Let me summarize the HOUSE Republican debt ceiling plan to get through the next election--which also keeps the debt ceiling out of sync with the spending that produces the extra debt:
1. Cut next year's spending 111 billion dollars. This is the ONLY part of the Republican plan that is REAL--depending on what the "cuts" are. For example, I don't know if we are merely talking abut "projected spending", or really cutting from the current year's level. But the statement is that discretionary spending would be cut back to 2008 levels. Don't even think, however, that this is enough. No bold move. Nothing even approaching MY suggestion taht ALL Federal Government salaries be cut 5% (except some military), and that Federal Government salaries over $100,000 be cut 10%. And what about that RETIREMENT for life, at full salary, now being given to members of Congress? Yep, my salary cut would apply to the President, Congress, Federal Judges, Cabinet officers, Czars, and all otehr Federal employees. Plus, I would elimminate that disgraceful Congressional pension, and reform overall Federal employee pensions (limiting Congress people to the same pension, if not to Social Security). Note that the total spending for NEXT YEAR is scheduled to be ABOVE 3.5 TRILLIOIN. The Republican "compromise" would reduce that spending by LESS than 3%. How pitiful is that? As I have stated in previous articles this weekend, and over the past few weeks, we NEED to cut next year's spending by at least 10%, and preferably $500 BILLION dollars. That would only cut our deficit by 1/3. (the $500 billion dollars). The disgracefu Republican "deal" at the end of 2010 (welfare payment disguised as a "payroll tax cut" and extension of extended unemployment benefits) INCREASED the deficit by probably more than the Republicans now say they want to "cut" the deficit for next year. And I still have this bet with myself that Republicans--making each and every ne who goes along with this my ENEMY--are going to agree to continue that "stimulus" "payroll tax cut" and 99weeks of unemployment through next year. If they do, I am off the lifeboat. They are on their own. Third party here I come. The odds are, of course--80-20--that I am walking away from the Republican Party anyway. This 111 billioni, disappointing as it is, will not the the final staw. But I don't expect the republicans to hold firm on this. I expect Republicans to join Democrats in some BIG SCAM deal, and that will be the end.
2. Caps on spending for future years. This is the Obama/Democrat/politician magic wand approach to government. Wave a magic wand, and SSAY you are cutting spending. This is totl FICTION. Caps on future spending, like future "cuts" n spending not tied to a specific and legally binding change in some law (like repealing ObamaCare), do NOT bind future Congresses. Worthless, except for whatever "moral" (lol--referring to Congress) force they have.
3. Balanced Budget Amendment with a real cap on spending and real teeeth. I support this third part of the Republican plan, but it is FANTASY. 2/3 of the Senate and 2/3 of the House have to pass this. I guarantee you that if any "Balanced BudgetAmendment" were passed, in the current Congresss, it would have so many "outs" and loopholes that it would be worthless. But I don't expect one to pass. If a Balanced Budget Amendment of the type I support, andRepublicans in the House are propsing, wre to result from these "netotiations", I would eatmy words. But Republicans do not have the COURRAGE to even pass real spendin gcuts--even to force Federfal employeess to "share the sacrifice". Do you really think Republilclans are going to let the debt ceiling expire to FORCE a Balanced Budget Amendment? I don't think so. I will go further: I think that the Republicans will back off of this in such a SHAM, dishonest way that such "politics as usual" game will ALONE cause me to walk away from the Republican Party FOREVER.
There you have it. "Cut, Cap and Balance." Two parts of it are pure fiction, and the other part of it is woefully inadequate. Poll driven and dishonet is about the best you can say for this. You can tell how bad Obama and the Democrats are when you realize that they are WORSE. What they want, and what Republicans may yet give them, is REAL FICTION. What Obama wants is a "big deal" where he can say he has "solved" the deficit problem, AND made major "cuts". The "cuts", of course, will be even worse FICTIOIN than what the Republicans have proposed. Smoke and mirrors, in the far future. Obama has perfected the Magic Wand Theory of Government. Republicans are amateurs at it. Expect Obama and tahe Democrats to essentially prevail if we end up with the Magic Wand Theory of Government. Again, that will cause me to walk away from the Republican Party FOREVER. No, it won't cause me to support Obama and the Democrats, but I am more than ready to walk away from a Republican Party that is unable to leave 'politics as usual" behind. OUr country cannot afford "politics as usual", and I refuse to be a party to our destructon. I would rather stand aside and say: "I told you so." Hey, I never said I was a nice person. (Every woman I have ever met has eventaully told me she is a "nice person". That, alnone, tells you what vicious creatures compose that sex. I refuse to think of myself as a nice person. Amazig how many people agree with me.)
No, I will not walk away forever if Republicans manage to push through the present House plan, even without the fantasy Balanced Budget Amendment (depending on how DISHONEST Republicans are in giving up on that Amendment). You can see that I am tempted to walk away just because the House plan is so bad. But I don't want to be unreasonable here (lol). Besides, I expect to have even better reasons to walk away from the Republican Party. That is because I don't expect the House Republicans to even get through their modest "plan". Anything like the Mitch McConnell "politics as usual" "plan" to simply make Obama assume the POLITICAL responsibility for this wil be more than enough to damn the Republican Party forever for me. And Harry Reid wants to dress up the McConnell plan with FICTIONAL "cuts" in order to make Democrats seem serioius in "deficit reduction" and "controlling our debt". "politics as usual" on steorids, and it will force me out. Yes, I will probably still support Michele Bachmann, because she is Michele Bachmann and not because she is a Republican. But I will NEVER support the Republican Party in the future, as an institution, and I expect NOT to suuport any other nominee other that Michele Bachmann. No, that would not necessarily be true if Republicans showed some gumption here. Otherwise, it will be ture. That is because I KNOW that there is no other nomineee besides Bachmann who will actually FIGHT for conservative princiiples. And if Republican politicins in general come up with another betrayal here, it shows me that we need another party.
What do I say Republicans should do? I aready told you. Remember, it is REPUBLICANS who chose to make this all about the debt ceiling, AFTER passing a spendin gbill for the rest of the fiscl year that REQUIRED the debt ceiling to be raised. People that dumb deserve what they get. Even Michel Bachmann is tone deaf on this, but she is so good on so much that I am willing to forgive her. What I have correctly said is that Republicans need to make this all about SPENDING, since spending is the cause of violating the debt ceiling. It is actually easy to do that. Pass a "clean" debt ceiling increase of about $250 billion dollars--whatever amount will take us through September 30 (the end of our present fiscal year). Announce that NO further increase in the debt ceiling will be votedon until EVERY spending bill for the next fiscal year (beginning October 1) is passed. When those spendin (appropriations) bills are passed, it will be annunced--with aw much advance claculation as can be made as we go along--how much the speninding bills rEQUIRE the debt ceiling to be raised to get through the next fiscal year. Then raise the debt ceiling that amount, and repeat the same process NEXT YEAR (right before the election), and every year after that. Why will Republicn POLITICIANS not likely do this? Right. It is because they PREFER THE DECEIT--prefer to coninue to try to keep people from understanding the reality of what is going on.
Notice that what I propose does NOT prevent a Balanced Budget Amendment, or any other "compromise" to make the YEARLY announcement of the amount spending is increasing the debt ceiling easier. But NO "grand deal" should CHANGE this process. EVERY year, as spending bills are passed, the public should be informed of how much those bills REEQUIRE the debt ceiling to be raised, and it should never be raised more than to get to the next year's spending bills. And the debt ceiling should never be raised until AFTER each year's spendin gbills are passed.
There you have it. Transparency. And no, I am not "giving up" all of those TRILONS of "cuts" that Obama and Democrats have been taling about for the FAR FUTURE. The only real "cuts" that matter are for the next fiscal year. These "trillioins" of dollars of cuts for the far future are FICTION: the Magic Wand Theory of Government--also known as "politics as usual". Notice how well REAL future "cuts" fit in the process I describe. IF they are real, then the yearly announcement of how much more debt our yearly spending bills REQUIRE will get EASIER. "Progress" will be evidennt in terms of getting to the point where we don't have to keep announcing that the next year's spenidng REQUIRES more than a trilloin dollars in extra debt. And if Republicans are EMBARRASSED to be voting for SPENDING that requires so much extra debt, then they should be MORE embarrassed that they want to CONCEAL that.
Look for a "compromise" here that is noting but another sham, and another Republican betrayal. No, I don't expect Michele Bachmann to go anlong with a debt ceiling raise of ANY kind, fictionial as I think that position is (although I believe it represents what Bachmann really believes, and that it would be pretty good to have a President with that kind of attitude, even if she has to back off in the end). But you can tell I don't turst Republican politicians in general. Or to put it more accurately, I DO trust them to BETRAY me. The Republican establishment keeps saying they have "learned". They have not learned a damn thing, ecept what they think are new ways to express the same old "politcs as usual". They think they can sitll get away with it. No, they can't. They certainly can't with me. I don't think they can with the public at large. That is why I fully expect to walk away forever from the Republican Party at the end of this debt ceiling "crisis".
I repeat. I will, very reluctantly and with reduced respect for Republicans in the House, accept it if the Republicans in the House get their "plan" through. I will accept it, even without the Balanced Budget Amendment I don't think they can get trhough under any circumstances, and which I think they know they can't get through. But that will use up all of their capital with me. More importantly, I don't hink it will happne. What I propose in this article is a much better approach, but it ha the defect of HONESTY an TRANSPARENCY. Don't expect that from Republican politicians. And yes, I WOULD have preferred a "clean" debt ceiling raise, and concentration on spending, even to the point of raising the debt ceiling the amount Obama wants--preferred that to some sort o SHAM "deal", after all of this game playing. If epublicans were not going to fight this battle for real, then they should never have chosen o fight on this ground at all.
SPENDING is the real battleground, but Republicans seem unwilling to fight on that battleground. As I have previously shown, and is obviously true, Republicans have the POWER to FORCE whatever SPENDING they choose for the next fiscal year. Yes, Democrats and Obama might "shut down" the government, but there is no way for them to FORCE the House of epresentatives to spend money. Our system is set up so that spenindg REQURIES agreement. If the House passes spending bills, and says "that is it--all you get to spend," that is ultimately all that could be spent. A government sut down might POLITICALLY put "pressure" on Republicans, but it could not appropriate the money to be spent. The spending battle is the one that should be being fought, and that is why my poposal would directly key the debt, and debt ceiling, to SPENDING. That puts truth ahead of deception, and that is why it will not be done.
P.S. No proofreading or spell checking (bad eyesight).
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2 comments:
During the last Presidential election, CSpan2 Book TV aired a program where the author discussed the results of his or her research, which suggested that something like 5-10% of Democrats , and 5-10% of Republicans, essentially debated and defined the ideological constructs of each party. The point was that the vast, vast, vast majority of the citizens of this country have their lives dictated by the most active and vocal members of society, who also happen to be more privileged .
I strongly suspect that the same thing is occurring with the debt ceiling debate. The debate is not really about the debt ceiling per se, but rather a very deep, long-standing debate about the role and size of government. It’s never been resolved, and never will be resolved in our representative democracy. However, in the mean time, the regular folks in our society run the risk of being irreparably damaged. The elites (the upper and upper middle socio-economic classes) on each side of the fence have theirs, their corporate contributions, decent jobs and income, and will fare just fine economically. It’s the ordinary citizens (lower middle socio-economic class) who will most likely get screwed, no matter which side ultimately prevails in the short term.
I appreciate the comment, although I cannot read well enough any more (eyesight) to be sure I have read it correctly. It is nice to know someone is out there, and willing to do more than "tweet".
I would disagree with a few things I thought I read corrrectly Furst, there is too much of a "class Struggle" tone. "Class stgruggle" was the DONWFALL of the Roman Republicac (see Will Curant's "Caesar and Christ", although the Roman Empire would last hundreds of more years. I agree that the Federal Government has GRADUALLY gained power steadily since the founding of the country,, although I don't agree it has never been reduced (1920s, for example). However, the government has really expanded since the Great Depression, even thugh FDR FAiLED to "solfe" the Great Depresson (leaving that to World War II). With Lyndon Johnson, and the Great Society, we turned tward a European style Welfare state. Bad idea. Amazing, is it not, that we seem to have MORE hungry and poor people now than we had then. As my articles have argued, I agree that the problem is not the "debt per se". The problem is the SPENDING that results in the debt. Yes, this is also part of the long-running debate over the proper size of government, but GREECE should let you know that debt does matter. The debt ceiling, as Senator Obama said, SHOULD be used like a canary in a coal mine: to let us know that our spenidng is out of control and that we need fiscal discipline.
Finally this blog has consistently maintained, and been proven right. that way too many of today's Wall Street and Big Business poeple are ECONOMIC FASCISTS: believeing in a "partnership" between Big Government and Big Business to CONTROL YOUR LIFE. Obama has often advocated this "parntership", and has brought in the CEO of probably the most evil of companies (GE) as one of his main "paratners".
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