Jul 20 2011
Congratulations To House Republicans For Standing Up For Middle America
Congratulations are in order for the House Republicans and the Tea Parties across the nation:
Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted Tuesday night to slice federal spending by $6 trillion and require a constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states in exchange for averting a threatened Aug. 2 government default.
The 234-190 vote marked the power of deeply conservative first-term Republicans, and it stood in contrast to calls at the White House and in the Senate for a late stab at bipartisanship to solve the nation’s looming debt crisis.
While we have not turned this ship around from the brink yet, the ground on which the debate is occurring has shifted dramatically. It is not longer impossible to discuss a realistic, near term time to balance the budget by shrinking government. And if the cuts I have seen in NASA and NOAA are any indication, there are real cuts on the table – not just reductions in spending. Hopefully this prioritization of resources will happen in every nook and corner of the federal bureaucracy.
But the fight is not won, and the forces of the status quo are busy attempting to continue to grow the cancer that has become the federal government:
President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a deficit-reduction plan put forward earlier in the day by a bipartisan “Gang of Six” lawmakers that calls for $1 trillion in what sponsors delicately called “additional revenue” and some critics swiftly labeled as higher taxes.
The president said he hoped congressional leaders would “start talking turkey” on a deal to reduce deficits and raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit as soon as Wednesday, using that plan as a roadmap.
Er, no. Read our lips – no new taxes. The House is the People’s House and represents America as much as the Senate and President. One could argue even more so given how its members are much closer to the voters. It is time for the other two branches to grow up and toss off their petulant denial. It is time for the Libertarian, Tea Party supporting Senators to stand firm and block anything with tax increases.
And we should only raise the debt limit enough to get to next spring, when we have to the combine the 2013 fiscal year budget within the constraints of the debt ceiling. Because right now and for the foreseeable future, the only balanced budget tool we have is the debt ceiling:
There’s another way to achieve the goal of a balanced budget amendment right away: don’t pass an increase in the debt ceiling. Government will have to live within its means right now. In other words, the debt ceiling is a balanced budget tool–a powerful one. The constant talk of a default is rank demagoguery of the first order: there will be plenty of tax revenue arriving to service our debt obligations.
I have been saying this for weeks – lift the ceiling in stages and at each stage gain another victory in shrinking the government down to its minimal required size. Free up our capitol and incomes so We The People can produce and purchase what WE need or want, and we will ignite the growth we need to get back on sound economic footing.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. The debt ceiling debate is just beginning to wake the Political Industrial Complex to the dangers and required fixes we face. We cannot rely on them to sustain this focus for even a few months. They have to be constantly held to account.
Raise the Debt ceiling in stages, while we fix the broken federal behemoth in stages. Yes it will be hard and risky, but the alternative is much, much worse:
This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
Sacrifice this time begins at the top. State government across the nation have been able to cut back and produce modest surpluses. It is not impossible or devastating as the left moans constantly. Now is the time to stand up for a historic rescue.
This IS the so-called “right-wing conservatism” that has been maligned by its detractors. This labeling needs to be pushed, properly messaged along with the positive results and prosperity to the American public.
Take a look at Steve Wynn and how quiet the mainstream media is about his “wet blanket” comment.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/07/gang-of-six-plan-will-raise-taxes-over-3-trillion/
This probably means they are using a CBO baseline that assumes the AMT continues as written today and that the current Bush rates expire. Last August, the CBO said those policies would amount to a $4.8 trillion tax hike. Which means the the Gang of Six plan probably raises taxes by about $3+ trillion over current rates.
Well the gang of 5 liberals enticed Coburn to come back to give them legitimacy and to throw the CCT House bill to the dogs.
Now we have 6 names of Senators who need to go next time they are up for re-election.
I had had hope for Coburn but when I heard he and Obama were friends as freshman I knew we were screwed. The Senate and OBama just killed the House plan, but had to put forth some slop of their own to do so. This is not even written legislation and if passed would give all kinds of arbitrary power to govt entities to write the bills details after passage, kinda like Obamacare.
Look for an all out push to pass this thing at midnight, over the weekend, at the last possible moment, to save our country.
Its The Plan not a feature.
Its just another crisis too good to waste.
Another chance to stick it to the Americans who work, pay their bills and unlike half of the Presidents “men” pay their taxes.
A crisis manufactured by liberal Democrats (socialists) and the subsequent bailout and futherance of the liberal agenda by We The People thanks to the Democrats, every single last one of them, and a few cowardly RINOs.
Tell me again Karl Rove, why Castle would have been better than ODonnell? Cause this sellout would have been the gang of 7 instead of 6?
Call your senators now and pray.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/20/washington-in-a-flash-theyre-back-gang-of-six-shakes-up-capitol-hill/
The so-called “mysterious” group TheTeaParty.net is holding a Presidential Twitter Debate this afternoon. The group has more than 300,000 members and is one the nation’s largest Tea Party organizations. Confirmed candidates include Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum. The debate is scheduled to run from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. Twitter updates can be found on http://www.twitter.com/theteaparty_net and people can join in the debate by using @140townhall.
Can’t wait for the fireworks when the Dems ‘deem’ a debt ceiling passed.
Now that we have some turn-coats in the Senate supplying Obama with a horrible “bi-partisan plan” it will be harder to get the point across that has been made in the House. It will make the House look more out of touch. Because we know Americans those bipatisan manure burgers. The press will laud the Senate Republicans as the “mature adults” and the House as the “extremists”
The House needs to go all the way on this. Let the Debt ceiling lapse. Obama will try and conjure up disaster but when the money needed is proven to still be incoming from tax revenue, the disaster will show itself as a “Chicken Little manifestation”
At least I’m relieved to see most people (here, at least) understand that the so-called “Gang of 6” plan is a cruel fraud.
raise taxes, pull an accounting gimmick on the AMT, change the way the CPI is calculated so that you can start screwing retirees out of their SS benefits bit by bit without telling them what you’re (intentionally) doing, and then chop the rest from the military.
That’s it – that’s all there is to it. All of the Big Democrat plans (like Obamacare) go on like nothing ever happened.
No wonder Durbin and Schumer love that plan! This is what “Compromise” is all about to them – Heads, They Win, Tails, We Lose!!!
I just cannot believe that Tom Coburn is going along with it.
We cannot give in on new taxes. You are correct: The debt limit is the ONLY way to hold government spending. This is only temporary as our population will undoubtly change its mind over time and elect more people like our President and his followers.
At least we may be able to slow them down.