Drudge only had this headline up for half an hour this morning. It said: “Speaker Suicide: More Taxes, More Debt.” When I read it I thought, “We can only hope.”
I see two possible positive outcome over the fiscal cliff negotiations. One is that Republicans let Democrats take us over this so-called cliff. The other is that Boehner negotiates another one of his awful deals and loses his speakership over it. I would cheer either one.
Here is how I see this “cliff.” It is not a fiscal cliff, but a fiscal pothole. The true fiscal cliff comes in a few years if we continue this spending binge where we are spending almost twice as much as we are taking in. Regardless of how much the Democrats try to tax us, they cannot drain that much out of the private economy without that private economy shriveling. That is the true fiscal cliff – the financial doomsday. What we’re facing January 1 is simple Congressional mismanagement, not a fiscal cliff. It will be but a bump in the road compared to the looming catastrophe.
True conservatives are seeing this. Just Sunday, in our local East Valley Tribune, there was an op-ed by Tom Patterson headlined: “May have to fall off ‘The Little Cliff’ to avoid the big one.”
If Boehner were a true conservative, that’s what he would be saying, and he would be sounding a shrill alarm about the fiscal dangers facing the country, not the weak protests he currently makes.
I am tending to believe, however, that Boehner is not seeking the most conservative compromise he can get from the president. I think he is maneuvering to get the most liberal deal he can get Republicans to accept. That’s the only explanation I have for his seemingly weak negotiations. I’m open to someone convincing me otherwise, but I’ll need some hard evidence to get me to change my mind. Otherwise, I have to believe he is stupid. I don’t think he’s stupid—I just think his heart is not in it.
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Very true Dave. The sad thing is to call 95% of Republicans in the Senate and Congress “conservatives” on anything other than significantly less important “social” issues is just a joke. This is more than evident after the purging from important committees of the only promising real Tea Party small government libertarian-republicans like Justin Amash. The only hope for a future for republicans that doesn’t resemble slightly less liberal democrats is uniting with the libertarian/Tea Party base. We need to set aside military adventurism and the theocratic dictating of people’s personal lives to focus on shrinking government so that the tyranny of the majority no longer reigns supreme. Sen. Rand Paul has suggested repeatedly that several civil liberty and anti-war democrats would be willing to reach compromises with the republicans on reducing domestic spending and taxes if republicans would denounce their imperialistic foreign policy, which unfortunately Obama shares (that should be a sign that it’s bad). That would create a cross-aisle coalition that could get things done. The problem is both neoconservatives and progressives have their hands in the cookie jar (our wallets) and neither are willing to budge.
Response by David Hall
Yes, I don’t think the ruling class Republicans in Washington appreciate the depth of the disgust some of us have for them. By their weakness in opposing it, they are complicit in the impending fiscal collapse of our country.