We, the People cannot trust either Party to restore the Republic. The sound bite was that Round One resulted in an "historic deal." Shut down was avoided, and the largest budget cuts in history would be made. Really? Boehner went from $100 billion to $38 billion to $330 million. He sold us out to save the Republican Party. Obama showed he was willing to sell out our military and their families, and reneged on the "no money for Czars" deal. Or was their ever a deal on Czars? Was creative accounting the secret deal from the beginning? Someone is not telling us the truth: what a revelation. Next time, be transparent. Let sunlight shine on the process. Give us a transcript of the negotiations so we can see if anyone is telling us the truth.
Round Two opened with Paul Ryan (now this guy I like) throwing the first punches. Not to be outdone in the suddenly trendy cutting game, Obama presented his plan at GWU, even looking at the camera periodically (not only clean and articulate, he reads really well). Meanwhile Biden, guru of the next budget commission showed solidarity with the air traffic control union by snoozing on the job.
Mr. President, if Round Two is really about people starving and disabled children left out on the street, you win, we all agree. But it isn't about that is it? For you it is about preserving something much larger, and that is the entitlement mentality you depend on for votes. It is about "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." This Marxist theory has never worked, anywhere. In practice, it destroys the incentive to work of both those with ability and those with need and the system eventually collapses. Not only that, even if we "cut" $4 trillion from the deficit over the next twelve years the debt doubles to $28 trillion (check your math) and the whole house of cards still tumbles down.
The truth is that two thirds of your cuts are tax increases. They happen now. The only spending you want cut now is the military. SECDEF Gates' solution is to shrink the fighting force and put a lid on spending for critical space defense programs (God forbid we cut fat in the Pentagon). Other spending cuts come after the next election and, de ja vu, are mostly imaginative falsities based on creative accounting. Meanwhile, sensing disaster for progressives and his own outdated economic theories, Paul Krugman exhorts Democrats: "Let's not be civil" in response to Republican "cruel nonsense." What does this add to the dialogue?
Mr. Speaker, we didn't take back our House last November so you can save your precious Party. Get with the program or you will become a footnote in history in 2012. Your strong-arm tactics and smarmy back door deals do us no service.
Fellow conservatives - the adults who have been left out of the room - this is about avoiding financial collapse while protecting the Nation and actually helping those with real needs. The past two weeks have demonstrated, again, that political deals are phony. The only way to stop the madness is by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Round Three has already started. Urge your representatives and senators to get in the ring and fight for economic sanity.
