The Democrats Brer Rabbit negotiating strategy on the fiscal cliff

As a Republican, John Boehner scares me when he gets into negotiations with the Democrats. They run circles around him. He acts tough early on in the process, and then he caves and strikes the most horrendous deals.

Chris Wallace interviewed both Timothy Geithner and John Boehner yesterday on Fox News Sunday, and he asked them each the same question: Will we go over the fiscal cliff? Geithner said that it depends on what the Republicans do. Boehner repeated emphatically, several times, that there was no way we were going over that cliff. Wrong answer, Mr. Speaker. Oh, that answer was so wrong. What that answer says is that you will make whatever deal Obama wants to avoid that. And they will squeeze the Republicans till they bleed, you just know they will.

These negotiations remind me of the story of Brer Rabbit and the briar patch. Do you remember how that goes? Brer Fox finally catches Brer Rabbit with the tar baby. Brer Fox mulls his options of how to inflict the most pain on Brer Rabbit. Should he roast him? Hang him? Drown him?

“Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please,” said Brer Rabbit. “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

Which is just what Brer Fox then decides to do. But once he is in the briar patch, Brer Rabbit just hops away and calls back to the fox, “I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox.”

In these negotiations, Obama is Brer Rabbit, warning of the dire consequences of going over the “fiscal cliff.” But remember who Obama is, and put yourself in his shoes, to understand how he sees this impending “disaster.”

He is a statist and a disciple of Saul Alinsky. He wants to create dependence on the government. And he knows how to take advantage of disaster. Like FDR, he wants to inculcate the idea that the government will take care of you during hard times. So he relishes the opportunity that hard times afford to accomplish that. Could he have passed the stimulus or taken over the auto companies if there had been no recession? So what makes you think he’s afraid of another recession? To him, that’s more opportunity.

Look at the sequester deal from his point of view, the disastrous deal that is part of Boehner’s legacy. While the deal has spending cuts, are there any cuts that threaten the culture of dependency that Obama is fostering? No. Defense cuts? Leftists love those. And the cuts to Medicare aren’t cuts to benefits but only trim payments to doctors. You have to know that a lot of these leftists would just as soon make those cuts permanent and then pass a law that these hospitals and rich doctors would simply have to treat Medicare patients, whether they made money doing so or not.

And what about the tax increases? Do you really think that Obama and his fellow statists will lose any sleep over increasing taxes on anyone? Anything that brings in more revenue is just that much more of an opportunity to grow the government, which is what they were “bred and born” for. Oh, and it pains me that they can’t see it. No, they don’t want the voters to think that they want to raise taxes on the middle class. But the fiscal cliff is a great opportunity to accomplish two dear objectives: raise taxes, and blame the Republicans for it.

I watched a couple of the business programs on Fox News on Saturday. Some business analysts were discussing these negotiations, and I think at least half of them got it. They understand that Obama just wants to raise taxes. Rush Limbaugh is saying that, too. They’re right. Look at what has happened. Through Geithner, he delivers a deal-breaker message that now he wants more spending. Republican leaders in Congress see this as ridiculous. Do you think that Geithner and Obama don’t understand that? So why did they propose it? Duh, just think for a minute. It’s not that hard. They don’t want a deal. They want taxes to go up, and their plan is to blame the Republicans.

So what can the Republicans do? Just simply call it for what it is – keep repeating that the Democrats don’t want a deal, they just want to raise taxes. There is no other way to go. All Democrats have to do is nothing, and that is what will happen.

But Boehner, oh how he scares me. He is so afraid of the Republicans getting blamed that he will sell the soul of the Republican party in an attempt to make a deal. And he just might sweeten the pot enough for Obama that he will take the deal. And if that happens, I hope there is mutiny among the Republicans in Congress and they get a new speaker who can stand up to the Democrats. That would be the only saving grace of this situation.


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About mesasmiles

By Dr. David Hall. Dr. Hall runs Infinity Dental Web, a small company that does Internet marketing for dentists. He has had a long-standing interest in politics and as a college student toyed with the idea of a political career.
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