OK folks, break out the bubbly! With all the beatings the Tea Party has taken over the last few weeks, Krauthammer now says that it’s the Tea Party that’s the real winner in all of this because it has managed to focus the debate in Washington on the debt and it makes Obama’s investment talk sound like it’s from the Jurassic era.
Welcome to the Debt Era:
The real winner is the TEA Party?
How about, the real losers in all of this talk, and the impending “deal”, are the American people, who have been bamboozled into thinking that $2.5 Trillion in spending “cuts” will actually have a big effect on the deficit, and debt. $2.5 Trillion from $9.5 Trillion is still $7 Trillion in added spending over the course of the next decade. This is hardly a “win” for anyone.
@johngalt:
One of the dirty little secrets of this thing that few people are discussing is the simple fact that the present Congress cannot bind future Congresses to take action.
Those future Congressional bodies can do whatever they like regarding spending, etc and any cuts scheduled to occur outside the lifespan of this current group is not likely to happen at all.
@Aye:
That is very true. Consider the following;
If the Democrats regain control of the House, and Obama is re-elected, then they can enact new spending despite the current “deal” being pushed through at this moment in time. That $7.0 Trillion in spending increases(with the current “deal” of $2.5 T in “cuts”), will mean nothing to them, and they also have the opportunity, at that point, of raising the debt ceiling higher and higher.
Or, if the Republicans win both the Senate, and the Presidency, and maintain control of the house, they can then enact draconian spending cuts, that actually cut spending levels, instead of merely the spending increase “cuts” the current “deal” proposes. Very unlikely to happen, considering the GOP is headed up, and led by, establishment GOP types who are far from being true conservatives.
Any way one looks at this, the “deal”, and whatever makeup the 2012 Congress and Presidency will have, nothing talked about today is likely to remain.
Hey. This is a chess game of the highest order. We have won the opening by controlling the narrative while forcing a vote on the balanced budget amendment. This will be the defining issue in November 2012 as well as unemployment and taxes. We now have the opening advantage. We must not make rookie middlegame mistakes that ruin our chances for a winning endgame thus leading to a drawn position. That will be a catastrophic loss for us. Checkmate in the endgame is the desired outcome and that will be accomplished by increasing our ranks in the House, augmented by a Senate and Whitehouse sweep into GOP hands in 2013! Take heart, a grandmaster chess game is never won in the first few moves. It is an incremental approach leveraging small advantages into a won ending. Winning isn’t everything here. It is the only thing!
@blogforce one:
And that gets to the heart of the problem. That the politicians think of this as a “game”. Meanwhile, reality is happening, and the dollar figures being bandied about still leave our descendents in the future with uncontrollable debt, and possible destruction of the very country we live in.
What good is it to promote $2.5 Trillion in spending “cuts” as a “win” for anyone, when that will still bring us Trillions and Trillions more added to the debt in the future? Forget the game. Bring these politicians back to reality.
When a politician wants to pull the wool over the sheeple’s eyes they redefine words to obfuscate the truth….
Baseline
2. an imaginary line, standard of value, etc, by which things are measured or compared
Now it appears that baseline has been re-defined, in DC speak, to mean an ever increasing amount… NOT the definition you or I are familiar. a 7.5% increase in spending year after year is not what I consider “baseline”.
Just as marriage under historical definition is a union between a man and a woman… regardless of whether or not gays enter into lifetime partnerships… it can never be “marriage” by definition.
Remember when Ross Perot ran?
He forced the debate to turn to a different set of issues than it would have otherwise.
To THAT degree, Ross ”won,” a small victory.
So, too, the TEA Party today.
The TEA Party changed the debate away from ”for or against” tax cuts to ”how much will we cut.”
Now the TEA Party must move on.
There are other battles.
Winning elections in the House, the Senate and the White House should be the TEA Party’s new goal.
Otherwise any of the rest of their agenda of smaller government cannot come to pass.
Conservatives need to keep a full court press on big gov liberals with a continuous stream of bills between now & 2012 that outline more and more cuts to government spending. Dems want the entire debate of bigger vs smaller government to go away between now and 2012. Don’t wait for a commission to do your job congress…. press on even if the House is the only place a bill can pass.
@NanG
The Tea Party also needs to get the candidates they support to win in local and State elections. The establishment Republicans have also been put on notice that Tea Party voters are perfectly willing to replace them as well. We should send letters to the Republican leadership demanding that Tea Party representation also needs to be in on the committee that will be deciding where to cut spending.