Reports of a Debt Compromise are Circulating this Morning

This article from John Podhoretz is very good of explanation of what is going on today about some of the Republicans we have in the Congress who will vote "NO" when they don't get 100% of what they want for their agenda.  I am still shocked that there are members of Congress and Tea Party leaders who actually thought we could take over the House, and we were going to bully our way into getting something passed immediately to roll back and cut the deficit when there was a Democrat Senate and a Democrat President. 

It takes two election cycles to make a real agenda change but these people are demanding it now or they will vote NO!  One of them, Bachmann wants to run for President on the Republican ticket -- we would suggest she would be better off with her mentor Ron Paul to run as Libertarians because being NO all the time is not what thinking Republicans are all about.  The best one is thinking the Balanced Budget Amendment is going to pass the Senate -- no way that is happening with this Senate.  Taking a vote on the BBA is one thing that should happen to set the stage for after 2012 but passing -- not in your wildest dreams. 

After reading this column by Podhoretz, all I could think is that he nailed it as he explains a lot of the difference between the common sense Republican conservatives where I belong and the 'my way or no way' crowd where you find Bachmann, DeMint, the Paul's, Lee (UT), and now Palin. 

Containment, Rollback, and the Debt Compromise 

John Podhoretz


07.31.2011 - 9:12 AM

As of now—Sunday morning—word is there’s a deal between the White House and Republicans on a deal to raise the debt ceiling. No tax increases. $1 trillion in immediate budget cuts. A required $1.5 trillion in cuts by November as designed by a bipartisan committee or (if the House and Senate do not agree on them) automatic cuts to Medicare (to scare Democrats) and Defense (to scare Republicans).

If the details are true, and the deal holds, it’s an astonishing achievement for the Right—the most significant conceptual shift in American politics since Bill Clinton​ announced his support for ending welfare in 1996. Without question, there are elements on the Right that will not see it this way—that will say the deal is a sellout, that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are craven, they are enablers, they are carrying Obama’s water. I’d like to suggest a political analogy from the past that might help explain why they are wrong and why they are being unjust to those who support a deal.

In the wake of the effective Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe after the second world war, the fall of China to Mao, and North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, American anti-Communism split into two camps. One camp actively advocated what was called “rollback”—the application of military force to force the Soviets and their clients to retreat from the countries they had overrun. The other camp supported the doctrine of “containment,” which argued for quarantining Communism within the countries that had fallen under Soviet domination and remaining in a state of cold war with the Soviets and their proxies.

Both rollback and containment had as their goal the defeat of the Soviet Union and world Communism. But the strategies were different. The rollbackers said the peril was so imminent the failure to effect the change immediately would lead to the inevitably victory of the Communists. The containment advocates said we did not have the means to roll back Communism militarily, but if we held the line, over time Communism would self-destruct owing to its evil, its impracticality, and its inability to compete with the free peoples of the West.

(snip)

The supporters of rollback were uninterested in the political reality of that moment. They believed the U.S. was locked in a titanic moral struggle literally between the forces of evil and the forces of good, and anything less than the commitment of all available resources to win the battle was a form of surrender. They were morally in the right, but practically in the wrong.

Today those who oppose raising the debt ceiling on the grounds that we need to solve the debt crisis immediately or we will be destroyed by it are the direct descendants of those who supported rollback.

Everyone on the Right agrees that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path that must be altered. The difference comes down to the acceptance of political realities. Just as the United States could not effect rollback in the late 1940s (or any time thereafter), so too the Right and the Republican Party cannot effect a revolutionary change of course on July 31, 2011 with the Senate and the White House in liberal Democratic hands. The strategy, like containment, must have a longer time horizon, though it has the same goal: Ending the entitlement state before it swallows up the rest of the country.

The conceptual triumph of the Right is evident in two elements of the supposed deal. Take the fact that there are no new tax hikes. It was only 12 days ago that Barack Obama​ warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor not to “call my bluff” and said he would go to “the American people on this.” He did; his poll numbers tanked. The “balanced approach” he advocated backfired on him even though he and his people continued to claim it had overwhelming popular support.

Now take the fact that in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.5 trillion, there will be corresponding dollar-for-dollar cuts. That establishes a new budgetary precedent, a rational and sound one, on the question of the national debt ceiling, one that will restrain presidents of both parties as we go forward.

So who are Obama and the Democrats in my analogy? They are the accommodationists of the early 1950s (and their progeny throughout the Cold War) who declared that the anti-Communist right was a hornet’s nest of crazy people who would ignite a war and get us all blown up. They wanted peace and harmony and cordial relations with the Soviets and their proxies just as the accommodationists today want to put their heads in the sand and refuse to face the moral and political and fiscal threat emanating from the entitlement state. Whereas the rollbackers were wrong strategically but right morally, the accommodationists were wrong strategically and wrong morally.

But those who advocated containment were right strategically and right morally. And their descendants are right to support the debt-ceiling deal. 

Excerpt:  Read More at Commentary Magazine

This article is filled with common sense.  We didn't get in this deficit over night and it is not going to fixed overnight.  There is little difference between the approach of the ones on the right and the ones on the left who put their own idiology first with their 'my way or no way' approach.  There are times you have no choice but to compromise to start the process of reaching your eventual goal of a balanced budget and no deficit.  Look what happened when Democrats controlled the House and Senate in big numbers along with the White House.  They rammed through the bills with no hearings as you had to pass the bills in some cases to learn what was in them. 

We just came through two years of that mentality but now some of the right think they can do the same thing.  They are not facing reality of the situation and frankly don't seem to care.  Both parties have to work together to solve the debt ceiling problem and the runaway deficit spending that started after 9/11.  The deficit spending took off big time after the Democrats took over the Congress in 2007 but we hadn't seen anything yet when they not only kept the Congress but elected Obama and grew their numbers to the point Republicans had a small voice.  There was no compromise, just runaway spending to repay their donors and allies and institute their socialist agenda.

Still haven't recovered from members of the Tea Party and the Palin letter threatening to primary Republicans like Lt Col Allen West and others on the afternoon of the vote on the Boehner bill.  Not a peep about defeating Democrats.  That seems to be a non-starter with the Tea Party leaders who are more concerned about making sure Republicans who don't follow what they want face primary opponents from the 'my way or no way' crowd while not saying a word about going after Democrats.  Is the goal of the Paulbots and Libertarians to take over the Republican Party along with the Congress?  We will have more on that in a later post as some research is already out there and more to come.

Republicans far out number the Ron Paul/Libertarian Tea Party members especially when you take away the Republican activists from some Tea Parties in TX and FL.    Those none Paul/Libertarian people are now being heard in the halls of Congress as they are calling and writing their Reps and Senators to get on board and solve this debt ceiling crises.  They are not willing to take a chance on what might happen.  The dire warnings are there.  You could compare it to a tornado or hurricane warning when they tell people to evacuate or go underground.  Sometimes it hits in different places or is not as deadly as they predict but along comes a major hit and some people are not prepared because they have convinced themselves it is not going to happen.  It is called not facing reality. 

Don't think you want to play around with default of the United States anymore than you do with a tornado or hurricane headed your way.  That would be foolish and why a compromise needs worked out -- no side is going to come out with everything they wanted but frankly that is what happens in negotiations.  Ever buy a house -- chances of you getting the price you offer unless it is full price is slim to none. 

It is time for Republicans who do not get out and demostrate, carry signs, or shout down members of Congress to be heard even more in the halls of Congress.  These are the people who work and pay the income tax who were dubbed the 'Silent Majority' a long time ago.  We will throw in some of the Independents who left after the 'my way or no way' crowd took over in their area.  Those common sense Republicans are being heard loud and clear -- negotiate, compromise to get the best deal possible, and then look to the future to elect more Republicans in the Senate and a common sense Republican in the White House to get the deficit under control and down to zero with making responsible cuts over a period of time.

You don't pay your House off in seven months after you buy it unless you strike it rich, so what makes anyone think we can cut all the deficit in seven months especially with our economy being so weak. 

Dr. Coburn (R-OK) has a plan he released, BACK IN BLACK, outlining thousands of detailed budget options within every federal department and nearly every major program that, if taken together, would result in savings of more than $9 trillion over the next decade.  Will all those cuts pass Congress, most likely not but Dr. Coburn will keep coming back and getting them a little at a time.  He understands how it works that you start small and then it grows.  He doesn't expect everything to happen over night but in the next decade.  That makes sense versus "I want it NOW" mentality.

This common sense Republican Conservative is proud to stand on the side of Dr. Coburn who understands to get what is best for America, that it it necessary in some cases to reach across the aisle and jointly work together to get the best results.  He is attacked from the far left and far right on many occasions.  Heard him called a RINO, sell out, traitor, for starters but words don't bother him and he keeps moving the ball forward a little at a time.