The Daily Gouge, Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

On January 22, 2013, in Uncategorized, by magoo1310

It’s Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013….and here’s The Gouge!

Headlining the mid-week edition, two opposing views of John Boehner’s debt-ceiling dance; first, writing at the WaPo, the AEI‘s Marc Thiessen describes what he believes to be….

An inaugural gift from the GOP

 

obama

You’re welcome!

They should be holding today’s inauguration on the deck of the USS Missouri instead of the steps of the U.S. Capitol, so Barack Obama can formally accept the surrender of the GOP. Before Obama even places his hand on the Bible today, his rout of the House Republicans is already virtually complete. Not only have Republicans capitulated on taxes by violating their no tax pledge, Republican leaders have now announced that they are capitulating on spending as well, by violating the “Boehner rule.”

All this before Obama’s second term even began.

In the 2011 debt-limit standoff, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) established the Boehner rule, declaring that henceforth Republicans would insist on at least one dollar in spending cuts for every dollar in debt limit increase. This may have been one of the most important fiscal policy innovations in a generation. The rule is simple, it is perfectly reasonable, and it is broadly popular. A recent poll found that 72 percent of Americans agreed that “Any increase in the debt limit must be accompanied by spending cuts and reforms of a greater amount.” Only 22 percent disagreed.

Most importantly, the Boehner rule is not a gimmick. Just following this basic rule could restore fiscal sanity to our country. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has calculated that following the Boehner rule would reduce spending by more than $3 trillion over a decade and pave the way for full balance — getting  the budget deficit to below 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and spending below 20 percent of GDP, by 2022. On Tuesday, Portman will introduce the “Dollar-for-Dollar Deficit Reduction Act,” which would codify the Boehner rule and mandate that any future increase in the national debt be matched with equal or greater spending cuts.

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C’mon….seriously; rules were made to be broken!

Unfortunately, House Republicans have already announced that they will violate the principle they established, and pass a three-month debt-limit increase this week without any spending cuts. Instead of cuts, the GOP will insist that the House and Senate pass formal budgets by April, or else forgo their Congressional pay. “The principle is simple: no budget, no pay,” Boehner declared.

Sorry, I thought the principle was “a dollar of spending cuts for a dollar of debt limit increase.”

Republicans claim this is no retreat, but they are not fooling anyone. White House press secretary Jay Carney celebrated the GOP capitulation, declaring the president was “encouraged” that the GOP was  finally ready to “back off their insistence on holding our economy hostage to extract drastic cuts in Medicare, education, and programs middle class families depend on.” A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the GOP move “reassuring.” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called it a “major victory” for president. And The Post editorial page welcomed the GOP’s “apparent abandonment” of their “economically nonsensical” insistence that any increase in borrowing authority be matched with equal or greater spending cuts.

Sorry, linking the raising of the debt ceiling to spending reductions is neither nonsensical nor ground breaking. In fact, every significant debt reduction bill in the last 27 years — starting with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in 1985 — was linked to a debt-limit increase. It seems to be the only thing that forces politicians in Washington to cut spending.

Politicians’ Tears

So why on earth would Republicans abandon that leverage, much less violate the promise they made to follow the Boehner rule on all future debt limit votes? Charles Krauthammer explained the GOP thinking this way: Many Republicans are coming to realize that they can’t govern from one house of Congress; the GOP needs to forget about forcing Obama to enact fundamental tax reform or structural reforms to entitlements and go for small victories instead.

Fair enough. So Republicans may not be able to force Obama to enact structural entitlement reforms, like those advocated by Rep. Paul Ryan. Perhaps fundamental tax reform is off the table as well — because Obama will use it to demand another round of tax increases.

But abandon the Boehner rule as well? Sticking with the Boehner rule would be a “small victory.” It is the floor of what the GOP should support in exchange for a debt-limit increase. This is not an idea coming from the far right fringes. If someone with the gravitas and mainstream credibility of Portman is saying that this is the path Republicans should take, maybe it’s time for the House leaders to stop and listen.

Then there’s the thoughts of the WSJ‘s editorial board:

Debt-Ceiling Melodrama

GOP leverage will increase once the sequester cuts hit.

 

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I’m not retreating….I’m just advancing in the other direction!

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing while expecting different results, Republicans may be learning from political shock therapy. Speaker John Boehner’s decision to postpone a debt-ceiling showdown is best understood as the GOP’s attempt to break a cycle of manufactured crises that have worked to President Obama’s advantage.

As early as Wednesday the House plans to vote to suspend the looming debt ceiling temporarily, allowing the Treasury Department to continue paying immediate obligations through May 19. The goal is to deny Mr. Obama his (false) talking points about national “default,” while increasing GOP leverage in the spending debates.

Such strategic thinking isn’t sitting well with some conservatives who seem to enjoy marching into the fixed bayonets. And then doing it again, and again. The critics are right that this is a retreat from Mr. Boehner’s 2011 “rule” that the GOP will only raise the debt limit by as much as Mr. Obama agrees to cut future spending over 10 years. But Mr. Obama isn’t going to agree to that, and the GOP hasn’t done nearly enough to prepare the public for such a showdown.

Mr. Boehner’s tactical retreat buys some time and puts more spending pressure on Democrats. The automatic sequester cuts that Congress agreed to in 2012 will arrive on March 1, causing an immediate cut of $69 billion in discretionary spending, to $974 billion. While this is modest in a nearly $4 trillion federal budget, and largely spares entitlements, Democrats and their spending tongs are already shouting in protest. Which is the political point.

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Spending is the problem?  No, I’m simply pointing out the color closest to my complexion.

The GOP’s plan is to make clear that the only way for Democrats to forestall these cuts is to agree to longer-term and more sensible spending reforms. Meanwhile, the government’s ability to fund itself (the “continuing resolution”) runs out on March 27. Mr. Obama and his party can either engage with the GOP on serious debt talks or contemplate a series of continuing resolutions that lock in sequester spending levels through the next election.

Mr. Boehner is also adorning this debt-ceiling delay with legislative language that requires the House and Senate to pass budget outlines, or see their pay withheld. This is a shot at Harry Reid’s Senate, which has not passed a budget in four years. The 27th Amendment bars a sitting Congress from varying its own compensation, so the House can at most withhold Members’ pay until the end of the Congressional session—January 2015.

This is a political gimmick to be sure, and the Senate’s many millionaires (Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein) may not care. But anything that forces Senate Democrats to begin showing their political priorities has its virtues.

The White House said on Tuesday that it will go along with the debt-ceiling delay if it passes. The Administration realized it could hardly complain it is being given the debt reprieve it asked for, and Mr. Reid recognized the embarrassment of blocking a proposal that requires him to do his budget job.

fiscal-cliff-boehner

The bigger test for Republicans will come when the sequester kicks in and begins to squeeze defense. We agree this will do genuine harm, but at least the sequester will show that Washington can cut some spending. And there’s zero chance Mr. Obama will concede on anything unless his own coalition feels real pain. As Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama also has a duty to protect national security.

Mr. Obama’s refusal to bargain in good faith means we will have an extended war over spending for many months. Sometimes a tactical retreat is the smart play.

We’d be tempted to agree with the Journal‘s view Boehner is leading a tactical retreat….if the Speaker had, unlike a French tank, ever demonstrated possession of any gear other than reverse.

Two other facts also incline us towards Thiessen’s theory; it was Boehner’s hopelessly inept negotiations that got us here in the first place.  And when has The Obamao ever used his position as Commander-in-Chief to heighten national security?

Should events prove us wrong, we’ll be the first to acknowledge Boehner’s success; in the meantime, we’re going all on full-scale retreat….which could easily turn into a rout.

Next up, writing at NRO‘s The Corner, John Pitney offers his thoughts on The Great Prevaricator’s obfuscation of choice:

‘No Single Person Can . . .’

 

Obama Debates Straw Man

In his inaugural today, the president indulged his penchant for straw men.

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or Communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.

Who has ever claimed that a single person could build highways or train thousands of teachers? The question is not whether people will work together, but whether that cooperation will take place though the marketplace, the voluntary sector, or the government. In his 1981 inaugural, President Reagan was clear on the role of government:

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

For more on the subject, we turn to Jonah Goldberg, also courtesy of NRO, who picks up where Pitney left off:

Re: ‘No Single Person Can . . .’

 

You Didn't Build That

John — if anything, I think you’re way too kind on the president’s formulation. I think you need to look at the prior two paragraphs to the one you cited for the full flavor.

I read the first paragraph as the usual lip service he always delivers right before telling you what he really thinks:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all societies ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

 In the next paragraph, we get the framing:

For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In other words, the old platitudes I just paid lip service to — and which continue to poll well — can now only be realized by embracing their philosophical opposite. In this case, individual freedom through collective action! Progressives have been trying to pull off this bait-and-switch for a century. New challenges are always requiring new responses that always require more government and less fidelity to established constitutional principles.

And then, finally, there’s the classic horrible analogy masquerading as serious argument:

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.

Huh? So  ”acting alone” — a.k.a. individualism or “individual freedoms” in Obama’s words  – are as outdated for today’s challenges as muskets and militias would be in fight fascism and Communism. There’s a terrible apples-and-oranges problem here. Muskets and militias are technological and organizational tools. Individual freedom is something altogether different.

(Also, the reference to “militias” was obviously deliberate in that he was clearly insinuating that militias are an old-fashioned thing, no longer relevant to today, a cute marker to lay down for the upcoming gun-control fight.)

OBAMA STRAW MAN

Then, as you point out, there’s the horrible strawman argument about “no single person.” This is a rhetorical constant of Obama’s presidency. The choice is always between the atomized individual or the loving embrace of federal government in Washington. Either Julia’s all alone, or the government has got her back. Any acknowledgment that civil society, families,  the free market, etc. are collective enterprises is always omitted from the equation. Either you’re the sort of reactionary fool who champions individual freedoms — indistinguishable from the sort of idiot who’d fight the Wehrmacht with muskets — or you understand that now is the time for collective action. The problem is that devotion to our individual freedoms isn’t merely a “constant of our character” (and would that that were still as true as it once was) it’s also a bedrock principle of our constitutional order. That principle is not like a musket or a whale oil lantern or an 8-track tape. And comparing it to one is a horrible category error.

One last point. As I suggested in the symposium over at Commentary, one of the defining features of liberalism these days is a renewed effort to merge cultural liberalism with statist notions of positive liberty. In several places in Obama’s address he makes the case that government is what, in effect, gives you freedom. That is what he is driving at when he says near the beginning of the speech, “history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing. That while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on earth.” And the way you secure those freedoms, Obama says over and over again, is through more governmental efforts and programs.

Which is, as we suggest above, straight out of….

images

Since we’re on the subject of straw men, courtesy of The Blaze, Mytheos Holt asks….

Can You Guess How Many Straw Man Arguments Were in Obama’s Speech?

 

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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/21/can-you-guess-how-many-straw-man-arguments-were-in-obamas-speech/

We won’t ruin the surprise, except to say it was roughly one every two minutes.

And in a related item, The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol details what he deems….

The Most Dangerous Sentence in Obama’s Second Inaugural Address

 

InaugurationDay

In an otherwise unmemorable second inaugural speech, I was struck by one sentence: “But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.”

Two points: First, our forebears were only able to “win the peace” because they first crushed our enemies in war. But under President Obama we’re not committed to winning our wars. We’re committed to ending them. Does Obama really think we’re going to win the peace after not winning the war?

Second, think about the formulation—”and not just.” Surely President Obama should have said this: “we are also heirs to those who won the peace as well as the war…” But he didn’t say that. The formulation Obama chose—”and not just the war”—suggests that Obama believes that it’s no big deal to win a war, and the greater achievement is winning the peace. With respect to World War II, this view is ludicrous. With respect to today’s world, this view is dangerous.

He’s one of two things: either hopelessly naive….

ObamaChamberlain2

….or:

Obama_ManchurianCandidateM

There’s no in-between.

Meanwhile, more bad news regarding the issue that concerns Americans most….

First Term: Americans ‘Not in Labor Force’ Increased 8,332,000

 

obama-eric gay-CROPPED

The total number of jobs The Obamao saved in his first term: his own.

….but which barely rated a mention in The Dear Misleader’s second inaugural address.  This is somewhat akin to Lincoln failing to reference the Civil War.

On the Lighter Side….

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Then there’s these three photos from the recent 2nd Amendment rally in Albany, NY forwarded by Carl Polizzi….

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….as well as proof positive provided by Bill Meisen that, yes, AR-15’s ARE in fact used by hunters.

assaultdeer

Turning to the Sports Section, a headline which we felt begged a question:

Danica realistic in move to Sprint Cup

 

Given her level of achievement, or lack thereof, if Danica Patrick….

09_danica-patrick_01

….looked like Janet Guthrie….

Janet Guthrie 1978 Bell helmet

….or had testicles, would she be driving for anybody but Yellow Cab?

And in News of the Bizarre….

French restaurant in Japan serves up $110 dirt meal

dirt660

So what?  Obama got Americans to eat a $6 trillion sh*t sandwich….and they just signed up for seconds….at well over 3x the price!

Finally, we’ll call it a day with the Environmental Moment, and yet another dazzling dollop of Liberal hypocrisy:

David Attenborough – Humans are plague on Earth

Humans are a plague on the Earth that need to be controlled by limiting population growth, according to Sir David Attenborough.

 

Attenborough_2458007b

Here’s an idea….

populationcontrol9

And feel free to take Al Gore, Lisa Jackson and a few hundred thousand others of your ilk with you.

Magoo



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