As elites in both parties crucify Republicans for not making a deal with Obama, Jeffery Carter from Points and Figures notes in his post: Debt Policy Debate, What Elites Are Missing.
If they think demagoguing is going to win over fiscally conservative independents, they’ve got another thing coming.
There are two approaches on the table.
One, raise spending and taxes, and raise the ceiling high enough so we don’t have to debate it again-the Democratic approach. Even the middle class is going to get whacked with tax increases in the Democratic approach because they will lose deductions, even though their marginal rates won’t go up. The higher income earners, the “rich”, get socked worse because their marginal rate goes up and they lose deductions.
The second is the Republican approach. Cut spending and hold rates steady, combined with a slight raise of the ceiling.
There isn’t a lot of compromise room between those two positions. Forget about a big budget deal, because we have already started the 2012 campaign.
There really are only two ways out of the knot we are in. Hold taxes steady, raise the debt ceiling enough to get us through November 2012, and cut some spending that is easy to cut so it looks like something is happening. Or, walk away from the table-let Obama use procedure to raise the debt ceiling-and force the US Treasury to find ways to delay certain payments, modify payments and struggle a little.
Then we will have an election in November of 2012 and see who wins. My bet is that the fiscal conservative piece of the independent voter wins out over the socially liberal part. It’s clear from Obama’s record and statements that he doesn’t have a clue about running an economy-or what it takes to create a climate of economic growth.
Those are really the cards the Republicans and Democrats hold. Has nothing to do with management or control of either party. The Inca’s were right. 2012 will be a big year.
The Minority Report is asking fiscal conservatives to Join the “We Know” Movement on the Debt Ceiling:
Calling out the lies and distortions over the debate on raising the debt ceiling, Tea Party folks, started to gather around a Facebook page as well as a statement page on The Minority Report Blog showing their anger, disgust and disbelief at the nonsense coming out of Washington DC by uploading pictures featuring homemade signs saying “We Know” and other slogans showing solidarity in the message that the August 2, 2011 date given by this administration is not only arbitrary but the apocalyptic language and crisis is 100% manufactured.
This is the “We Know” statement:
We Know
There is no emergency. For four long years, the federal government has manufactured crises that demanded immediate action.
TARP. The Auto Bailout. The Omnibus. The Stimulus. Financial Reform. Obamacare.
Bailout after bailout, we, the American people, have believed the federal government when they said that they knew something that we didn’t. No more.
We now know that the powers in Washington do not possess any secret knowledge. We know that emergencies will continue to present themselves whenever the government wants to spend more of our money. The problem is that the federal government spends too much, and not that they don’t tax enough. We know.
America is not in danger of defaulting on our debt. The federal government takes in $200 billion per month. The interest on our debt is only $20-$30 billion per month. We know.
There is no new emergency regarding the debt ceiling. We will not let you raise it. $14 trillion is high enough.
The federal government is betting that fear will overwhelm us again, and scare us into more panicked action. It will not. Knowledge is fear’s antidote.
August 2nd is an arbitrary deadline for a manufactured crisis. We will not be fooled again.
Join the movement by following us on Twitter, liking our facebook page and uploading your “We Know” picture!
Rep. McCotter discusses why he is running for President on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, which was broadcast, Tuesday July 12th.
Thousands back Tulsa officer ordered to Muslim worship
Tens of thousands of Americans are lining up in support of a police officer in Tulsa, Okla., who was punished for refusing his department’s order to attend an “Islamic proselytizing event” even as a legal team representing the captain is petitioning the court to add new allegations of misbehavior by his superiors to a lawsuit over the dispute.
WND reported earlier when a legal action was brought by attorneys with the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Paul Fields.
Named as defendants are the city, police chief Charles W. Jordan and deputy chief Alvin Daryl Webster.
The lawsuit focuses on the officer’s constitutional and civil rights, and along with a resolution of Fields’ concerns, it seeks an injunction preventing “enforcement of defendants’ unconstitutional acts, policies, practices, procedures and/or customs.”
At issue were orders by the department that Fields participate in an event at a local Islamic center that has been described as a proselytizing campaign. The Tulsa Police Department had told officers to attend a “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” organized by the Islamic Society of Tulsa. The invitation said the officers would be given tours of the mosque, meet the mosque’s leadership, be given presentations of “beliefs, human rights, women” and “watch the 2-2:45 weekly congregational prayer service.”
Find out what other plans there are for the U.S., in “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America
A petition campaign organized by ACT! for America already has collected tens of thousands of signatures in support of Fields. The organization, run by global Islamic terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel, is planning to present the petition signatures to officials in Tulsa on behalf of the officer.
Sign the petition..
In what could be considered the committee’s sharpest probe to date of the White House, Issa sent a letter to Obama’s top lawyer Monday evening asking for a slew of documents relating to what the California Republican termed as “an array of potentially illegal fundraising behavior.”
Issa singled out a White House meeting in March between Obama, Democratic National Committee officials and members of the business community — who were all Obama donors. The meeting was organized by the DNC.
He’s also calling into question the Obama administration’s decision to provide access to administration officials – possibly including the White House chef – to large donors.
And Issa is taking issue with a campaign video that he says appears to have been shot in the White House, advertising a raffle to have dinner with Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden in return for contributions.
Is this something?…
Ace: Moody’s: We’re Warning That We Might Reduce the US’s Credit Rating
Here’s why it always pays to check out Michelle Malkin’s blog. Have you heard this amazing news anywhere else? Look who’s throwing IPAB under the bus:
Today, the House held a second hearing on the rogue board of Medicare spending czars created by Obamacare. This mother of all death panels is known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). My column looks at growing Democrat opposition to the entity, which would have unprecedented authority over health care spending. Seven Dems are co-sponsors of a House IPAB repeal bill On the Senate side, GOP Sen. John Cornyn is introducing an IPAB repeal bill.
Here’s GOP Rep. Paul Ryan schooling HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on patient-centered Medicare reform. Here’s AEI fellow Dr. Scott Gottlieb’s testimony. Here’s a look at the fatal effect of IPAB on medical innovation. Here’s Philip Klein catching Sebelius’s false assertion this morning that IPAB decisions can be challenged in court. And here’s background on the Goldwater Institute’s federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of IPAB.
If you found your own personal coffers getting low and you had to prioritize your bills, would you opt to cancel your cable, eat in, and pay your mortgage, or would you blow that off and go for a new Maserati and a five-figure vacation rental on the Vineyard? Of course, with the debt ceiling issue, it’s a gazillion times worse than that, because the money in the perpetually replenished coffers was never theirs to begin with (it comes from the bottomless pockets of the taxpayers), and they’ve borrowed into the next generation or two, to the point of national insolvency, to fund their spending mania.
What’s truly maddening is the way the president talks about it, as if he were a mere spectator. He’s been presiding over this mess for two and a half years, accelerating the spending and power-grabbing as he watches the train coming down the track. Shouldn’t he be at least a little shame-faced when he tells us that the “coffers” are empty? Wasn’t he supposed to be minding the store? Isn’t he the president, and didn’t he have control of both House and Senate when he embarked on his frantic spend-and-expand adventure?
Psssst, I hate to tell you, Jill, but they have an answer to all that. It’s called — “TAX THE RICH!!!111!!”
Koch’s Tour: Pulling Back the Curtain (or: A politician accidentally tells the truth):
…in that one phrase – “there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it” -this American president admitted what many people have been saying for decades: not only is the American government stealing money from the people, but the entire Social Security scheme is a lie.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve listened to what politicians have been saying all these years – they tell us that all of the money that people have been FORCED to contribute towards their “retirement” has been put into some sort of “Lock Box”. To hear them talk about it, that money is sacrosanct – set aside, never to be touched, always there, NO MATTER WHAT.
The reality is, of course, very different, but politicians have always used soothing words and calm tones to placate their constituents into believing that their government is looking out for them.
Until yesterday.
WHD’s Keith Koffler has the exclusive photo: Mysterious W Appears On Obama’s Head
By the way, Koffler joins Jen Rubin in approving of Mitch McConnell’s Senate plan: Mitch McConnell’s Brilliant Maneuver
…under McConnell’s GOP Have Your Cake and Eat it Too Plan, which Democrats are already agreeing to and which the White House hasn’t exactly opposed, conservatives get to pretend they’ve done something noble by supporting a policy of not raising the debt ceiling that would quickly destroy the economy. And Obama and Democrats will take all the heat.
Under the GOP Have Your Cake and Eat it Too Plan, OBAMA must propose to raise the debt ceiling three times – including the summer before Election Day. Republicans can vote against it, but Obama can veto their vote, in which case they need two thirds majorities to override the veto and not raise the debt limit. They won’t get it, but they’ll get to say they went to the wall to get a deal to cut spending without raising taxes.
This is what’s known as hypocrisy and sanctimony. Its exactly what Republicans accuse Democrats of doing: Taking outrageous ideological positions that make them feel good but that would ruin the country.
The reality is that voters put Obama in office and gave the Senate to the Democrats. If a deal with Obama that doesn’t raise taxes is not possible, then you don’t destroy the country out of spite. You go back and campaign to get a different political calculus in Washington.
Obama’s hypocrisy is equally stirring. He never lifted a finger to reduce the deficit until pressured in this manner. Actually, he added trillions to the deficit through his health care law and stimulus program.
His threat yesterday to deny seniors their Social Security checks is unconscionably bad political theater. The checks will go out Aug. 3. I don’t believe for a minute there aren’t other things that can be done before we snatch granny’s purse or default on loans from the Chinese.
Meanwhile, not earning herself any fans in the rightwing blogosphere, Jennifer Rubin imperiously states:McConnell’s plan confuses the chattering class:
The concept isn’t that hard to understand. 1. McConnell had enough of the phony White House talks. The White House offered a paltry $2 billion in actual, immediate cuts. 2. McConnell gave a speech to make clear that wasn’t enough and that the debt limit would be raised only with real cuts and without tax hikes. 3. McConnell could sit back and wait for default. 4. But he comes up with a mechanism to force Obama to put up cuts, send them to Congress and face “default” if the president’s cuts don’t get through. 5. In the process he makes 34 Democratic senators vote over and over again on cuts. (The sound you hear in the background is the conga line at the Senate Republican Committee headquarters.)
There are no tax increases in the plan. The onus is on the president to send a request for a debt-ceiling increase and the cuts to go along with it. If he doesn’t do it or if the Congress disapproves of what he sends up (and sustains a veto) the debt ceiling remains in place. But the Senate Democrats will have the power to sustain a veto (and thereby allow phony cuts to be used to raise the debt ceiling), right? Which 34 senators exactly are going to do this? Certainly not the ones in unsafe seats with voters clamoring for real spending cuts.
The critics who dimly understand the plan forget that the alternatives are limited. What are the alternatives? Default.
Ace is having none of it:
No, I understand, see. I just know this was pitched to me a year and a half ago and resulted in doodly-squat as far as alleged political benefit accruing to us thanks to a capitulation.
Does Rubin? Does Rubin remember this episode? Or did she never even know of it?
This is, per my initial reaction, too cute by half. It’s a deliberate, cute trap McConnell is creating, where instead of voting against the debt ceiling increase, they vote for it, but then require the Democrats to go through the formality of requesting the debt ceiling increase (three time) to get it.
The media will see this for what it is: An initial capitulation by Republicans, followed by three votes which are no more than formalities, and deserving of that level of reportage.
Got a better plan? Let’s hear it.
Because I’m with Charles Krauthammer on this one: “In The End, All This Is About Who Gets The Blame”.
If you can figure out a way for Republicans to get everything they want, or allow a default and not get blamed by the Democrat Media Complex, I’d like to hear it.
Update:
We can add one more person to team McConnell/Krauthammer/Rubin/Koffler/Carter: One President Left Behind: McConnell Schools Obama on Debt:
…Democrats demagogued the issue, with Obama flying around the country on Air Force One, claiming that if the debt ceiling is not raised, America will default on its debts and the entire economy will collapse.
If Republicans cut government spending, recipients of government checks come after them with pitchforks. If the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling to force spending cuts, the economy collapses.
In general, the trend seems to be in the direction of higher spending and endless debt.
The government will just keep spending and spending until we’re all on bread lines. But there won’t be any bread because within 10 years, nearly the entire federal budget will go to pay Social Security and Medicare recipients. (On the plus side, a lot of us will be speaking Greek by then.)
But now, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has checkmated the Democrats. He has proposed a bill that will allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling three times, up to $2.4 trillion, over the next 18 months, but only provided Obama proposes equivalent cuts in spending each time.
Finally, the Democrats will be forced to pony up spending cuts — or default on the debt and crash the economy.
Contrary to some hysterical Republicans, McConnell’s bill does not forfeit any of Congress’ authority: The House and Senate will still have to decide whether to accept Obama’s proposed cuts when they write their appropriations bills.
But we will finally get some proposed cuts to federal programs from Obama, and not more nonsense about theoretical savings from “investing” in our children’s future with additional spending on Pell grants and prenatal counseling.
McConnell’s deal cleanly takes the debt ceiling issue off the Republicans’ back and puts it on the president’s back. Either the Democrats tell us what they’ll cut or they’ll have to admit: “We will never cut anything. Everything Ann Coulter says about us is true!”
