage, nothing for Obama to sign.
Shut it down until the Dems get serious.
I think the Constitutional Convention, called by the states under the original rules- one vote per state- is an idea who’s time has come!
” taxes are too high”
To folks like you, taxes are always too high. It’s the equivalent of the Dems saying that income distribution is always unfair.
What level of taxation would you consider to be low enough that you wouldn’t call for any further tax cuts past that point?
To state the question in that fashion abandons the field to the left-wingers. Raising taxes always means more and bigger government. Bigger government always means raising taxes. A negative feedback loop wrt freedom and deficit spending.
re-state it thus: What level of government am I willing to pay for out of my own pocket (taxes)? That’s the level of government I have to pay for through taxation, fees, permits, licensing, regulations and other hidden costs.
Once you establish that, then you can work out the budget and the taxes need to maintain that level of government.
Hint: Smaller government is better government. …if you value your own freedom and federal budget surpluses.
“What level of government am I willing to pay for out of my own pocket (taxes)?”
Exactly right. And heaven knows we spend too much. But for decades we’ve been sold a bill of goods by both parties, who’ve told us that we can have government at a 40% discount! We’re not paying for the government we get; we’re borrowing for it. Until the link is re-established between spending and taxes, all cries to ‘curb spending’ will fall on deaf ears. Why complain when every day brings a ’40% off’ sale?
I used to pay attention to the debate on the question of
‘How much taxation is enough ?’ until I was convinced
that there is a natural upper limit of about 18%.
– Newt when Newt was the Speaker is just Karma coming around. He will resign.
This is all by design. The states that will be hardest hit by the military cuts are generally Red States. Virginia, which is still a mostly Republican state suffering from a couple of Democrat infestations (chiefly Northern Virginia where the bureaucratic pestilence of DC is spreading), stands to lose over 200,000 jobs. Other states also will be hard hit.
The Democrats don’t care though because it will mainly be hurting Republican areas, military members who aren’t overly fond of Obama and company, and Democrats in general “loathe” the military as their deity Clinton famously said. All the Democrats see is punishing enemies and putting millions more people on welfare and potentially making them Democrat voting dependents.
Aside from that, a gutted military means we can’t “interfere” with overseas threats. Sure that might mean oil and other resources get cut off and prices shoot up, but remember Democrats only count those on the dole. They’ll just raise the cost of living adjustment on the welfare checks and set up new handout programs. Democrats just don’t get that they can pump out all the money they want but money doesn’t cause food and goods to appear: food, goods and labor create demand for money as a smooth means of exchange. Crank out all the trillions they want, it won’t stock shelves or put food in mouths. If the farmers can’t farm and shelves can’t be stocked because of no imports, it will be worse than useless.
Spending equals fundamental transformation. The democrats are bent on depleting the resources available for the private economy, which is the definition of liberty and everything our ancestors fought to preserve. Boehner the Washingtonain is simply not committed to using all available power granted him to stand up to this menace.
Roger that. Unnoticed in all the sturm and drang over taxes is that the Democrats are looting the treasury and the economy through their massive spending, all of it possible showered on their constituents. Economists have begun to realize that government spending rather than the tax level is the true measure of what fraction of the GDP is appropriated by government. Obama is “redistributing income” right before our eyes.
Eventually we will have to raise everybody’s taxes massively, or repudiate the debt by inflating it away. Either way, the middle class will pay. The wealthy — I mean the truly wealthy, those guys with private jets and homes in the South of France, not pikers like your local doctor or home builder – will be able to hide their assets in such a way that most of the cost will land elsewhere. And the poor? Well, they never had anything to start with except what Obama has given them to buy their vote.
Why do we keep allowing the leftists to control the language and labels. What’s ahead has nothing to do with Bush and isn’t a cliff of any kind. What is coming are the OBAMA TAX INCREASES!! Put them around his neck and make him and the dems own the disaster that is coming.
Every time we use their label, we share the blame. The OBAMA TAX INCREASES belong to Obama and he will be responsible for all the damage they do.
What is strange to me is that the media and the commies in Congress don’t see that.
How can they be called “Obama tax increases” when they were programmed to take place automatically regardless of who was President in January?
Obama has been point man for the Progressive agenda for the last four years;
That is more than enough time to rig the game: Heads I win, Tails you lose.
Nichevo. ‘Experience keeps a hard school, but a fool will learn in no other.’
Hey – At least we get some cuts. Better than any deal that can be negotiated with Obama and Reid. The military budget, like everything else, can use a haircut. Unfortunately, this Administration will cut in all the wrong places and leave the broken corrupt procurement system in place.
Patriot’s do not fall for the drama of Obama and the democrats! Here is what the end of the curb is.
Fiscal Cliff’s Dirty Secret: It’s Not About Taxes At All, But Too Much Spending By Sen. Rand Paul Posted 12/18/2012
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/121812-637557-fiscal-cliff-tax-debate-skirts-real-issue-too-much-spending.htm
Country is doomed. Has been ever since Obozo’s first election. A combination of 47 percent who pay no income tax–most of whom don’t know what “deficit spending” even means; and another five or six percent who think they’re so sophisticated and smart and see Obozo as Duh Lightworker, and that was the end of it.
And throughout, the self-styled “elite” in the Lying Media constantly ran cover for the Dems, steadfastly refusing to ask Obozo or Reid or Pelosi any pointed questions about their policies. Many members of the media were smart enough to see, and *could* have helped us avert the coming disaster–but chose to advance progressive ideology over everything.
So now, with Reid on the record saying Boehner’s bill is “dead on arrival,” it’s a total certainty that the Lying Media will blame the Republicans for “pushing us over the fiscal cliff” by going home for Christmas–excuse me, for Winter Break–while the Dems nobly stayed at their desks in Washington, plaintively calling for votes that couldn’t be taken for lack of a quorum due to the Repubs fleeing.
The media will push this as entirely the Repubs’ fault. Obama’s failure to budge, and Reid’s “DOA” comment, won’t be mentioned.
It’s the way they roll, eh.
Maybe we are witnessing the Whig-ification of the Republicans. I’ve been a Republican voter all my life but I am ready to throw in the towel and go Libertarian. I used say I wouldn’t throw my vote away, but now it seems that voting Reupblican is a throwaway vote anyhow. Voting Libertarian couldn’t be much worse if some REAL conservatives don’t take over the GOP.
My towel has been thrown.
I gave up when Bush expanded the Dept of Education, created the TSA and created Part D. The nominations of McCain and Romney just confirmed it. I am definitely not a Republican.
Stop blaming the Republicans. Last night vote was the right thing to do. Sooner rather than latter the economy will crash and when it does, no one will be there to rescue it. Let’s do it now when there is a glimpse of hope of rescue.
You don’t understand. The Republicans are to modern America what the Jews were to Old Europe. When the powers-that-be screwed up back then, they blamed it on the Jews. The sequestration (“fiscal cliff”) was engineered by the WH for the express purpose of laying a trap for the GOP. It is working.
I’m with you on throwing in the towel on the Republicans. They tell us they are conservative, against taxes, and spending. Then when the rubber meets the road, what happens? They negotiate with themselves. They cave. They rationalize. They team up with the Dems against US, the people living in the U.S. of A. and paying taxes. And they marginalize conservatives time and time again.
And they won’t use the power they have effectively. That is, to cut the darn spending. Now and significantly. Cut the EPA, the interior Dept., the Education Dept., the Commerce Dept., the Nat’l Endowment for the Arts, PBS, NPR, the damn Obamaphones, the U.N., foreign aid, World Bank, IMF, Agriculture Dept., the State Dept. limos, Obamacare and bring the troops home. Let the Afgans defend themselves., along with the Euros. And cut the Pentagon in half. And get rid of the stupid biofuel for the ships. There will be plenty of money to fund defense.
Oh, and do something positive for the public purse. Build the Keystone pipeline, drill for oil and gas. Build Nuclear. Use coal, including coal gasification. Turn on the water in the Central Valley. And sell all the vacant federal lands, except the national parks.
And this is all before entitlement reform which will be done one day, because the money has been spent.
Patty — Had not the TeaParty constitutionalist fiscal conservative movement been overtaken by the far right social conservatives, The GOP right now would be a force to reckon with. A force consisting across all political party lines. The reality of today, is that the social conservative desimated the GOP which now stands powerless on all fiscal matters of government! The TeaParty social extremists vicious langauge has so inflamed a majority of the nation AND a good part of the GOP that, the GOP is seen largely as disingenuous and irrelevant by those we so sorely need to convert.
EVERY AREA OF SPENDING IS OUT OF CONTROL…NO SACRED COWS! We can cut military spending by 50% and still be the biggest kid on the block. We could focus on what is defense spending, and what is merely military spending. We will get cuts in social entitlements, which we would never get otherwise. And as others have pointed out, we get to call them OBAMA’s Tax Increases, and Obama’s layoffs. As for the Republican Party, its time to admit that the establishment hates the grass roots conservatives more than they hate Democrats or even love being in power. AS for war spending, its time to remember that WAR is the LEAST COnservative thing there is, as it takes valuable resources and allocates them to things which either destroy things of value or are destroyed themselves, and it enlarges the State Power. THe US has become a war loving country through manipulation, misplaced ideas about patriotism, financial incentives and simply having so many with loved ones who invested 100% in what the foreign policy led to.
Since WWII, every time defense spending has been cut, entitlement spending has gone up. Democrats will never allow the rate of entitlement increases to even be slowed down, much less entitlement cuts. If we offered them a 50% defense cut, they’d demand another 30% and entitlements would still be off the table.
You cannot negotiate with narcissists, and the Democratic Party is the party of narcissism.
Politically, isn’t all this clever maneuvering just what the president is supposed to do? Wouldn’t the GOP do the same kind of maneuvering if things were reversed? I seem to remember that the Permanent Majority people (Gingrich, DeLay, etc. were just as “clever” and even tougher.)
Does anyone think the party needs to adapt – rebuild its moderate wing and not rely on such an extreme base – in order to succeed? Or would this be abandoning its principles?
(These are not rhetorical questions)
The expected maneuvering of a president does NOT traditionally involve insulting the motives and intelligence of the opposition at every turn.
But I did want to defend Boehner, a little. As Speaker of the House one can argue he should go a little beyond his own partisan preferences and try to find a compromise, no matter how rude or incompetent the parties. He has done so. Of his own interest, however, he might have been against his own bill. So should he have called a vote? One can argue that either way.
What if we do go over the cliff? We still have no budget, so who cares. It will actually make some progress on the deficit and debt. Maybe that’s a good thing, demand models or not.
Besides it won’t happen. We go over the cliff, Obama will find a way to continue spending at the old rate, you can bet on that.
I fully expect chaos and disaster, but I see no prospects on either side for averting it. You can pass either party’s preferred solutions, and it won’t defer the disaster. You could give either party full control of the economy, and I have zero confidence they would change a thing.
Josh, I like your theory. I call it the “Today is the day of reckoning” theory, and it is applicable even if today turns out to be tomorrow, and so forth. One way or another, sooner or later, the empty promises would collide with reality, and nobody can predict when that would be anymore than anyone has established the mathematics to calculate the schedule of earthquakes.
The only issue is who gets the blame. But the short term blame and the long term blame do not necessarily fall on the same shoulders. It seems to me that the political tactics of the White House guarantee political triumph in the short term, hoping that this is the only thing that matters. It is more like the short term battle is the only one they can win at this juncture. (Re. the “After me, the deluge!” principle).
But what about 2014, 2016 and beyond? The Health care law was supposed to be a triumph of the Dems, but is became known as “Obamacare”, and the label stuck! Right now, King Barrack the First is only executing a tactical preemptive maneuver the make the GOP look like the devil, so that he will free himself to be the devil with impunity over the next 4 years.
So, now is the right time to start working in earnest on the Obama Cliff, the long fuse political bomb to go off later, when the monarchy has finally and utterly discredited itself, and the republic can be restored. Even the media could have fallen, by then!
I’m talking about the rear guard media, of course.
The whole moderation and blaming “extreme” social conservatives is a canard. You can’t compete with Santa Claus unless you intend to become Santa Claus as well. At what point do you become like Napoleon at the end of Animal Farm?
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The problem is that the event horizon has been reached. There are more takers than makers, and the takers are not interested in moderate austerity measures. They have no place to go anyway, with growth the jobs market is bleak. They blame the “rich” because for two generations the indoctrination of the public school system has taught victimology, and it’s reaching more and more heads full of mush.
Americans, like most people around the world, consistently vote for people who support more spending and bigger government. They’re getting what they voted for. Why is anyone surprised by any of this?
1. I think it’s now obvious to the right blogsphere that there is something seriously wrong with the Republican party from RINO to Tea Party, that nobody in a position of power seems to have even adequate debate and negotiation skills, and insufficient communications skills to sell an idea outside of his base. One has to wonder how any Republicans have gotten elected to anything. Of course here in California – they haven’t.
2. I remind the jury that the fear related to the fiscal cliff is that with taxes raised on everyone, both consumer confidence and aggregate demand numbers in the econometric models will sag, almost certainly dragging the economy into formal recession (as opposed to the informal recession we’ve been in since 2008, Bernanke’s voodoo disregarded). Economists hate recession, believing it brings deflation, which feeds on itself.
Is this valid? Who knows. What if Bernanke just prints another couple of trillion next year? Maybe that’s something that can go on for years, even decades. By anything they ever taught when I was in college, we should already have collapsed, so we’re in entirely new territory these days.
3. Let’s assume Congress passes no bills of any kind for the next year. Fiscal cliff, no debt limit extension. Expect Obama to simply rule by fiat. Starting no later than March.
The Mayans were more right than they knew.
Ya wanna see where the economy is headed three to six months down the road, watch the BDI and port traffic. It ain’t good.
Another hint at where this is all going can be found by googling ‘Miller, Joubert and Butler’ A retired big wig with the Chicago mercantile exchange, a formner CFO and a physicist. The physicist made sure their numbers added up.
They couldn’t get published by the mainstream journals or media because…they weren’t ‘happy, happy, joy, joy’ about things in the near future.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_99/mbutler120299a.html
You lost me at “pre WWI levels.”
Taxes aren’t going up, as we have been told so often, they are just returning to the previous rate.
And if everyone has their taxes go back to the previous level, when the economy was so good, as we have been told, we should be doing well.
And if everyone has their rates return to previous, then everyone will be paying their fair share.
Wonderful isn’t it.
I spoke to a guy yesterday who told me of a CNN chart (that I cannot find on Google) showing a comparison of the costs of defense spending, entitlement spending & the Bush tax cuts over a course of years, with the cost of Bush tax cuts on a sharp rise. Has anyone in here seen this chart?
I have no problems getting rid of the Bush Tax Cuts and having a 20% cut on spending across the board. If that is the only way to reduce government spending………so be it. The military will survive with a 20% tax cut. So maybe with a 20% reduction in spending, we can get the hell out of the middle east and let those infidels cannibilize themselves.
Let’s all economically shut down for the month of January. I mean no restaurants, no purchases, no trips, etc.. Those of us who pay the taxes for those that have now out numbered us at the voting booth, should be made to realize where their toast is buttered. I would rather have national bankruptsy then have to give a much larger share of my earned income then give it to those that have been scamming the system for their entire lives.
Big Ron Wify
All Obama/Reid/Pelosi have to do now is let the rates go up, and then starting January 3 keep introducing bills to lowering taxes for those making under 250K. Sooner or later they will find 218 house members willing to vote yes.
You “patriots” are screwed. Couldn’t have happened to nicer group of people.
I am the seventh son of a seventh son, born under a caul,
and I can see your future; six months from now, your doctor
will tell you that you need heart surgery, and give you a list
of (inferior) replacements for herself and her husband the surgeon,
both of whom are taking early retirement. Annoying, isn’t it ? >:)
They won’t do that because Obama has already spent the expected revenue from those tax incrases. The moment someone proposes to do so, the cry will go up about how we will “pay for” those tax cuts. The demand will be that taxes will have to go up somewhere else to offset, but there won’t be any place to go. We’re already well over on the back side of the Laffer curve, and no tax increase will achieve more than about 50% of the expected revenue. That will lead to further ratching to try to cover the shortfall. There won’t be time to get one bill completely through the system and signed into law before the next batch of revenue increases is needed, and as each new increase pushes further down the Laffer hill and consquently the shortfalls get worse, eventually Congress will become paralyzed. At that point Obama will simply seize control of both the debt ceiling and tax rates, and the legislature will become a rump body.
– irrevocable curse from the imprecatory Roma. After the first of the year, you will meet someone who loves you very much. They will perish before you within that month. This curse will repeat throughout the course of your life because you showed no compassion.
Taxes going up is better than hyperinflation and mega-devaluation of the currency (inflation being a hidden tax). Taxes are going up either way, better that we bring things out and make it clear what is reality.
10% across the board reduction in government is priceless and wont be gotten any other way.
Next up holding the line on the debt ceiling, until Social Security and Medicare and Obamacare is reformed.
The Mayans’ prophetic apocalypse warnings happened today however the effects won’t be felt for a few years. With no American Military projecting power for good across the globe its only a matter of time before the dark ages re-descend on the world. . The takeover of the USA by The Feckless Won is complete – failing some miracle of fate that would save us all. And I’m not betting on that.
A meteor plunging into Washington DC comes to mind… Dear God – can you arrange that?
Live it up while you can America – dark days are ahead. Close ahead if I’m right.
…Paleo-Conservative
The only problem with that line of thought is that you think the Founders wanted us to use a BFH for every problem, instead of keeping our noses outta other people’s business, to begin with.
No huge standing armies…or else the government is tempted to use them for everything that comes along…including keeping the people of America under control. Next thing ya know, anything and everything’s a ‘national security issue,’ threats to your personal safety abound and only the government (and the military) can help you!!! Suddenly, you’re being groped at the airport, seeing civilian LEO’s carrying, if not driving, military grade weapons and wearing helmets and body armor. After that, cops are breaking down doors in the middle of the night and carying innocent civilians off to jail, where you won’t see them for two or three days, at the earliest. ..oh…wait. That’s happeningin America.
Then, we’ve got to go overseas and protect access to ‘our’ oil and other ‘strategic’ natural resources…even though we don’t own it and it sits on another nation’s soil. If they don’t give it to , we simply take it, by dint of force or threat of force…all in the name of ‘national security.’ That’s economics through military power. That’s called tyranny, not capitalism.
Oh…wait. We already do that.
Whoever gains control of said huge standing army also gets to use it against their political opponents.
Guess who’s been ‘cleansing’ the DoD, lately. The rest of D.C.? pst. It isn’t the right.
Guess who’s on any number of LEO watchlists, for being possible or potential ‘domestic terrorists.’
iow, the left has the huge standing army, and you are in their sights. You do not want a huge standing military…if you’re gonna end up on the wrong end of the guns.
We’re already living in a police state, goofy. The right isn’t in charge of any of it. You want more of the same thing??? Here and abroad???
Be careful what you ask for…
The dilemma for those opposing Obama is we are not united on our goals nor on the means to get there. That’s hardly surprising if you’ve seen the arguments ongoing within the Republican Party, Libertarian Party, the Tea Party, and other groups who should be natural allies against the tyranny of the left. Instead of forming a circular firing squad casting blame on the various factions on the right, we need to put away our differences and focus on the problems at hand. I credit Boehner and the Republicans with at least trying to get something going, in the face of complete stonewalling and criticism by everyone else. I didn’t hear or read any other politician offering an alternative to Obama’s demand for $1.6T in new taxes and no spending cuts. It’s clear Sequestration is going to happen. It will break things especially in Defense, which takes 50% of the cut while only representing 17% of the federal budget. Right now, we need to get our heads together and come up with a post-sequestration plan that has broad support on our side, a side that has to be as broad based as the Dems have. As for letting it all burn, I don’t want to go there. I truly fear a significant breakdown of our economic system will lead to civil unrest, chaos and deaths. In the end, only Evil wins in that scenario. We need to fight for what we hold dear but we need to fight together and put down our many differences on social issues, et al.
As a start, here’s a proposal (heard before but not pursued) let’s cut the federal budget in all categories back to the level it was at when Bush left office. That would instantly balance revenues to federal spending. If you don’t like that, propose something else but don’t play critic on the sideline. We need to come to consensus quickly, all 60 million of us who voted for Romney and those opposed to Obama, on an acceptable position and communicate it to our elected right leaning politicians. They need to know we got their backs if they support a consensus position from the 49% of us opposed to Obama and his policies.
Burk, “As for letting it all burn, I don’t want to go there. I truly fear a significant breakdown of our economic system will lead to civil unrest,”.
So you just want to get there slower? We need to cut 1 trillion A YEAR DUDE!! Eff-it! Burn it down now-shut it down-raise the debt cieling only enough to pay the interest.
We have been doing what your asking for 80-125 YEARS-see what we got out of being reasonable? It is time.
Well, at least you offer a potentially viable alternative. Let’s look at some of the details that must be worked out for real. Since the government has been operating without a budget for the last 4 years contrary to the law, why would not passing a budget now stop them from continuing their reckless insane spending? How in the next two years with the current Congressional reps do you get a majority of them to go along with your alternative? As for the debt ceiling, since our fed govt is already breaking the law, do you really think they won’t come up with a petty BS loophole excuse to ignore the ceiling? And with this President, I can easily see the scenario where he starts the cuts against those on Medicare/Medicade and Social Security and military pensioners and active duty military (remember the military didn’t get paid for several months the previous times we shut down the feds) to pressure them to pressure those who standby the alternative you propose. And let’s say our friends and relatives are in that group, are you/we willing to support at least some minimal level of survival for them and how do you propose to arrange that outside of the government? And as this proceeds to the state level in places like California and the police are all furloughed, how do you propose to provide basic security in the communities sans vigilantism and the real potential for abuses in such a scheme. If you are really serious about shutting it (the feds) all down then we’d better have answers to these and many more questions. If not, people. people you know and care for, will suffer and lose everything they have, and some will die. There will be collateral damage, lots of it, in what you propose. How far are you willing to go? Because it won’t be just you surviving on your own, it will be everyone else you love and care for, many of whom are not ready or able to go Galt, who you will sacrifice or have to support too. Again, it’s pretty easy to envisage the scenario where this quickly goes out of control and our friends, neighbors and relatives, perhaps ourselves will die from the ensuing chaos. How far are you willing to go and what’s the plan to minimize collateral damage, besides burn it all down and let the survivors decide?
Au contraire. House Republican conservatives did win Thursday night. They are not forced to be “voting shields” for the House Republican moderates.
First, Plan B was never going to be the law and was only the ceiling for what Republicans could get. It was merely a psychological ploy (commitment and consistency) to get conservatives to vote for Plan B, and then have them accept a far worse plan once Obama and Dems were on board for the final deal. Passing Plan B would have just set-up conservative Republicans for accepting a far worse plan down the road, covering the moderate Republicans for their votes, and exposing them to future primary or general election losses.
Second, the point that Speaker Boner will now be forced to accept a far worse plan by accepting Democrat votes to pass a bill–he may very well, but it will be without conservative cover!! If the Speaker wishes to craft a liberal bill with democrat votes-have at it. He will do so without conservative cover, and the moderate Republican members who vote for it will be at risk in the next election, not the House members who reject it.
That is why the withdrawal of Plan B is a victory for conservatives outside the beltway. If the moderate Republicans want to go hand-in-hand with the democrats-let them and let them face the wrath of the voters in 2014 alone.
National Defense? The main thing our military is used for today is serving Muslims. And who wants an organization headed by John Kerry to have such a huge amount of money anyway?
Why pay for a defense that Hussein won’t use anyway.
unfortunately there’s an answer for that, if you don’t fund “defense” then the entire defense infrastructure falls apart, we lose expertise and plant that could take a generation to regenerate. we lose one of the main drivers for US technological progress over the past fifty years.
Josh, “we lose expertise and plant that could take a generation to regenerate. we lose one of the main drivers for US technological progress over the past fifty years.”
Who do you here that from the most? It is nonsense! Any good business can put things off for 4 yrs-look what has happened the last 4. Fire ALL the civilians in the pentagon and replace them with privates-Seargents-master Sargents etc… Anyonr decently trained can do that clerical work easily.
Our military is so vastly superior to anyone that 4 yrs won’t mean D*CK!
The John McCains-Lindsey Graham-Michael Medveds-Boehner-McConnells of the world have brought us to the brink!! It is time for a massive display of what divided government really means. Shut it down if Obama won’t seriously deal on major spending cuts. We can defund for 4 yrs, if we lose the next election in 4 yrs it will not matter-America will be too far gone to pull back-we will crash.
Why is always the military and the old people who get defunded? Why not Congress? Why not the welfare queens and illegal aliens? If we got rid of the illegals we might be able to take care of our own instead of educating and medicating criminals.
“…and our national defenses shorn to pre-World War I levels.”
A militarized Department of State and nation building can have some very severe consequences in the long term. A post WWII USSR learned the consequences in rather short order and its taking the U.S. a bit longer and still we’re not there yet, understanding our very own Cold War strategies to belly-up the USSR. Funny how “what goes around – comes around.” At least the old USSR was smart enough to ‘jump ship’ when most of the non Western world was NOT plotting their demise also.
Not to worry though, we can sacrifice completely the USD and issue endless amounts of fiat dollars to wage a good defense if really needed.
Footnote: The DOD machine is grossly overweighted with non warfare essentials it can well stand to ‘clean-up’ billions and billions of wasted non essential dollars.
Political junkies just do not grasp the obvious. The TP conservatives don’t care about the party-and that is a good thing. Go over the cliff, burn it down, let all the taxes go up and do nothing about it for a year.
When debt limit talks come up, tell Obama all he gets is enough to service the debt. Let him figure out what to fund with 1 trillion less dollars. The military can withstand 4 yrs of anything, and still be the best.
Tea Party legislators did not come to DC to save the GOP, (the GOP mis-read 2010). The TP came in to get something done-not get re-elected. We will get more conservatives in, in 2014.
Republicans are likely to bear the brunt of the blame, despite the fact that they [are] the only ones striving to prevent it.
Hardly. They are the ones in Congress — that’s how the system currently works — but it’s nonsense to imply R’s have a monopoly.
And who cares about ‘striving’? We want results. The only positive here: millions more will soon be convinced that the GOP’s day in the sun is done.
Stick a fork in ‘em, and walk away.
I don’t understand the logic behind your article for these reasons:
1. Harry Reid declared on numerous occasions that this bill, or anything like it, would be DOA when it was turned over to the senate. If this was supposed to insure blame was handed over to the senate or Obama, you assume the media would report it that way. Why would they tell it that way?
2. Boehner is speaker because of the conservatives elected. Not because he and his colleagues were doinga bang up job.
3. Sequestration was Boehner’s brainchild after the last debt fight. Dumb plan, but he did it to “live to fight another day”.
4. Knowing that it was going to be DOA in the senate and rejected, why not appease the conservatives and send the bill up with proposed spending cuts? That would avoid the stupid internal fight. Boehner didn’t even try. Instead, he promised they would take that up in the future. He would fail at that also, as he demonstrated in the last debt ceiling fight, where he lacked the courage to hold it down, and signed onto this present mess he’s now in. He’s done this to himself, and now everyone is crying for poor John. No need, he will have plenty tears of his own at the next public speech where he talks about how lucky he is to be speaker. He he is, but we are not.