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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Congress shouldn't default on its campaign promises

I suppose this is good theater but we've seen this play several times and it not like The Sound of Music that could be viewed 6 times. The dour looking television anchors, the video clips of grim faced House and Senate leaders, and angry an impatient President have limited entertainment value. One hopes that those who got elected to Congress by running against the TARP bailout can find the courage and the rectitude that their predecessors lacked and just say no to increasing the debt limit without concrete numbers that reduce the deficit starting the day after their votes. In 2010 the public was promised that if Republicans won the House they would cut $100 billion from the current budget. That did not happen. In 2011 Republicans ensured small spending cuts by virtue of the sequester. In spite of that victory deficits are predicted begin growing again in 2 years.
Not one Republican got elected to Congress in 2010 by promising to tinker with Social Security and the Consumer Price Index. Not one Republican got elected by promising to moderate his principles to win favor with the opposition. Not one Republican was sent to Washington to achieve some go to hell grand bargain that postpones the day of reckoning several years longer. Yes, the so called "adults in the room" or "cooler heads" who want to spend the country into oblivion will curse, editorial writers will fume and the President will think of dirtier tricks to play on the long suffering, American public but history will ask why Congress did not have the courage to discharge its constitutional duties.
There is no reason in fact to believe that any spending by this administration will conform its intended and legally mandated purpose. In Obamacare alone there are three flagrant violations; the employer mandate, income verification, and subsidies to Congress and staff that violate the letter of the law. Immigration laws are not enforced. Criminal investigations into IRS malfeasance are not pursued. Giving more money too this administration will not make the nation better off. One simply does not give money to people who have proven themselves untrustworthy.
To the argument that Congress must raise the debt limit so the country can pay its bills. Bunk. The President has signed only a few appropriations bill dealing with military pay and a few other small items. He has no discretionary spending beyond that until a CR is passed. Pull the spending bills that have not been passed and rewrite them to fit incoming revenue. Eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Labor and trim the remaining budgets to fit revenue projections.
Unreasonable? Hardly. The lack of tax revenue is the result of a slow growing economy that has been fettered by regulation to the point of paralysis. It is willful economic sabotage. If the administration had elected not to impede economic progress the situation would not be so dire. The administration has had 3 years to enact the recommendations of the Simpson Bowles Committee yet it did nothing.
The obligations of Congress extend well beyond pleasing a corrupt media and a vainglorious president. Man up!

1 comment:

  1. Great summary. Even a Senator Obama acknowledged the advantages of holding the line on the debt ceiling. I guess we'll find out soon who the cowards are.

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