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| Posted: 27 Jul 2011 07:45 AM PDT
No, the opponents of John Boehner’s “I’ll cut a little bit now and maybe a little bit more maybe at some point perhaps in a possible future maybe” plan have not sided with Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi. They’re siding with fiscal reality. One could argue that ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard and Poors are being unusually prickly with their demands, but it is undeniable that we have to at least take their requirements seriously. What are the requirements? Simple:
If Republicans do not have the political will to insist that Washington, DC act responsibly with money that is not their own, and it appears they do not, then they should at least use the downgrade threat as a substitute spine until they can grow their own. The issue here, folks, is not a victory quarter-lap. It’s not who backs down whom nor which party gets to put a couple chalk tallies in the “win” column. It’s about whether our country has a financial future that doesn’t involve a tin cup and a sandwich board. It’s about a government that consumes so much that the “savings” to next year’s budget in the Boehner plan that Kristol so adores would disappear down its gaping maw in just five and a half hours. That is the only issue that matters to me and I don’t particularly care what sort of heavy-handed or flat-out dirty tricks the GOP has to pull to get us a real plan with real savings (hint: start here and negotiate to half). To quote Firefly, “Here’s how it is…”. There has never been a better opportunity in my lifetime to stop the heretofore inexorable growth of government than we have right now. All the pressure is on the President. His big-money campaign donors are starting to sweat the default, so much so that he’s reportedly send them perfumed letters of consolation and reassurance. If the Republican Party can’t bring its very best political game now, with so dire a fiscal situation right in front of us, then it has all the wrong people in Congress and we might as well start cleaning house. It’ll take us at least 12 years to get a whole new team in place. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done. Sure, the country will likely be a complete shambles when we get there but that’ll be entirely our fault for letting things go so wrong for so long. At least when we’re done, we’ll have cleaned up the mess so our kids and grandkids won’t have to later on. (And unless there’s a major change in the course of the debt ceiling talks, I don’t imagine writing another post like this on the subject. I’m pretty much done with it, and I imagine you’re tired of hearing about it from me). UPDATE: Michelle Malkin asks, essentially, why we should care about ratings agencies that haven’t been all that accurate over the past decade. It’s a good question and I agree with her that we shouldn’t use Moody’s or S&P as our polestar. However, it is true that any debt deal with enough cuts and long-term, enforceable limits on the size of government to make them happy would be overwhelmingly good for us. It’s also true that the ratings agencies themselves still have a “brand” that the public recognizes and which Republicans can use as another weapon against Democratic intransigence. If nothing else, Democrats can hide behind the excuse “Well, we didn’t want to cut as much as we did, but Moody’s wouldn’t accept anything less!”. The Democrats did noe hesitate to built default up as a real threat to try to get a half-baked tax increase from Republicans (and I also agree with Michelle that it’s not quite that much of a threat). Republicans can, and should, turn that same threat on Democrats, and multiply it by the power of a spending cut demand from the selfsame ratings companies the Democrats used to build the threat in the first place. Later on, Boehner and McConnell (or whoever is leading the House and Senate at that point) can reveal that they merely used the Democrats’ own ruse against them and talk all the smack they want about how wrong Moody’s and S&P have been. For now, though, their reports can help. Might as well use them.  |
| Clearing the Browser Tabs – Okay, Now This Is Getting Ridiculous Wednesday Edition Posted: 27 Jul 2011 03:10 AM PDT It seems, from up here in the cheap seats, that the President and the Republicans are going to play the debt ceiling game right up to the August 2 deadline, if not beyond it. Here’s the current situation: John Boehner has proposed a Republican “compromise” plan that all but waves the white flag. The President gets his big-time debt ceiling increases now and next year while we taxpayers get a rather measley $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years and a pinky-promise of another $1.8 trillion over that same period assuming a bipartisan commission can agree on them before we all turn old and grey. The CBO has already said the math doesn’t work on Boehner’s plan, so it’s back in the garage right now getting a little work done, so who knows what the final numbers will be. I think “piddling” would be a good word to use no matter the final result. On the other side of the debate, the President sent forth his Mouth of Sauron to tell reporters that 1) no, we can’t see the President’s plan, and 2) any request to see the plan is nothing but a scurrilous Republican trick. The President’s advisers have formed a Flying Wedge of Veto Power and the President, at least for now, has hardened his heart against any plan that doesn’t involve Harry Reid or some sort of punishment tax on success. So the two sides seem intent on circling each other, like two boxers who have independently agreed to throw the fight without the others’ knowledge. For what it’s worth, I hope I’m wrong and John Boehner has some clever political judo up his sleeve, but I admit. I’m a pessimist. Be sure to jump on the show link to The Delivery when it goes up later today. I had one of my favorite Smart Girls on in the second half and the first half, well, there’s woe but it’s fun woe, so we have that going for us. And now, links!
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