And so, when a Democratic president, who cares about discretionary spending, and who knows it’s not a significant source of red ink, offers a massive $1 trillion cut to that spending, that is a real compromise. When President Obama also offers $650 billion in entitlement cuts over 10 years — cuts that would hurt his party’s constituents and anger his strongest supporters, that is a real compromise. When the White House offers hundreds of billions less in new revenue than any of the three (rather center-right) bipartisan budget proposals on the table — indeed, offers almost $4 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenue — that is a real compromise.
Democrats should note that the president was so desperate for a deal he went well to the right of the proposals to which rock-ribbed Republicans like Sen. Tom Coburn and former senator Pete Domenici had agreed. Republicans should note that nobody is talking about higher tax rates, but about eliminating loopholes, subsidies, and deductions, and doing fundamental tax reform in a way that conservative economists have advocated for decades.
Add to this Reid’s plan that was rejected and had no revenue increases and you see one party in this negotiation doesn’t want a deal. All of which is fine, but this should be a non-controversial issue, but it is an essential issue for the financial health of the nation. There’s a perfectly good way to have this fight and not endanger the full faith and credit of the US–fight over this in the budget. The GOP can even shut down the government and do far less harm.
The GOPers did this kamikaze stuff with the last Democratic President. Should we be surprised that they’re behaving the same way now?
You can just imagine what kind of language they and their lackeys in the press would be using had we ever gotten this close to financial catastrophe when Bush II was our lord and master.
I’m coming to the conclusion that some of the Tea Party flavored Republicans actually think defaulting on our debt is a good idea. The reasoning, I suppose, is something like this: the default will not be a big deal, because if we default then we will have o stop spending government money to pay back the debt and this will force government to shrink and o we can lower (eliminate?) taxes.
Think about it. Some these Tea Party types want to return to the gold standard. Their ideas about the economy are drawn from the 19th century. And they are . . . well, they are crazy. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them had a secret fantasy of triggering a default.
The Tea Party folks don’ hate America, and they are not crazy. They just hate the NITWH.
Do you really want to debate Joe Walsh’s sanity Stuart? 🙂
I have no love for Walsh—he is foul mouthed, arrogant and ignorant. But he is not crazy. Calling someone crazy adds nothing to the debate. Showing his ignorance might. The bottom line is that there are a lot of folks out there who think the Walsh’s and other Tea Party folks are fairly intelligent. You cannot dismiss them all by simply saying they are crazy.
Was George Wallace crazy? Strom Thurmond? Is Ron Paul crazy? Is Rand Paul even crazy? I think not. But that certainly does not mean I believe or respect what they say.