Fiscal cliff debate shows Big Government supporters’ heads in the sand
January 4, 2013 at 1:46 pm in News by Dustin Siggins 19 Comments
In the wreckage of the fiscal cliff debate, the Tea Party has been consistently bashed as unreasonable, crazy, myopically focused on deficit reduction, etc. This week, two publications provided yet more evidence that it is in fact the philosophical opponents of the Tea Party who are ideological and irrational.
First it was a New York Times’ editorial responding to the final fiscal cliff deal, basically standing against any and all budget cuts in the upcoming budget debates:
Republicans say they are more determined than ever to extract the maximum amount of budget-cutting pain in the next two months by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling.
That’s a far more serious prospect than going over the fiscal cliff. Letting the Treasury run out of borrowing authority would mean a default on the nation’s credit, a catastrophic prospect for holders of government bonds around the world. It could result in further credit downgrades and lead to sharply higher borrowing costs. It is an unimaginable prospect for a responsible country, yet it almost happened in 2011 because of the irresponsibility of Congressional Republicans.
Oddly, the Times does not talk about how much pain will be caused if budget cuts do not happen, through the joys associated with high unemployment, slow economic growth, high taxes, higher inflation, and other results of massive debt. Clearly, the Times’ ideology of higher taxes and larger government is so disconnected with spending realities that it is completely shutting its eyes to the facts.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears to have also shut his eyes. From The Washington Post:
Reid and Obama had disagreed privately about what their next offer should be. At one point, Reid was unhappy with an idea that Senate aides said came from Obama — to put the change in Social Security benefits back on the table in exchange for a delay in spending cuts and a rise in the debt limit.
Aides said Reid actually tore up the proposal and threw it into the blazing fire in his ornate green marble fireplace. The paper burned. Reid said he didn’t want evidence that the idea had ever been considered. Administration officials, for their part, deny that Obama ever considered including the Social Security change in the deal.
This is a common refrain from Senator Reid. In 2011, he said “”Social Security is a program that works and is fully funded for the next 40 years.” He also claimed “the arithmetic on Social Security works.” In the nearly two years since, of course, the math has proven him wrong as the program’s financial troubles have become increasingly obvious. The Social Security Trust Fund, for example, begins to run out starting this year.
While it is popular for politicians to procrastinate changes to Social Security and Medicare, the simple mathematical realities are that both programs, plus interest payments and defense spending, take up two-thirds of the federal budget. Over the next two decades, spending on interest payments, Social Security, and Medicare will skyrocket. Reforms must be brought into play in order to prevent an entire fiscal collapse, and time is not on our side.
In his Thursday column, Washington Post columnist George Will articulated just how wretched the logic of Big Government proponents is, especially when compared to reality:
This state cannot be funded by taxing “the rich.” Or even by higher income taxes on the middle class. Income taxes cannot fund the government liberals want, and they dare not seek the consumption and energy taxes their entitlement architecture requires. Hence, although Republicans are complicit, Democrats are ardent in embracing decadent democracy. This consists not just of infantilism — refusing to will the means for the ends one has willed — but also of willing an immoral means: conscripting the wealth of future generations.
Given all of this intellectual dishonesty by powerful people and organizations who want to spend your money, it would be easy to be despondent. However, Will points out that there is still hope:
The media, which often are the last to know things because their wishes father their thoughts, say the tea party impulse is exhausted. Scores of House Republicans and seven first-term Republican senators (Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott) will soon — hello, debt ceiling — prove otherwise.
And there it is – America’s real last hope for avoidance of a fiscal collapse. Tea Party-minded Members of Congress have been manipulated and fooled several times in the last two years, convinced to vote for various deals that have done next to nothing for America’s fiscal irresponsibility. Will they do so ever again? It is doubtful, and thus America’s potential for economic and fiscal rebound has just gotten a lot larger.
Let’s see, the last time the TeaPublican terrorists played games it cost us an extra 19 Billion dollars. 19 billion. Think of anything you can do with 19 billion? Schools? Gosh…. health care?
Baggers and their TeaPublican handlers are economic terrorists. They should be treated exactly how we treat other terrorists.
I think the baggers are going to be in for a really, really rude surprise this time around.
I’m guessing you’re sufficiently informed to answer this question:
Where will the money come from to pay for Obama’s government?
To date, nobody on Earth has been able to answer that question.
So, tell us, where will the money come from to pay for Obama’s government?
The nation will begin to feel for the first time the impact of the Obama policies this year. The administration began the preparation process in its first term, and now will be unrestrained in its second term. Everyone acknowledges this. The feelings are that by October, the nation will begin the process of trying to identify a way to save itself and our Constitution. It will become clear that the leftist intended to become national socialist OR Alinsky type liberals and hoped for destruction of the country.
Today I am getting phone calls from Politico and other news services considering the votes in the Senate and House, and also how the TPP accurately predicted the Fiscal Cliff results leading up to January 3rd. I informed them that the TPP did not make a prediction. Instead told our organization what had already been planned between the Administration, the Democrats and the GOP Ruling Elite. I will not reveal how we knew, but the point is the outcome ended up being what we said it would be.
Soon the Tea Party Patriots ranks are going to be flooded with new disenchanted members. I wonder when the anti-tea party persons will finally call themselves Communists? They hate the words.. profit… freedom…conservatism… United States. They also never have an American Flag flying outside their houses/homes. Ever notice? They seem to think that words like teabagger or tea bagger intend to rile us. It never has, but for some reason, they continue to use it, despite all evidence to the contrary.
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bagger bagger bagger bagger bagger
When you say “national socialist” do you mean NAZI? As far as I can tell that is what the term means. I don’t think Obama is a Nazi. They are all pretty racist and don’t like Blacks, Jews or anyone except Aryans. Besides Nazis and Fascists are right wing. Communists and Socialists are left wing. Obama is left wing. So he is most likely to be a Communist or a Socialist
There is a national initiative by those who love liberty to curb the national debt. It is called the National Debt Relief Amendment (NDRA). Today more than 30 states are involved! Please contact me here or go to http://www.restoringfreedom.org to see what is happening in your state.
I just received prime sponsorship after a simple letter and one courtesy call. This is a great State-based opportunity! DC will never fix DC; it is filled with DCvers. The US Congress will not act to restrain itself. it is the duty of the State legislators under Article V to intervene when the federal govt misuses its authority.
Haven’t we had enough?
Great idea! But we should list the acceptable spending cuts. We can’t leave it up to the politicians. They won’t cut anything because of all the special interest money. Let’s not give them a choice.
Hellfire,
Good Idea. We shold do up a list and vote on them.
If we are serious about cutting spending we need to reduce spending Social Security $769 billion, Medicare $555 billion, Medicaid $259 billion, and Defense Spending $708 billion. These numbers are based on 2012 budget.
We can cut food stamps $80 billion, Unemployment $77 billion, Veteran Services $71 billion, Family Support $25 billion, Section 8 Housing $27 billion, but a Christian I don’t want to see people starving and living in the street.
Hellfire,
Yes, plus dead people on the street would be a disaster anytime near an election. Horrible optics. Perhaps the only thing that would sell to the population is that everything gets cut the same amount…say 5% a year. Fire 5% of government workers, military personnel, ships and tanks, national parks, everything.
Dead people on the street? You mean people murdered in Chicago?
Seriously, why can’t we just eliminate every new program since Bush’s first term? That would be a good start.
Jeff,
I live next to Chicago. The murder rate is half what it was 20 years ago. Rates are several times higher in New Orleans. See Wikipedia for correct statistics. Some conservative blogs have continual problems with typing accuracy and proof reading.
It was truly horrendous 20 years ago in Chicago. But, here’s the numbers for today, and comparing Chicago to a full-scale war:
From the beginning of the Iraq war to the end of 2010 there were a little more than 4000 Americans killed.
During that exact same period of time there were over 3800 murders in just the city of Chicago.
(That was after the reduction of murder rate.)
So, the truth is, there are as many people murdered in Chicago as are killed in a full-scale war.
And that’s after the murder rate was just about cut in half. Actually, the people doing the killing just managed to kill enough of each other to get the murder rated down to a steady-state condition where there are only as many murders as are servicemen killed in a full-scale war.
DB – your analogy is kind of flawed because you forget to mention the killed civilians and militants. Also, most people in Chicago were not wearing body armor or have access to medics and emergency helicopter evacuations.
I’m just listing the number of Americans killed. The Arab jihad killed a little more than 4000 Americans in a full-scale war in Iraq. During that exact same time frame, there were virtually the same number of people murdered in just the city of Chicago. Every major city in the United States has similar statistics.
Correct me if this is inaccurate, but a full-scale war was not happening in Chicago, yet they killed as many people there. And, if you just consider only the populations where the vast majority of murders happen, you’ll discover that the ratios are very similar.
Cut everything from the Police, Fire Dept, FBI, CIA, BATF, EPA, FDA, OSHA, SEC, etc…
Let’s make it a free for all!
Hellfire,
The world would be easier if we got rid of all government and money and went back to being hunter gatherers….. get up in the morning and hunt something with a spear for lunch. That worked well for 100,000 years. Of course paying your cable bill with 2 dead rats might be tricky if you need change.
Libertarians are kind of like that….go back to the old, old, old days when all the world was a paradise.
Hellfire,
Actually DBs’ thinking is very flawed. It’s rate of death per thiousand. The war in Iraq involved 150,000 people. Chicago has 3 or 4 million. It’s like comparing traffic deaths in LA vs. Dayton, OH.
May I observe that getting caught packing any means of self preservation in Chicago is a felony? Also, in every mass-murder on the news 2 things are constant 1 before the goblin showed up, the government had prepared the way by disarming his victims, and 2 that the politicians who did it are never held accountable for doing so.