by Don Surber:
Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden brought the nation together with their compromise on raising the national credit limit. Just about everyone hates it.
The left is upset because there will be $136 billion in spending cuts in the next two years. The right is upset because that is only 1.7% of the money that will be spent. Right now, for every dollar Washington takes in taxes, it spends two.
Republicans agreed to suspend the limit — allow the government to borrow whatever the deep state wants — until after the 2024 election.
“In exchange for suspending the limit, Republicans demanded a range of policy concessions from Mr. Biden. Chief among them are limits on the growth of federal discretionary spending over the next two years. Mr. Biden also agreed to some new work requirements for certain recipients of food stamps and the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program.
“Both sides agreed to modest efforts meant to accelerate the permitting of some energy projects — and, in a surprise move, a fast track to construction for a new natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia that has been championed by Republican lawmakers and a key centrist Democrat.”
That pipeline is nice but it does nothing to stop the spending spree. Ending Medicare and Medicaid funding of transsexual surgery would save money but obviously there is no one in Washington willing to call the trannies out. My guess is Speaker McCarthy still stocks Bud Light because the company is a major donor to his party.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined a group of congressional conservatives who are ripping a new deal to raise the debt limit and curb spending for two years – saying it keeps the nation on a path toward bankruptcy.
“DeSantis, who last week formally announced his campaign for the White House, weighed in two days after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the deal, which would suspend the federal debt limit through January 2025.
“Asked for his assessment, DeSantis told Fox News: ‘Well, prior to this deal . . . our country was careening towards bankruptcy. And after this deal our country will still be careening towards bankruptcy. And to say you can do $4 trillion of increases in the next year and a half, I mean, that’s a massive amount of spending.’”
Bizarre. We give the government trillions a year and it still isn’t enough to feed the beast.
“Fake conservatives agree to fake spending cuts. Deal will increase mandatory spending 5%, increase military spending 3%, and maintain current non-military discretionary spending at post-COVID levels. No real cuts to see here.
“Conservatives have been sold out once again!”
AOC is upset as well because the spending is slowing down. Oh no!
“We let government grow, but at a slower rate.”
Nearly 30 years ago, Newt said the same thing.
He defended this compromise.
“The agreement reached Saturday night between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden is an historic first step toward shifting government back toward common sense and conservatism.
“It is a step toward creating a smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, economic growth, prosperity, and more take home pay. All of this will also strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
“I emphasize it’s a first step because that is what I lived through in 1995 in our first year as a Republican House majority (the first in 40 years). Step by step, we got budget changes, moved from welfare to work, cut taxes, and reduced bureaucratic regulatory overkill. We launched a generation of prosperity built upon the foundations that President Ronald Reagan created in the 1980s.”
The parallel is genuine but Newt had a better hand. Not only did he hold the House but Republicans held the Senate as well. He also played his hand better by letting the government shut down, and even that led to the Lewinsky scandal.
Eventually — with the help of a little smoke and mirrors — we balanced the budget.
So now I am supposed to bore readers by Surb-splainin why the compromise is so groovy and to show off my knowledge by reminding readers that compromise got us our bicameral Congress and Electoral College at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
I won’t because compromise now sucks. Clinton and Newt held power in a time before Pelosi. Reid and Obama dragged disrespect and scorn into politics. They are as graceful as a drunken donkey.
Their hardball approach to politics is anathema to good governance. Theirs is a mobocracy where a majority of just one allows a ruling party to ignore the opposition, the Constitution, decency, and common sense by doing whatever they want wherever they want at whenever they want.
Therein lies the problem with defending this compromise because it is the only time Democrats have sought our counsel.
Where was the compromise on vaccine mandates? A Democrat Congress and a Democrat president ran roughshod over the Constitution as well as the practice of medicine by requiring people to take an experimental shot that was definitely not a vaccine as advertised.
The shot should have been limited to people at the highest risk of croaking from covid. I got my shots but I advised readers to make their own decision. That should have been federal policy but Biden is a bribed jerk who dreams of being the American Mussolini.
Where was the compromise on Obamacare? Democrats passed it with no input from Republicans or the public.