Michael Walsh explains the president’s game plan in the current negotiations over debt increases. The democrats are simply trying to blame Republicans for risking default, and doing everything possible to get a debt ceiling increase running past next year’s election in order to try to minimize their own vulerabilities on the issues of excessive spending and the deficit.
I liked his metaphorical comparison to the double dealing and intrigue in the Coen Brothers’ gangster movie Miller’s Crossing (1990). I guess the contrived and systematic insincerity must make Obama Bernie Birnbaum.
By now, the Obama “leadership†style should be blindingly apparent: Do nothing, lie in wait, and then counter-attack. Never present a plan if you can possibly help it, but deal exclusively in bromides and platitudes as you stake out the moral “high ground†and get ready to ambush the other guy. …
Meanwhile, have your media allies, talking parrots, and court lickspittles prepare the ground with standard-issue talking points — “The Tea Party Republicans are terrorists,†for example. …
Adamantly refuse to be pinned down about the specifics of anything, and have your platoon of Baghdad Bobs continue to insist (as good liberals always do) that up is down, black is white, and wishes are really horses, if not actual unicorns.
So the later Boehner walks into the trap, the quicker Harry Reid trumps him, and the sooner Obama can can declare for the umpteenth time that the time for talk is over, emerge as a hero — and get the debt-ceiling debate safely past the shoals of the next election, which is all he really cares about. Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, running for office is the only thing the Punahou Kid knows how to do.
As the deadline approaches and the complete annihilation of the entire world financial system as we’ve known it looms, or not, we spectators sitting on the sidelines far from the action are growing tired of the whole thing. Hearing second-hand reports of loud crashes and animal noises coming out of closed rooms gets boring after awhile.
Doubtless Armageddon-on-the-Potomac is great fun if you are yourself a player, but the rest of us recognized a good while back that we have the House, they have the Senate and the White House, and they hate us and vice versa, so no major substantive reform of the entitlement state, no permanent long-term resolution of excess federal spending can be expected to be possible until, and unless, the American public gives us a decisive mandate in 2012 (which I think they will).
In the meantime, Republicans should resist raising taxes, avoid selling out to democrats, but also avoid letting conservatives and Republicans getting saddled with the blame for all this.
Jim Garaughty, in his emailed Morning Jolt today, was marvelling, and poking fun, at the way conservatives are presently quarreling among ourselves about how all this should be handled.
I think a lot of the discussion among conservatives on Thursday can be summarized in one Twitter exchange:
Guy Benson: It would be awesome if people on our side would stop angrily questioning each other’s motives.John Tabin: WHO’S PAYING YOU TO SAY THAT?
(John’s kidding.)
This isn’t the Civil War of Conservatism in the context of the Union vs. the Confederacy. No, that conflict looks simple and clear in its divisions: North vs. South, slaveholders vs. abolitionists, secessionists vs. unionists, etc.
No, this is messy, with lots of longtime allies and friends surprised to find themselves in opposition. This is the conservative version of the Marvel Civil War, a comic-book storyline in which all of the publisher’s most prominent heroes took sides on the institution of a “Super Hero Registration Act,” in which any person in the United States with superhuman abilities had to register with the federal government as a “human weapon of mass destruction,” reveal his true identity to the authorities, and undergo proper training. Those who signed also had the option of working for a government agency, earning a salary and benefits such as those earned by other American civil servants.
(Perhaps young, super-powered Americans have been listening to Derb’s “get a government job” lectures!)
Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four supported the act. Captain America and Daredevil opposed it. And the storyline tossed away the familiar story of heroes’ fighting villains to the surprising, unpredictable, and incongruous sight of popular, noble heroes’ fighting other popular, noble heroes — each convinced that his view is the right one and the best way to protect his values.
Not as outlandish a metaphor as it seemed two paragraphs ago, huh?
Lack of money may not be the only reason they’re doomed.
Richard Miniter, in Forbes, notes that we have no choice, we are going to have to stop increasing the beast’s rations. But that is a real problem for democrats, whose entire raison d’etre is the delivery of more federal money in return for support.
The Democratic Party, as we have known it for the past 70 years, is now in its last days.
Yes, the House Republicans may raise the debt ceiling for a mix of spending cuts and revenue raisers. Yes, Barack Obama may win the 2012 presidential contest. Yes, bureaucrats and judges will continue to impose new and costly regulations on the economy.
But it doesn’t matter. The long-term trends are almost all bad news for the left wing of the party.
This week’s fight over raising the federal debt limit exposes a key weakness in the warfare-welfare state that has bestowed power onto the Democratic Party: Without an ever-growing share of the economy, it dies. Every vital element of the Democrats’ coalition — unions, government workers, government contractors, “entitlement†consumers — requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts. Without those payments, they don’t sign checks to re-elect Democrats.
Daniel Greenfield has an excellent, must-read editorial on the real meaning of the raising-the-debt-ceiling debate and “social justice” as a form of addiction.
The debt ceiling debate is less about spending than it is about the purpose of government. Under the impact of an economic recession, the train of the Great Society is approaching the edge of the New Frontier. Both sides are still trying to work out a New Deal, but another cuts and spending formula is not the solution. What we need is a serious and earnest discussion about why we are compulsively spending money.
A cocaine addict who runs out of money doesn’t have a spending problem, he has a drug problem. Telling him to cut back on how much money he spends on cocaine, or to shop around for cheaper cocaine isn’t the solution. It’s not about how much he’s spending, but about why. The problem isn’t in the math, it’s in the mindset.
Our cocaine is social justice. Like most junkies who are willing to sell anything and everything to keep the supply coming, Obama’s position in the budget debate is take everything– especially the military, but leave the social justice and the big government that administers it on the table. And also like most junkies, he has an endless supply of self-righteous speeches denouncing the people who just want him to stop.
In the rush of words, he postures, conflates compromise with confrontation, threatens and urges everyone to work together. There is no consistent message, only egotistical aggression and defensive need. Strip away the verbiage and you come away with a chorus of, “Mine, My Way, Mine”.
With all addictions, it is important to look for the root cause. The psychological weakness that allows the chemical rush to take over and become the defining principle of life. In this case it is a basic split over the purpose of government.
From Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee, A Brief History of President Obama’s Fiscal Record:
January 20, 2009
President Obama sworn into office
President tells the American people in his Inaugural Address: “Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.â€
Debt Held By Public = $6.31 trillion
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February 17, 2009
President Signs into Law the Spending Stimulus
The stimulus adds $821 billion in new spending according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The White House promises this infusion of spending and borrowing would keep unemployment rate below 8%. As millions of Americans are painfully aware, that promise was broken.
Debt Held by Public = $6.48 trillion
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February 26, 2009
President Issues FY2010 Budget
The President’s budget adds $2.7 trillion in new debt in FY2010 and imposes $1.4 trillion in new taxes.
Debt Held by Public = $6.58 trillion
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March 11, 2009
President Signs FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act
The massive spending bill includes 8,696 earmarks at a cost of $11 billion.
The spending bill adds $19 billion in new spending above the baseline – an 8.6% spending increase.
Debt Held by Public = $6.66 trillion
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April 29, 2009
Congressional Democrats Pass FY2010 Budget
The Congressional Democrats’ budget calls for a $2 trillion debt increase in 2010, and another 8.9% increase in non-defense discretionary spending.
The reconciliation process is abused to later pave the way for health care overhaul to be jammed into law.
Of note: this is the last time Congressional Democrats will bother budgeting.
Debt Held by Public = $6.85 trillion
—————————————
February 2, 2010
President Issues FY2011 Budget
The President’s budget more than doubles the debt; pushes the FY2011 deficit to a new record of $1.6 trillion; drives spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion in fiscal year 2011; and raises taxes by more than $2 trillion through 2020, under the administration’s own estimates.
Debt Held by Public = $7.85 trillion
—————————————
March 23, 2010
President Signs Health-Care Overhaul Into Law
The massive new law adds $1.4 trillion in new spending over the next decade, and over $2.5 trillion once the law is fully implemented.
Despite sluggish economic growth and high unemployment, the law imposes over $500 billion in new tax hikes. CBO Director Elmendorf would later testify that the law would reduce employment by roughly half a percent – a reduction of approximately 800,000 jobs.
Debt Held by Public = $8.18 trillion
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April 15, 2010
Congressional Democrats Decide Not to Do a Budget for FY2011
The 1974 Budget Act requires Congress to pass a budget each year by April 15.
In an unprecedented budget failure, House Democrats not only failed to pass a budget – they opted to not even propose a budget.
Debt Held by Public = $8.39 trillion
—————————————
July 21, 2010
President Signs Financial Regulatory Overhaul Into Law
In addition to heightened regulatory uncertainty, the massive new law adds $10.2 billion in new spending.
Debt Held by Public = $8.69 trillion
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February 14, 2011
President Issues FY2012 Budget
The President’s budget yet again calls for the doubling of the debt in five years, and tripling the debt in ten years.
The President’s budget spends $47 trillion over the next decade, imposes over $1 trillion in new tax hikes, and fails to address the drivers of the debt.
Debt Held by Public = $9.45 trillion
—————————————
April 13, 2011
President Delivers Speech on Deficit Reduction
The President appears to abandon his own budget by offering a ‘framework’ that calls for additional tax increases, defense spending cuts, and Medicare price controls – yet lacks sufficient detail to back-up claims of deficit reduction.
Michael A. Walsh, in the New York Post, identifies the key issue in the current political crisis, something at stake even more important than economic prosperity: the choice for America of freedom versus dependency.
When did it become the primary function of the federal government to send millions of Americans checks?
For this, in essence, is what the debt-ceiling fight is all about — the inexorable and ultimately fatal growth of the welfare state. If you don’t believe it, just look at President Obama’s veiled threat to withhold Grandma’s Social Security benefits if Congress doesn’t let him borrow another $2 trillion or so to get himself safely past the 2012 election.
The feds now borrow 43 cents of every dollar they spend. Under Obama, outlays have soared to nearly a quarter of GDP (the historical average is just under 20 percent) — and once ObamaCare starts to fully kick in around 2014, it will only rise.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and debt interest consume — at the moment — nearly half of our $3.8 trillion budget. …
The debt-ceiling cage match is the culmination of the Democrats’ 75-year-long fight to establish a voting bloc of dependents under the false flags of “compassion” and “social justice.” It’s sapped our strength, created a welfare mentality and, if unchecked, will reduce us to a nation of aging, resentful beggars with eyes cast permanently toward Washington.
The preamble to the Constitution talks about promoting the general welfare, not the welfare state. For the welfare state is incompatible with the rest of the preamble, which concludes: “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” By definition, dependents are not free.
Inevitably, we learn that Algernon has exceeded his very generous allowance and run up massive debts. There is no possibility that Algernon can ever meet his obligations. Disgrace, dishonor, and debtors’ prison loom as gloomy prospects.
Young Algy has consequently returned to the family home he previously despised to beg his disappointed and estranged parent to intervene to save him. The scene is easily pictured. There is the sad, but still loving, grey-haired pater familias. There is the slightly crest-fallen, but still arrogant, young Corinthian. The father is theoretically willing to retrench and mortgage the estate and sacrifice for long years to come to save his son’s honor and keep him from prison, but he naturally considers himself obliged to make such assistance conditional upon genuine repentance and a complete break with the young man’s bad associations and pernicious habits.
It turns out, of course, that his life of iniquity in the fleshpots of the metropolis has coarsened young Algernon and fed his arrogance. Algy feels completely entitled to the life he has led, and has plans underway for even more ambitious forms of debauchery. Algy regards his father’s estate as already his own, and simply demands that his father assume responsibility for all his current debts and increase his allowance.
Sadly, the unhappy father explains that meeting even the current obligations Algernon has assumed is impossible with the income of the entire estate. To pay Algernon’s debts, land must be sold, the manor-house rented to strangers, tenants evicted and the commons converted to new enterprises to increase income. The entire family will have to curtail its expenses and live on a much more restricted scale for years.
But the wicked and ungrateful Algernon refuses to hear any of this. He bangs his fist on the table, abuses his father, and demands everything he asked for.
Sadly, the father explains that his son’s attitude, his hardened habits of iniquity, and his lack of responsibility make rescuing him impossible. As an alternative to prison, the father can only offer him a boat ticket to Australia and a small remittance for so long as he remains out of England.
The Wall Street Journal thinks Mitch McConnell’s “Eat Your Own Darn Peas” manuever is an appropriate way to end the stalemate in the absence of good faith negotiating intentions from the other side.
The debt ceiling is going to be increased one way or another, and the only question has been what if anything Republicans could get in return. If Mr. Obama insists on a tax increase, and Republicans won’t vote for one, then what’s the alternative to Mr. McConnell’s maneuver?
Republicans who say they can use the debt limit to force Democrats to agree to a balanced budget amendment are dreaming. Such an amendment won’t get the two-thirds vote to pass the Senate, but it would give every Democrat running for re-election next year a chance to vote for it and claim to be a fiscal conservative. …
The entitlement state can’t be reformed by one house of Congress in one year against a determined President and Senate held by the other party. It requires more than one election. The Obama Democrats have staged a spending blowout to 24% of GDP and rising, and now they want to find a way to finance it to make it permanent. Those are the real stakes of 2012.
Even if Mr. Obama gets his debt-limit increase without any spending cuts, he will pay a price for the privilege. He’ll have reinforced his well-earned reputation as a spender with no modern peer. He’ll own the record deficits and fast-rising debt. And he’ll own the U.S. credit-rating downgrade to AA if Standard & Poor’s so decides.
We’d far prefer a bipartisan deal to cut spending and reform entitlements without a tax increase. But if Mr. Obama won’t go along, there’s no reason Republicans should help him dodge the political consequences by committing debt-limit harakiri.
