As Boehner and the boys get ready to fold — surrendering to the President and the Democrats while refusing to represent their own constituencies — it is notable that this GOP establishment strategy comes with a hushed secondary effort, namely to remove fiscal conservatives from positions of power within Boehner’s House structure.
Because it’s the ruling class vs the rest of us, and conservative / TEA Party interlopers muddy up the dynamic in DC by actually believing in the arguments they’re making, rather than putting on a staged show of opposition, with the end goal being always to concede, grow the government, and then use the fact of the staged opposition to keep the electorate pouring money into the Party’s coffers. So they can fight the next critical battle.
It’s all a grand illusion.
CNS:
Conservative Republicans don’t like what they’re hearing from House Speaker John Boehner, the man in the middle of fiscal cliff negotiations.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says Boehner’s offer to raise $800 billion in taxes on the wealthy (partly by closing loopholes and limiting deductions) “will destroy American jobs and allow politicians in Washington to spend even more, while not reducing our $16 trillion debt by a single penny.”
This has, I’m convinced, been the surrender plan all along: tax rates won’t be raised, but effective taxes will be, as the GOP allows the cutting of legally passed deductions (now reframed as the more insidious “loopholes”) and then turns around and pretends it held fast on refusing tax rate increases.
It’s a cheap ploy — much like the show votes to repeal ObamaCare without any kind of use of the purse by the House to trouble its implementation — and one DC insiders hope sell to a public not terribly engaged.
But we know what’s happening, just as we did when we warned Boehner about the previous deal that has him now scrambling to renegotiate. When all he has to say is, “this is the deal the President and the GOP House negotiated. So it’s the deal we’ll abide. Oh. And we’ll also introduce a new bill calling for tax cuts on the middle two brackets. You know, for the ‘middle class.’ Harry Reid and the Senate can decide what they want to do with it.”
It’s almost as if Boehner is so concerned with how he’ll be portrayed by the media, that he’s willing to sell out his entire caucus and the near entirety of his GOP constituency for a few kind words about his willingness to compromise. Like John Roberts, he appears concerned about how his “legacy” will hold up when written by liberal historians.
Boehner’s deals have led to a credit downgrade (recall, against the advice of the Hobbits who warned that such a deal would do just that); and now a “fiscal cliff” that he isn’t prepared to go over, having tried to paint it as a dire emergency that requires new action. Action that will only exacerbate debt and deficit in the long term. Once Boehner is comfortably retired in Arizona, where he can put his tanning bed outside next to the pool.
In a statement, DeMint said it’s not hard to understand the detrimental effects of tax hikes: “This isn’t rocket science,” he said.
“Everyone knows that when you take money out of the economy, it destroys jobs, and everyone knows that when you give politicians more money, they spend it. This is why Republicans must oppose tax increases and insist on real spending reductions that shrink the size of government and allow Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money.”
DeMint says “big government” has created the nation’s debt crisis — and therefore, “big government’ is not the solution:
“Washington has a spending addiction that is shackling our children and grandchildren with unsustainable debt,” he said. “Conservatives fought for a balanced budget amendment last year precisely because we knew the political establishment in Washington would never stop their tax and spend addiction without it.
“However,” DeMint added, “if neither party leadership is going to put forward a serious plan to balance the budget and pay down the debt, we should end this charade. We can stop the fiscal cliff with the bill that House Republicans already passed that simply extends the current tax rates and replaces the defense cuts with reductions in wasteful spending.”
Too easy, Jim.
What the public craves, the GOP establishment is sure, is ostentatious “compromise.” And it’s easier to appear to be compromising than to admit that what you are compromising is principles and the country’s economic future. Or at least, speeding up its collapse.
Which, good show, old boys!
I’m getting used to being one of the only adults I know.
….yaaaaay.
In other words, I’m getting way too used to an uninterested public getting taxed more and more, being assured it’s “not their guy doing it,” and going back to becoming more and more a surfs.
I see it in my job, friend’s lives, and, of course, culture in general. The desperation to compromise first and ask questions always comes from a lack of true principles, something this country has in spades.
They should pass the house bill *with* the defense cuts PLUS the “wasteful spending” cuts.
I’ll start believing there’s a crisis when the Jim DeMints of the world start acting like it.
“Compromise first and ask questions later,”
Sorry. Not enough coffee yet today.
Cap’n Ed says people what don’t understand boehnerfag’s committee choices simply don’t understand the nuances of politics.
And he sighs wistfully as he pours a little peppermint schnapps into his ovaltine.
It’s the holidays, you see.
About that booting tea-party Republicans thing: wouldn’t it be funny if Nancy Pelosi found herself presiding over a Republican majority?
cap’n ed is a squish
Better dead than red has gained a new reading. Republican fashion demands royal purple at this juncture. Only Visigoth Hobbity purists clinging to their guns and religion wear red now.
Chirp.
Obsequious capitulation is now called “nuance”, is that it, ‘feets?
Are there no men of honor in the GOP caucus willing to vote that limp dick out of the Speaker’s chair?
Same as during Bubba’s second term, the GOP is behaving as if they are the minority Party in the House.
Fucking shameful.
There aren’t enough, Spiny, because they see themselves in that chair one day, when it’s “their turn.”
They’ll have to win back the majority first.
“Ernst Schreiber says December 4, 2012 at 10:44 am
About that booting tea-party Republicans thing: wouldn’t it be funny if Nancy Pelosi found herself presiding over a Republican majority?”
Maybe violently funny.
Tactically it makes sense to have a Democrat as the public face of the House.
cranky,
Two words: term limits.
If it’s good enough for the Presidency, it ought to be good enough for Congress.
Every time I think the only engaging I should do with a lefty is a quick butt stroke across the chops, I remind myself that I should probably start with those who are supposedly on my side.
Definition of a mealy mouthed two-bit phony: John Boehner.
happyfeet says December 4, 2012 at 10:20 am
They should pass the house bill *with* the defense cuts PLUS the “wasteful spending” cuts.
Then maybe you should get on the DeMint train cus there aint no bill passing the Harry Reed Senate. Much less one with any spending cuts.
Or is not-deity status the enemy of a pretty damn consistent conservative?
that’s why for sure they should pocket the sequestered squanderings
I would tend to agree, at least tactically. The new Congress could easily tie sequestration to Obama (hey we’re a new group here and didn’t agree to this sequestration delio. It’s your mess bub so you clean it up).
Hey ya spose all those out of work people that will lose their unemployment benefits will appreciate Harry Reed’s refusal to pass a budget?
The very minimum requirement for approving a debt ceiling extenstion has to be a budget approved by the Senate.
Doesn’t even matter what they put in it because:
1. The Dems socialist intentions will be exposed.
2. The House will pass a different budget and they will go to a conference comittee where half the crap will be trashed. (anything not in both bills will require a 5o% (+1) vote in both houses for approval.
and most importantly:
3. They will no longer be able to use continuing resolutions to extend the stimulus spending into the baseline.
Oh yeah, Bawlin’ Boner is about to do the el foldo shuffle. Purge in progress as he lines up support. No doubt he will weep at the unfortunate necessity.
Crocodile tears, m’dears.
the orange guy should propose a fiscal budget 2013 and go home and leave. harry and baracky can juggle it