I said this last night and I’m going to repeat it: CCB was the compromise. Boehner and McConnell — who’ve received no Democrat plan with which to negotiate, and are now feeling pressure to make some deal with the President, lest they get “blamed” for failing to raise the debt limit — need to suck it up and walk away from any further negotiations.
Cobbling together a deal that pretends to cut $3 trillion over ten years in exchange for a debt ceiling increase is a joke. And we all know it. Not only does it give the President what he wants at no real cost; but it further enslaves us to deficit spending and unmanageable debt, with no recourse to stop it.
The defeat of CCB — which the Democrats have refused even to allow a vote on, despite its being supported by 2/3 of Americans — is an perfect encapsulation of how the ruling class has learned to completely ignore the wishes of its “subjects,” and further proof that what was once a representative government is no such thing.
If and when our country’s credit rating is lowered, interest rates will soar and much of our wealth will disappear in the blink of an eye. And this is being done to us against our will by this President and his party, and the establishment deal makers in our own party, many of whom helped the Democrats and the media to undercut CCB.
The time for putting up with a tyrannical government that is no longer even pretending to be “of the people” — as the forcing through of ObamaCare and a failure to vote on CCB by a Democrat-controlled Senate clearly show — is over. The time for revolution is now upon us.
We are no longer free. We are the oppressed and voiceless, subject to big government tyrants and their bureaucratic enforcement agencies.
I refuse to be a slave. I refuse to be a subject to a lawless ruling class — or an object of their tyrannical whims.
I will act. I will resist.
And you all should too.
****
update: Said John Cornyn of the vote:
“The Democrat-led Senate’s failure to both produce a budget and pass the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011 underscores the Democrats’ irresponsible commitment to the status quo,” […] “While the president and Senator Reid refuse to produce a plan to deal with our debt crisis, Republicans will keep working to meet the nation’s fiscal challenges.”
This is exactly wrong.
The only “working” the Republicans should be doing now is going out and selling Cut Cap and Balance until the Senate is under so much pressure that it must relent. The floating of all these alternate plans — the McConnell Plan, the McConnell-Reid Plan, the Gang of Six Plan — gave Senate Democrats an out, allowing them to pretend that some more “sensible” and less “extreme” Senators had come up with more palatable plans, more “balanced approaches,” in that those approaches are far weaker than what in 2010 we overwhelmingly elected GOP lawmakers to do.
I suspect that the GOP leadership was never fully behind CCB, and that Boehner and McConnell will now rush to strike a “compromise” deal that will allow them to save face and claim victory — over and against conservatives moreso than the President and Democrats.
It’s pathetic, but it’s the way all the “sensible”, “sober”, “pragmatic” Republicans have been telling we “purists” “things really work inside the Beltway” — as if a description is somehow a justification for its own transformation into a rule.
Cowards, the lot of ’em. Including all the right wing sites who will inevitably grouse about whatever deal Boehner strikes before then switching to “explanation” mode, telling us how we only control 1/2 of 1/3rd of the government, and that really we had to take the best that we could get, because it would have catastrophic had “we” been “blamed” for the “default” that failing to strike a deal (against ourselves, mind; the President and the Dems have offered nothing) would have led to.
That is, they will once again embrace the paradigm of the left, and perform like perfect little puppets within those manufactured parameters. And the majority on “our” side will go right on reading and believing these poisoned conclusions.
Not me. I’ll just know who to mock and ridicule from over here in the margins, where those same types have worked to pin me.
It would really be appropriate for the credit rating agencies to cut our rating right now. We have just voted to run down the road to serfdom, without even discussing it.
We are no longer free. We are the oppressed and voiceless subject to big government tyrants and their bureaucratic enforcement agencies.
Had to see that again.
To celebrate this wonderful occasion, perhaps we’ll lay off a few employees.
If and when our country’s credit rating is lowered, interest rates will soar and much of our wealth will disappear in the blink of an eye.
That should warm the cockles of Barak’s cold socialist heart.
We can’t be out of money; we still have more ink.
Not that anyone cares, this was all written on the wall in 1913. At least.
Welcome to the wonderful new world of SERFDOM!
What’s next?
Will my Congress-critter claim right to “Prima Nocta” now as well?
None of the 23 Democrats/(I) who vowed, promised, made a commitment to their constituents to back a Balanced Budget Amendment actually voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment. They should be ashamed, haunted and eventually defeated by this vote.
Or at least have their photos up in the People’s Hall of Useful Idiots.
It does seem like the only bi-partisan concensus that exists in D.C. (other than incumbents come first) is that conservatives must be thwarted, doesn’t it?
As for the Democrats who passed on their chance to vote for the balanced budget they claim they want, I’m sure they’ll repent of it in time for their next election. It’s up to us to see to it that they’re returned to private life for their penance.
For years the left cackled about how Clinton the Liar balanced the budget. They lied then and they lie still.
Jeff, you do have a way with headlines.
This was not unexpected. All of the “sensible” and “pragmatic” people know that forcing the government to live within its means is ignorant and politically irresponsible. After all, Obama has proposed 85% spending cuts with only 15% tax hikes, but the GOP is just too stubborn to accept when they’ve won.
At least, that’s what the commenters over at Outside the Balloon Juice keep telling me. When asked for details on what Barry plans to cut, they simply point to his broad brush talking points. Even better, Robert Prather just yesterday proclaimed that this was due in large part to whitey dissing a black president.
I’m tired of discussions like this one:
Q: Why is wrong to suggest that the government live within its means.
A: Shut up-shut up-SHUT UP!!!.
Well, I am NOT a serf, nor do I consent to subject my children to a life of servitude. At this point, I’m for a Constitutional convention. Take the current framework, add in a balanced budget amendment, term limits for elected officials and SCOTUS and a flat tax rate. Codified, signed and ratified by 3/4 of the states with no need for Congressional intervention. The best part is that we could then march into DC and boot their sorry asses out onto the street. Today.
Of course, I’m certain that the people who’ve sworn an oath to defend the Constitution ::cough:: will pretend that the new Constitution is unconstitutional and illegal. Then it will be time to invest heavily in tar, feather and pitchfork futures. Heck, that day is today as far as I’m concerned.
Democrats do too support a balanced budget, they just want to balance the budget at 87% of GDP.
I refuse to be a slave.
Non Servitum.
— Paradise Lost
There seems to have been a mis-translation. The root servus means slave.
On the bright side, that Team R held the line is encouraging.
Just. Walk. Away.
Where did that happen? Prather? He used to be a real standup kinda thinker.
Link?
Which is why a candidate who knows how to speak directly to the American people — who has to speak directly to them because the Establishment Media won’t convey her message honestly — is potentially a much more effective choice for president in 2012 than some blow-dried pseudo-Brahmin whose main claim on the presidency is a face chiseled out of papier-mache.
Pablo —
If they just walk away, it’ll be because Boehner and his band of squishes buckles to the conservatives in the House rather than to the President.
I’m just not sure we have the votes to just walk away — though that is PRECISELY what needs to happen.
The only deal I’d accept right now is a short term deal that offers a dollar in debt ceiling increase for two to three dollars in immediate cuts — with the object being the intention to stand by ccb as the only plan we’ll offer in either the House or Senate.
That’s how you use leverage. You don’t buy into the left’s narrative — Boehner has told the President he “won’t default” just as before he told him he “won’t shut down the government,” two of the worst examples of good negotiating I’ve ever seen — unless you, too, accept the premises of leftism, however unconsciously.
We’ve seen that before. And lord knows I’ve been ostracized for pointing it out.
All this makes me think back and remember how nishi and thorazine went on and on about the reckless fiscal policies of the Bushies. We’ve got to get out of this mess, they said.
It’s funny, because I haven’t seen a liberal at any of the blogsites representing their viewpoint. They’re sticking close to their hive.
No mistranslation, mojo. In the ancient world, you didn’t hire the help, you purchased it outright.
Was that helpful, or did I just calculate the correct percentage of people in the room wearing glasses?
DeMint:
These people disgust me.
I’m OK with that as a precedent, which would actually be buckling to the will of the electorate.
What Pablo said in #22: Say “NO Deal” Mitchy and Johnny. Louder. Like you really mean it. Now go make Jeff Sessions a sammich.
My view.
What’s Harry Reid’s plan now, is he working feverishly to save working Americans from the debt limit crisis and Republicans? What’s that? Senators are already on
eco-friendly socially-just fair-trade union-made Government Motors Eunuchorn 2012 scootersplanes home? But what about the crisis? Amok! Amok! Amok!Carin nishi hardly ever talked about fiscal matters really it was never her thing – I’d be curious really what she thinks about our little country’s fiscal situation these days
This was Prather’s <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-debt-ceiling-is-a-housekeeping-procedure/#comment-1427044"first comment after he wrote his screed:
Yeah, I don’t get it either. I used really like Prather. Of course, he does say “I’ve been moving to the left for a few years now…”
Shoot. Sorry about the broken link tag.
Well, Prather now writes for a site that has a lot more traffic and is taken seriously as a “sober,” “sensible” site by GOP pragmatists. And yet the comments are populated by liberals and leftists. Imagine!
But hey, if my site’s trajectory has shown me anything, it’s that pandering sells, and not pandering doesn’t.
Which I guess is why they call it pandering.
Jay Tea (from Wizbang) noted that the new Like-Dislike buttons over at OTB were being used to pretty much hide most comments from right of center. Shoot, a comment by Donald Sensing was hidden to its low likability. There seems to be no end of love for lefty comments, though. It’s gotten so bad that some of the more honest lefties are complaining about it, saying that they might disagree with a certain comment, but it seemed cowardly to hide it. I’m sure that as the blog descends further into Balloon Juice hell that that position will change. After all, no one wants ugly sounds upsetting the echo chamber.
The “teatards” are racists who want to cut spending, cap it as a percentage of GDP, and put in place structural barriers to accruing the kind of debt that has credit agencies threatening to downgrade us.
THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!
Honestly. That’s the argument. Bill O’Reilly made the same pitch last night: crazy Tea Partiers simply won’t allow the President to spend more (and please, while I’m making this argument, bracket the demands of Moody’s and S&P), while everyone knows (well, bracket the 66% of Americans who disagree with me here for a second) that raising the debt ceiling is a simple accounting maneuver and means nothing, really. Racists!
You know what’s really racist? Pretending that the President’s race plays a role in anyone’s thinking — besides, say, Prather’s and those like him — with respect to the disastrous policies this guy has instituted, and the enormity of his spending coupled with his expansion of regulatory burdens.
Fuck ’em.
I have zero respect for former righties who moved left after Obama was elected hoping to find a new audience. I have even less respect for former righties who pretend that the TEA Partiers are hypocrites because they all loved loved loved Bush’s spending. This is demonstrably false, and it conflates establishment GOPers with the kinds of legal conservatives and classical liberals who’ve been writing online for ages now.
Purposely. And dishonestly.
But hey, OTB provides “sober” analysis, and so is a “respectable” foil to “our” “staunch” “conservative” sites — who will incidentally link to OTB at about 100x the rate they’ll ever link here.
Though we know why that is.
I’ve got nothing left to say, really.
Most prefer the pleasant lie to the uncomfortable truth, Jeff. I console myself with the belief that in two years’ time, I will be enjoying the reforms forced through by a majority elected by people like us, or I will be enjoying a quiet life up north, scratching out an existence for myself and my family.
Either way, I will definitely enjoy the wailing of my enemies.
God knows I want to hear more from Prather after he calls me a ‘tard.
OTB used to be one of my favorite stops, but somewhere along the line Joyner’s mentality made the blog’s title a lie.
Civility Now, you stupid fucking teatards!
I don’t believe it. I mean everybody knows that liberals are open to diverse and conflicting points of view, and relish the give and take of free and open debate. It’s clear to me what’s happening here is that right-wingerz are intentionally voting down their own comments in some misguided attempt to misappropriate the cloak of victimhood. I blame the John Birch Society.
Prather is a junior edition Krugman at least in this piece.
Isn’t Krugman himself a junior edition Krugman?
It’s funny that this Prather, who I for one have never heard of, thinks race is an issue in regards to criticism of Obama.
I’ll leave the philosohpical pandering bits for others to have at and simply note that the biggest loser in a fiscal collapse will assuredly be those at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder, which, statistically speaking, are heavily Afro-American.
cup cake and balloons is the only way forward
I console myself with the belief that in two years’ time, I will be enjoying the reforms forced through by a majority elected by people like us, or I will be enjoying a quiet life up north, scratching out an existence for myself and my family.
Where do you mean by up north? I think this is the last stand. The Cayman Islands are too small to take all of us.
That’s what you meant to say.
PG,
I thought the pikachu was referring to balloon fences. Maybe if we built a balloon fence and a mile high dirt berm around the social security trust fund, gramma and grampa could get paid on Aug 3.
Where do you mean by up north?
Lake Wobegon, essentially. I figure I’ll flee the Cities and take care of my folks up in farm country.
Lake Wobegon is a village of the damned, overrun with Stepford wives and children of the corn. It’s a midwest version of New Hampshire.
I have 1800 acres of farmland in central Illinois, so I can grow corn for ethanol and to eat, green bans, soy, and hunt. At least as of now ….
[…] goes the way of the Whigs. The only real, substantive plan — the real compromise, as Jeff reminds us again — on the table was CCB, which your fellow socialist ideologues just rejected. Saying that […]
What the hell do you have against New Hampshire, Ernst?
New Hampshire people stare into ickle Romneykin’s earnestly whorish eyes, and they get a little excited, a lot of them
You don’t know a thing about NH.
I know ickle Romneykins has a house there