Damned Stupid Republicans Blowing It, Again
We all know that in terms of seriously addressing America's debt issues, the recent deal to avert a government shutdown is all but insignificant. So, what is the conventional wisdom being created to define it?
Obama Advisor David Plouffe: Budget Cuts Both 'Draconian' and 'Historic' Plouffe Lauds Bipartisanship
NRO and others on the Right are praising Boehner as a terrific leader, saying he accomplished something great – when, in relative terms, he didn't come close. Meanwhile, the Democrats are busy casting it as historic, if draconian – and accomplished through bi-partisanship.
So, where does that leave a hapless GOP currently led by Boehner if they ever seriously want to take on spending, perhaps through the Paul Ryan budget? Boehner squandered whatever political capital he may have had on a couple of fronts, got next to nothing beyond some favorable headlines, while a narrative is being framed to undercut any future serious effort to address America's tremendous debt.
Clearly the current GOP leadership is not up to the job Americans elected them to do in November. And too much of the Right-side chattering class seeking seats at the lunch counter through access, not serious journalism, to cover them, is more an obstacle to progress, than a serious part of the solution.
Hear hear!
Here’s the actual moment when Boehner caved… or blinked…. or “won”… depending on your point of view.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/wrangle-over-u-s-budget-compromise-defines-next-two-years-fiscal-debate.html
Fox News has declared Friday’s sellout a rout for the GOP over the Dems.
(See the link Raggie? I know you like links.)
Boehner now making comments that the next time he caves, it’ll be over trillions not billions.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-04-11-column11_ST1_N.htm
I do like links, Filly, because you lie a lot.
Like Filthy Harry, Obama is all over the map on this. “Extreme”, “Draconian”, going to “historic”.
Quite a lot of people are saying the deal is…far from ideal…a beginning.
But I see things differently than you do, Filly. I actually DO negotiate for a living.
You just pontificate for your ego.
Well thank you for adorning this thread with your usual thoughtful and informative commentary Raggie! Always the gentleman.
Welcome.
Cutting $40 billion or so from a deficit of $1.5 trillion is…a Rorschach test.
I’m going to go to bat for Boehner. Here comes a statement that we can all come back to soon and see if I’m right – In about two to three weeks, when we are deep in the weeds of the debt limit debate, with Ryan’s budget running alongside, the NUMBERS that we speak of today will be utterly irrelevant and forgotten. You wanna talk about trillions? Guess what, we’ll be talking about trillions, whether anyone wants to or not. The debt limit will see to that.
So with that in mind, what was the end game to THESE negotiations on Friday? I say the purpose was not to save the country…. it was to position the GOP for the bigger (MUCH bigger) fight upcoming. Kinda like in ‘The Sting’ where you lose thousands to Doyle Lonigan toward the end of the half million dollar payout.
OK OK, I GET that people are tired of “waiting for the payoff”, and feel that next time will be a cave, and next time after that. I get it. My point is that “next time” is…. about three weeks from now. Not “way out there somewhere”, but two weeks from now. Three weeks.
And THEN we will be talking trillion$.
Are Boehner and McConnell et al better positioned now then they were, better positioned than by a shutdown? I think so. Remember that, like or not, we live in a country that voted for Barack Obama, and we live with a media and culture that, when told, “Republicans just want to slaughter American women and harvest their organs”, will stroke their chins and ponder, and take to their airwaves and our childrens classrooms and say, “yes, yes, quite right, Republicans DO want to slaughter American women and harvest their organs, has this not always been true?”. And people will swallow it whole.
Gimme a couple weeks on this. Come back to this page. See if, in the heart of the debt ceiling and Ryan budget battles, TODAY’s numbers mean a damn thing.
Betcha they won’t. But the strategy will.
A lot of people are upset about the token cuts in the FY2011 budget, but I think that Boehner is playing a bigger game. The tone on spending has just changed, and that is a BIG precursor for the FY2012 budget. The hook for getting his way is going to be the expansion of the debt ceiling. If the government doesn’t increase its debt limit, then it cannot issue anymore bonds. No more bonds, then no more quantitative easing, which is currently used to pay for ponzi welfare state. If that system collapses, it won’t matter how much money has been authorized by Congress, because it won’t exist to begin with. Payments to unions, Federal projects, and every other boondoggle will have the same amount of financial clout as a fistfull of California IOUs. The next round of negotiations will be the biggest game of chicken in my lifetime. This will affect the amount of money the Democrats and their publicly funded allies will have going into the 2012 elections. The frame of reference was shifted in the last budget debate over funding the next 6-7 months. I hope the Republicans are smart enough to recognize the true opportunity that is in front of them.
40 billion in cuts and I still have $1500.00\ a month Romney care. Republicans can cram it.
Dude!!! Get thee to a border…!!!
I believe that any one of the House GOP Members could have gotten the deal that Boehner got, so I don’t think he did anything extraordinary, or anything that anyone with a huge majority in Congress on the heals of a historic shellacking could not have also done. I would like to believe that he and Eric Cantor could be compared to “The Sting”, but it is more likely that the two playing the role of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, are Obama and Reid. Add to that, Nancy Pelosi is that lady who owns the indoor ferris wheel.
Boehner and the GOP “leadership” do NOT intend to make serious and sufficient cuts to the federal budget.
Even Ryan’s cuts are insufficient to balance the budget and will leave near $1 Trillion deficits for 3 to 4 years! And stuff 3 to 4 years out in DC NEVER COME TO PASS.
It is all smoke and mirrors and Kabuki Theater.
People who want to slam the GOP, the GOP “leadership” (oxymoron if i ever heard one), Paul Ryan, and anybody else over the budget is wasting their computer breath by doing so. The House of Representatives is firmly in the hands of a Republic Majority. Yes, Boehner the Bo- oh never mind- is the Majority leader. But he is also leader of a majority that is envigorated with a nest of Tea Party elected Pubbies who are not backing down. The debt ceiling is the mother of all battles. The budget cuts in a 2010 budget that should have been owned by the Democrats (but they were too chicken to vote one in before the 2010 shelling)— guess what? The Republicans cut a Democrat budget. Fine with me. How much would that budget have been if passed in 2010 like it was supposed to have?
Anyways— the real battle for the republic is the debt ceiling fight. Not the budget of 2012 or 2013. It is the fight to prevent another trillion dollars worth of wiggle room for President Snow Job to use to finance the shenanigans of the 2012 Presidential sweepstakes….one trillion less AUTOMATICE SPENDING INCREASES….one trillion less to buy perfume to dump on the rotting stinking carcass of Obamacare…..one trillion less to fund UN SURRENDER MONKEY SHENANIGANS PASSING FOR “INTERNATIONAL LAW”…. one trillion less to fund NPR, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the inner city boondoggles run by MOVE, MOVE ON, ACORN, and every other media/civil rights panhandling organization of Operation Obama Filching…a trillion less to bankroll PetroBras’ biggest investor- George “Romeo” Soros….
Must i go on? If the debt ceiling isnt raised, it sets one major ground rule—> if your costs are growing, Federal Agency Head, then you must cut your budget in order to have money to spend. We don’t have to cut their budgets because they are spending us into oblivion. We just dont have to anymore. ObamaCare costs are exploding. So without a debt ceiling increase, it is dead in the water—- unfunded.
The President nor the Senate can do anything about a House voting not to raise the debt ceiling. The Treasury and Fed can print all the money they want— not one single federal agency could spend it. That is where, as one legendary republican and true conservative says, “the rubber truly meets the road.”
@ George S. Patton:
“Anyways— the real battle for the republic is the debt ceiling fight. Not the budget of 2012 or 2013.”
The point is that Boehner has already said that he will not allow the government to be shut down. He has cut himself at the knees before even starting. It’s like holding up a bank at gunpoint while assuring them that there is no way you will ever use the gun. It just doesn’t matter what battle he enters from here on out. He is a crippled negotiator. He has no credibility.
That’s the problem with weepy men. They are forever blinking. It’s like playing poker against a guy who giggles every time he has a good hand.
BTW, the real GS Patton’s birthplace is on my daily running route.
hey frenchie- take your smarty pants border talk and lead the way, you over educated dope.
National debt went up way more during these last couple weeks than Boehner got in cuts for the year.
We are boned.
It is natural to be skeptical about the doings in DC. History has trained us that way. But it seems to me we are way early in declaring this fight a loss. Our team has barely heard the starting whistle, the other team fumbled, we have the ball, we just got a first down. Here is how our great leader Obama might frame the present battle:
“Some say the Repubs are giving up and will stop trying to cut badly needed government spending. Others say they will continue teabagging until they are thrown out of office by enraged citizens who need government help. But I say we can reach an historic and bipartisan agreement that all sides will accept…higher taxes, new government pseudo-charities.”
But the President is an ivy graduate who, like many another ivy, is wrong about nearly everything. So who cares.