The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

REPORT: Deal Struck, Averts Shutdown (Insert ’30 Pieces of Silver’ Joke Here)

Posted on | April 8, 2011 | 81 Comments

I’d been planning to go to bed early but stayed awake long enough to catch this:

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said tonight that lawmakers have agreed on a temporary extension of government funding, averting a government shutdown while Congress considers a longer-term budget agreement.
Boehner made the same announcement during a very brief statement on Capitol Hill, little more than an hour before the midnight expiration of the continuing resolution that is currently funding the government; Boehner said the House will vote on the extension later tonight.

So now I guess I’ll stay up late enough to figure out how many magic beans Boehner got for the family cow.

UPDATE: Knife, back, some assembly required:

House Speaker John Boehner said he had reached agreement with the White House to avert the shutdown with barely more than an hour to spare, officials said.
“I am pleased that Senator Reid and I and the White House have been able to come to an agreement that will in fact cut spending and keep our government open,” he told reporters.
“I expect the House will vote tonight on a short term resolution into next week to allow some time for this agreement to be put together in legislative form and be brought to the floor of the Senate and the House for a vote.” . . .
The overall accord removed what Democrats had characterised as the biggest stumbling block – a Republican-crafted measure stripping federal funding from the Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.

GOP Leaders: Standing Firmly for Our Lack of Principles!

UPDATE II: This irritated me:

OK, fine: Then show me one important liberal criticizing Obama and Democrats for giving up too much on this “compromise.” You can’t, because the Democrats gave up exactly nothing.

It is therefore not a “compromise” in any meaningful sense of the word, which is why there is not one peep of criticism from, inter alia, Alan Colmes.

Ace shrugs in weary exhaustion, and that’s OK, just so long as nobody expects us to pretend that the GOP has done anything meaningful to live up to its fiscal-conservative rhetoric.

UPDATE III: More details emerge:

After a long day of trading offers, the White House and House Republicans reached agreement Friday night on a budget framework that would cap 2011 appropriations near or below $1.050 trillion while cutting domestic and foreign aid by more than $40 billion from the rate of spending at the beginning of this Congress.

UPDATE IV: OK, thanks to Twitter friends who told me that Ezra Klein is unhappy with the deal:

Boehner’s the political winner here. Managed his caucus. Got dems to agree to more than expected. Averted a shutdown. He was very effective.

And in response to Obama’s speech, Klein says:

Listening to this speech, you’d think Obama was the one arguing for larger cuts.

And Klein doesn’t like Democratic leaders’ spin:

Shorter dems: these cuts we’ve been resisting and denouncing for months are historic and we’re proud to be passing so many of them.

So there we have exactly one important liberal criticizing the deal. I suppose we’ll have 100 more within a few hours, once Klein sends the secret bat-signal to all his JournoList buddies: “You must denounce Democrats as half-hearted weaklings!”

UPDATE V: “Historic” spending cuts, Harry Reid declares. The cuts aren’t as deep as those knives in our backs, but . . .

UPDATE VI: The following really deserves its own post. John Tabin named Ben Adler as one of the liberals disgruntled by the “compromise”:

Did I say it deserved its own post? No, it deserves an entire book: Why It’s Impossible to Discuss Economics With a Keynesian.

Ben Adler, you fucking moron* misguided young person: How does deficit reduction take money out of the economy?

The federal government doesn’t have a Magic Pot O’ Money and, contrary to whatever Ben Bernanke apparently believes, it can’t create money from thin air. Every dime that the federal government spends must come from one of three sources:

  1.  Taxation, which obviously takes money out of the economy.
  2. Borrowing (i.e., deficit spending), which also takes money out of the economy, in the form of drains on investment. Money that is spent by private investors to buy government debt (i.e., bonds) is money not available to private business either as loans or as investment capital (stock).
  3. Inflation, which devalues currency and thereby — yes, you guessed it — takes money out of the economy.

So Ben Adler’s idea that reducing the annual deficit means “taking all this money out of the economy” has no basis in reality.

UPDATE VII: Philip Klein declares this The Best Doggone Compromise in the Entire History of Compromises. Why, it’s even better than the Three-Fifths Compromise, which is to this day beloved by connoisseurs of compromise everywhere.

UPDATE VIII: Fire Andrea Mitchell says, “Boehner caves as expected.”

Here is a simple suggestion: Let Boehner survey the GOP House caucus and find out how many “yes” votes he has for this deal. If it’s not a majority, then Obama and Nancy Pelosi should guarantee enough House Democrat votes to pass it. So if there are 50 Republicans in a mood to vote “no,” that would mean Pelosi has 27 Democrat “yes” votes.

House Republicans who oppose the “compromise” should publicly declare themselves as “no” votes immediately, so that Pelosi is forced to put some skin into this game. Otherwise, just kill the damned deal and let’s start from scratch.

(* — John Tabin criticized my use of “fucking moron” to describe Ben Adler. Because I was once so stupid myself — and didn’t wise up until I was in my mid-30s — I use the term with the avuncular affection of an ex-fucking moron who wishes to discourage young people from persisting in error.)

UPDATE IX: When you get this high into the Roman-numeral updates, it’s serious news. Our friends at Uncoverage comment:

Did John Boehner “cave?” Well, yes, but that assumes that he didn’t plan to do what he did all along. Is $39 billion a significant cut? No. But it’s more than ever done before. In the context of saving America, we need to be talking about trillions, not billions.

I’m less enraged by the dollar amount than by the fact that Republican leaders appear to have used pro-lifers as a bargaining chip whose principles could be bartered away. But my devoutly Catholic friend Da Tech Guy is actually encouraged by Boehner’s Bargain, so maybe I’m misreading this.

Linked by Political Junkie Mom and by Reaganite Republican and, of course, welcome, Instapundit readers!


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Category: Barack Obama, Budget, John Boehner

Comments

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Nospam, there’s no reasoning with t[rol]ld[umbass]perk, so don’t concern yourself.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Nospam, there’s no reasoning with t[rol]ld[umbass]perk, so don’t concern yourself.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Hey! RR, that’s insulting the gals I used to know who pulled their skirts up over their heads! At least they did it for a a good reason.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    In politics, sometimes the symbolism is more important.

    The view most people see in The Stupid Party’s cave-in.

  • Anonymous

    This cut isn’t even a half glass full vs half glass empty argument. We are talking drops in a bucket. All they did was get the vector pointing in the right direction, but they only achieved a snails velocity, all-the-while the avalanche of debt is barreling down the mountain side toward us. Yes, this was a gleam, a glint, but no light as of yet.

  • Anonymous

    You’ve completely missed my point, cutting $100 or $60 or $38.5 billion was always peanuts. What was ALLWAYS the real battle was what programs were cut and what those cuts stopped the administration from doing. Defunding planned parenthood was largely symbolic in that it would be years before any effect on the number of abortions if ever. Defunding PP might have forced it to reduce the amount of money it launders for Democratic campaigns. Cutting even $100 billion would have no appreciable effect on our deficits. Allowing the EPA to exist in general and regulate carbon in particular will cost us hundreds of billions. Allowing the FCC to implement net neutrality even after a court has ruled they have no jurisdiction will stifle innovation and lead to less freedom. There are other Riders that were crucial to thwarting the coup de tat.

    But perhaps the most crushing defeat for Conservatives and our Republic is that the government wasn’t shutdown. Shutting down the government is an important goal in and of itself. It is the only weapon we had, now the Bolsheviks know we are afraid to wield it. As soon as possible the Republican needed to engineer a shutdown over something trivial, like naming a mailbox just to prove they were willing to be that petty merely to prove a point. That’s how you fight and win when the odds are completely against you. When your weapons are limited but powerful there is no substitute for a ruthless, brutal if necessary, dedication to the task at hand.

    The Republicans have established beyond dispute that they are spineless cretins, cowardly poltroons, sheep in wolf’s clothing, scrofulous dilettantes effecting the attributes of leadership with none of the qualities.

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  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    I’m sorry, I just can’t agree with that. I agree with what you said about shutting down the government, but not doing it over “something trivial”. If you’re going to shut down the government, that’s in most people’s minds a serious matter, and it needs to be done for a serious reason, otherwise we look like a bunch of ideological lunatics. And like I said, Planned Parenthood can certainly be a part of the package of reasons we shut down the government, but it would be the worse single reason I could imagine. Like it or not, most Americans are in favor of limited abortion rights, so shutting down the government solely or mostly over that would be political suicide.

    If you want to shut down the government to put a stop to the EPA, I could certainly get behind that, but you need to be solidly upfront about it with the American people. You need to go into detail as to why you want to do it and why you are willing to do it. You need to have well-known pundits getting behind you on all the talk shows, writing op-ed pieces, even engaging in town hall formats. Have some of your allies buy some advertising time. Get the message out and make sure its heard.

    You can’t just do shit like this and expect people to read between the lines, because frankly, most people aren’t that bright to begin with. You need to explain things to them, comprehensively, and you need to do it solidly, continually, and you have to stay on message.

    And you need to do it over reasons that most people can support, or can be persuaded to support.

  • Anonymous

    Tripe and nonsense, Speaker McClellan and the house don’t need anything from the Senate to shut down the government. As long as these numbnuts who pretend to conservatism are afraid to use the only effective weapon they have they will take it any way the Bolsheviks want them to, our Republic and it’s economy will pay the price.

    Your comment presupposes that getting a deal and not shutting down the Government was a priority. True strength in negotiations derives from the willingness to walk away with no deal, this requires nerve and courage.

  • Anonymous

    They’ll cave on the 2012 budget too because they lack character and the will to win.

  • Anonymous

    That is exactly why they have to be willing to shut down the government, nay embrace it joyously, till January 2013 if required.
    Does anybody understand “Will” anymore.
    Some may say refusing to compromise would be “stubborn to a fault” I say refusing to capitulate is being “stubborn to a virtue”.

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  • Anonymous

    This fight, the spending cuts was NEVER about deficits. Spending cuts and restrictions to specific actions and agencies is what this battle was supposed to be about. I didn’t vote for my Congresswoman so we could save a dime or two but to stop the Bolsheviks from implementing their agenda. It is not, it will not be about the money until after 2013. We have no reason to believe the pubs will have the stomach for that fight either.

  • Anonymous

    How are we to get these clowns to abolish an entire department when they lack the will to stop the EPA from illegally regulating carbon?

  • http://www.facebook.com/sandro.rettinger Sandro Rettinger

    It’s the sort of compromise Democrats are used to winning. We taught them well by “compromising” on gun control.

    http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2010/09/ok-ill-play.html

    The Dawg explains it better than I.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    By the way, am I missing something here, or aren’t Boehner and the Republicans actually in charge of drawing up the spending bills this year? If they really wanted to cut back on spending, why didn’t they? A sixty billion dollar reduction is an insult.

    Face it, Boehner doesn’t really want to cut spending. Neither do a lot of GOP House members, including my Congressman, Hal Rogers, who is one of the Masters of The Universe when it comes to pork. These guys ain’t playing that shit. I want them to cut the FDA, totally do away with it, but I might as well be pissing in the wind, because I can’t even get anybody to discuss the matter. I damn sure ain’t going to get anybody to bring it up for discussion in the House of Senate just on my say-so. But I shouldn’t have to. These great bastions of conservatism who call themselves Republican should do that. Do you reckon it could be because Big Ag has too many Republicans in their hip pockets? After all, they aren’t hurt by the FDA’s bullshit, they can absorb it and pass it on. A struggling family farm or some guy that makes a regional cheese can’t do that great even if the FDA doesn’t shut them down to start out with. Makes you wonder.

  • Anonymous

    The purpose of a shut down over something trivial is to demonstrate determination and a ruthless dedication to principle.
    Defunding PPH isn’t about abortion rights it’s about not humoring the delusion that federal dollars don’t pay for abortions. Defunding PPH would have little affect on abortion availability. That doesn’t mean we should subsidise it.
    Pundits are pointless, most of the people who need educating don’t watch news and opinion shows and rarely read anything at all. We don’t need public support in the beginning of an action but at the end. The Republicans are afraid of a shutdown because they fear for their jobs, the Social Democrats are afraid of a shutdown because they think all government serves a useful purpose they are afraid the takers will turn on them. They have no principles, unfortunately neither do our guys. If our people would stand and fight for the principles they espouse they’d triumph in the end because there is strength in being correct.

  • Nosheepleshere

    Gleefully linked at NSH. Loved the line: Knife, back. Some assembly required.

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Quoted from Stacy, Dandapani, and Adobe, and Linked to at:
    The Song Remains The Same

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  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Yeah Adobe, (Reply to below) but the problem is, the pundits and others aren’t even talking about it on the shows to the people who DO watch them, or who DO read the press. Its just the same endless formulaic soundbites, with no detail. Let’s hear them get out there and say lets do away with the EPA and the FDA, and others. They won’t do it. Why do you think that is? Because they are afraid, maybe with damn good reason, that the people in general won’t like it. But they won’t even try to sell it to begin with. Most people should want Social Security to be privatized, if for no other reason than that would keep the government from raiding it for other purposes. But the Republicans don’t have the balls to try to sell it on that principle, with a few exceptions. Its going to take more than a few exceptions, its going to take a complete takeover of the party, but there again, you need somebody that knows how to explain this shit, and sell it, and that will take some time. And a lot of effort.

  • Droid-ist

    I’ve noticed, during my yrs of watching the Establishment Pingpong matches that “The 1st Cut’s The Bravest!”.
    Boner, that crafty fox, has set the tone. I doubt we’ll see a better performance from him as head.

    I don’t *want* a Third Party, but the GOP keeps insisting they can’t do The Hard Work. In this life, there will always be oppossition. When you are attempting some Good, opposition will spring up from the ground around you like sown dragon’s-teeth. Boner (R, Establishment) won’t do that… all that opposition would interfere w/attendance at DC’s Social Functions… can’t have that, can we?

    As with drilling for oil, where the argument is “it will take 10yrs before you can get oil”, the argument against a party built on sustaining actual Constitutional Principles is “you’ll lose *this* election!”
    Prithee, what difference Gentlemen & Ladies? And, Oh! If we’d started when the need was first strongly upon us, where would we be but pumping that “oil” now? Or, to put it plainly: we’d have a party that as part of its nature, would work for Our Nation’s good!
    And to those inevitable few who say that this new party would resemble the current “Column A” Progressive (the ones with “R” after their name) vs. “Column B” Progressives (the Donks) I say:
    NOPE. As a Citizenry forewarned, we’d work to limit the internal rules that allow for the gathering of Statist Power in the party. Thete wouldn’t be a way (initially, anyhow) to game the rules to suppress competition.

    Notice THAT: it *isn’t* ideas, principles, and the understanding of them that allows promotes advancement today — in either party — but an over regulation of the same sort that these types favour to be used by Government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

    How could it be any clearer that Progressives have infected *both* parties, and the host, btw, is nearly dead.

    It might be too late. God grant us that it is not!

  • Anonymous

    “Come, my friends.
    ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
    Push off, and sitting well in order smite
    the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
    To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
    Of all the western stars, until I die.
    It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
    It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
    And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
    Though much is taken, much abides; and though
    We are not now that strength which in old days
    Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—
    One equal temper of heroic hearts,
    Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ”

    Tennyson

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