Posted by
Steve on Tuesday, August 02, 2011 9:29:28 AM
The House passed the bill raising the debt ceiling yesterday. The vote to pass was not close, but about 160 Representatives voted no. The 160 no votes were from the very far left and the hard core Tea Party members. That is an odd political pairing. Their reasons for voting no are as different as their political backgrounds would indicate.
The bill as passed is not perfect. No bill ever passed by Congress could ever be perfect. Just by the nature of Congress and the fact you have to compromise to get things done, you get imperfect bills. So, since perfection is not possible, you have to look at what you have to evaluate it against what might be possible.
Given that the Democrats control the Senate and the White House, this bill is probably about as good as we could get. There is a lot about this bill I do not like. The commission has too much ability to screw things up. The people appointed to the commission from the Republicans in the House and Senate is critical to its success. If the Republicans pick on merit and ability instead of seniority, the commission will be successful. If they pick on seniority and we get a liberal Republican in the mix, it will be a disaster. That remains to be seen.
The cuts to the budget are too small. We are $1.6 Trillion in the hole for this fiscal year. They are talking about reducing the budget by $1 Trillion over 10 years. That is almost nothing in the federal budget. The bill should have cut at least $500 Billion this fiscal year and an additional $500 Billion each fiscal year until the budget is balanced. Or, the budget should be frozen at current levels until the budget becomes balanced. The first idea will get us a balanced budget in about 3 years. The second idea will get us a balanced budget in about 6 years. Congress would need to make priorities in the budget to meet those goals, but they could easily be done. The first priority should be to reduce government spending that is outside the Constitutional authority of the federal government. Democrats would never vote for that idea as that would mean their dependents would have to actually find work.
There is a lot of work remaining to be done to get our fiscal house in order. This is nothing more than a first step. It needed to be done because of the irresponsibility of the current administration. Had they identified the problem better and worked to solve the problem before it became an emergency, this problem would never have come to a head. But, the administration just continued to spend as if there was no limit to how much they could spend. That brought us to the brink of disaster. Better planning would have averted this problem. As Barack Obama said when he was a US Senator, “raising the debt ceiling shows a lack of leadership”. That is very true in this case.
In a note of human interest: Gabrielle Giffords came to the floor and cast a vote in favor of the bill. That was her first appearance on the floor since she was shot in January 2011. It shows how far she has come. As one talk show host said yesterday, if she does not progress one bit more she has come farther than anyone expected. That is a great human interest story. The sad story behind this great human interest story is that some Democrats in Arizona want to run her for the Senate in 2012. They feel that the sympathy vote will allow her to win. That is just sick. She will not be able to campaign or fill the office for a number of years after the election. Whoever is behind that campaign should be removed from authority over her affairs.
Any Republican that runs on a platform of fiscal discipline and responsibility will be victorious in 2012. Any Republican that tries to be a Democrat “lite” will lose. That is my prediction on the presidential politics of 2012.