“President Snippy Pants,” as William Teach calls him, evidently believes what America needs is more lectures from him:
While accusing the House GOP of wasting time by, y’know, passing legislation, our Lecturer-in-Chief uses his weekly address to issue yet another iteration of Democrat Party talking points:
Republicans in the House of Representatives just spent precious days trying to pass a plan that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate had already said they wouldn’t vote for. It’s a plan that wouldn’t solve our fiscal problems, but would force us to re-live this crisis in just a few short months. It would hold our economy captive to Washington politics once again. If anything, the past few weeks have demonstrated that’s unacceptable.
Any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. It must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people — not just one faction of one party. . . .
Now all of us — including Republicans in the House of Representatives — need to demonstrate the same kind of responsibility that the American people show every day. The time for putting party first is over.
One hesitates to spend “precious days” (or even precious minutes) fisking this, as the hypocritical falseness of Obama’s rhetoric really ought to be self-evident.
Let us first have done with Obama’s bogus insinuation that he represents the credible voice of “responsibility.” He hasn’t put forward any detailed plan of his own. Instead of providing a budget, he gave a speech — April 13 at George Washington University — in which he dishonestly used the phrase “my budget,” and rolled out the focus-group-tested phrase “balanced approach” (i.e., code for “tax increases”).
In his GWU speech, the president recycled the old-and-busted partisan talking-point that ObamaCare “will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion” (laughably false), and then infamously asserted that his “balanced approach” would “achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years.”
The House of Representatives on Friday approved a plan for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and cuts in spending, ending a week of intense fighting among Republicans and shifting the end game of the debate to the Senate.
The vote was 218-210, leaving House Speaker John A. Boehner with 20 Republicans who were unwilling to support his efforts to get a bill approved.
Urging passage for the bill, an emotional Mr. Boehner angrily accused President Obama and his Democratic allies of negotiating in bad faith for weeks and called the bill the only way to “end this crisis now.”
“All they would do was criticize what I put out there,” Mr. Boehner said, his voice rising during a rare appearance on the floor. “I stuck my neck out a mile to get an agreement with the president of the United States. I stuck my neck out a mile. I put revenues on the table.”
He added: “A lot of people in this town can never say yes.”
UPDATE III: Need a good laugh? While accusing Republicans of hostage-taking, White House press secretary Jay Carney expresses concern that “the economy has suffered”:
Where was Jay Carney’s concern for the economy while his boss, Obama, was wrecking the economy?
Justin Amash (Mich.)
Michele Bachmann (Minn.)
Chip Cravaack (Minn.)
Scott Desjarlais (Tenn.)
Tom Graves (Ga.)
Tim Huelskamp (Kans.)
Steve King (Iowa)
Tim Johnson (Ill.)
Tom McClintock (Calif.)
Mick Mulvaney (S.C.)
Ron Paul (Texas)
Tom Price (Ga.)
Connie Mack (Fla.)
Jim Jordan (Ohio)
Tim Scott (S.C.)
Paul Broun (Ga.)
Tom Latham (Iowa)
Jeff Duncan (S.C.)
Trey Gowdy (S.C.)
Steve Southerland (Fla.)
Joe Walsh (Ill.)
Joe Wilson (S.C.)
UPDATE V: Statement from freshman GOP Rep. Chip Cravaack, explaining his “no” vote on the Boehner bill:
Last week, I voted in favor of the only solution to our nation’s spending spiral to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability – the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011. We must be responsible now. This includes savings to projected budget levels, enforceable spending controls, and a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution to avert a debt crisis, national default, and credit rating downgrade.
This evening, I could not in good conscience support the Budget Control Act considered by the House because the numbers simply don’t add up. The legislation would enable our nation to continue borrowing on an unsustainable course without the savings it desperately needs, the spending controls to prevent a U.S. credit downgrade, or the guarantee of a Balanced Budget Amendment to ensure prosperity for future Americans.
Last November, I told my constituents in the 8th District that I’m a numbers guy. I gave them my promise and my word that “if the numbers don’t add up, I’m not voting for it.” My constituents know me as a man of principle, and the bill considered by the House tonight is a bad bill that does little to thwart our abysmal economic trajectory.
I applaud the bill’s defense of American working families and job creators and look forward to working with my House colleagues in the coming days to determine a path forward. I urge the House and the Senate to act judiciously in our national interest.
UPDATE VI: Statement from Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) explaining his “no” vote:
I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that puts the future of my grandchildren and of generations to come in jeopardy. While I respect my Republican colleagues’ efforts to come up with a compromise, the people in the 10th Congressional District of Georgia did not send me to Washington to follow the herd. They sent me here to protect their liberty and to fundamentally change the way our federal government spends their money. I do support a Balanced Budget Amendment, but I do not support raising the debt ceiling and allowing President Obama to put more debt on the backs of the American people. Congress needs to first acknowledge that we have lost all control of our fiscal house, and then we need to focus on finding a real solution for paying down the national debt.
UPDATE VII: Freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) explains her “yes” vote on the Boehner bill:
This evening, the House made history by successfully passing the Balanced Budget Act of 2011. This bill, which I am proud to support, is a fiscally sound solution to put an end to this spending-driven debt crisis and will save the people who sent us here and their families from a bankrupt future. We have now sent not one, but two bills to the Senate that promote both common sense and real spending cuts. If the President and leaders in the Senate are serious about balancing our budget and ending this debt crisis, they will allow this legislation to come to the Senate floor for a vote and be signed into law.
Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) explains his “yes” vote on the Boehner bill:
The Budget Control Act is far from perfect but the hard reality is that fiscal conservatives control only one-half of one-third of our government. This bill will make sure the President does not receive a blank check to continue his spending binge and the old ways of Washington, DC – blindly increasing the debt limit without spending cuts- are over. This vote is historic- it’s the first time we are raising the debt ceiling with cuts greater than the increase.
I learned when I was a solider at Fort Irwin National Training Center that when Officers waste too much time trying to come up with the perfect plan, they fall short because they are too inflexible or divided to see the path to victory. However, if you can come up with a 70-75 percent plan and execute it well, then you can win- and that’s what we have in the Budget Control Act.
The Budget Control Act is not perfect, but it is the 70 percent plan that my colleagues and I can execute to 100 percent.
It is now time for the focus to be on the United States Senate to produce a plan to take this country forward.
My fellow Americans, I ask you: If I had voted “No” on the Budget Control Act, who would I have been voting for?
After Pete and I made our friendly wager last night, my buddy John Guardiano started giving me flak about it, saying that among other things I was “playing into the Left’s eagerness to stoke a market downturn so they can force House Republicans to capitulate.”
Here’s the thing: I’m not making a value judgment. It’s irrelevant, as regards my $10 bet, whether the House should or should not pass the Boehner bill. I’m just acting on the knowledge that the market hates uncertainty, which is why the DJIA lost a total 484 points in the past five sessions. And here are the headlines in Friday’s papers:
Are you getting my drift here? If the DJIA was losing an average 97 points per day beforelast night’s big flop, doesn’t it just make sense that Wall Street will be having a Freakout Friday Fire Sale today?
Drew M. at AOSHQ says: “Tomorrow (Friday) is 2Q GDP report day. Should be fun. And by fun I mean, awful.”
The initial reaction to the Big Boehner Bungle from both U.S. futures markets and the Asian markets indicated my common-sense hunch was right. But markets are notoriously unpredictable (otherwise we’d all be rich), so it’s anybody’s guess whether Pete or I will be smiling when the closing bell rings on Wall Street this afternoon.
Despite the fact that 53 Senate Democrats have signed a letter vowing to vote against it, John Boehner is pushing ahead to bring his budget bill to a vote today in the House of Representatives:
The new measure depends on caps on agency budgets to cut more than $900 billion from the deficit over the coming decade while permitting a commensurate increase in the nation’s borrowing to allow the government to pay its bills.
Boehner acknowledged that the measure was hardly perfect but represented “the best opportunity we have to hold the president’s feet to the fire. He wants a $2.4 trillion blank check that lets him continue his spending binge through the next election. This is the time to say no.” Boehner made the comments Wednesday to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.
The vote won’t come until late this afternoon — they don’t want to risk scaring Wall Street with a failed vote before the markets close — and Boehner is expected to have to do some serious arm-twisting to get the 218 votes needed to pass the bill in the House. Jim Antle at The American Spectator lays out Boehner’s problems with his own caucus:
Bamboozled time and again by Democratic presidents and their own leadership, many rank-and-file conservatives . . . are unwilling to raise either taxes or the federal debt limit in exchange for phantom spending cuts.
Late Wednesday, there were signs that the speaker was quelling this conservative rebellion. Boehner revised the plan to include $22 billion in deficit reduction in the first year and to cut and cap spending by an amount that exceeds the debt ceiling increase by $17 billion, according to the updated CBO score circulated by the speaker’s press office. “Get your ass in line,” Boehner reportedly told wavering members.
They may be complying. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has at times seemed to be positioning himself to Boehner’s right in the debt ceiling debate, pronounced himself “150 percent” in the speaker’s corner. According to press reports, Cantor exhorted members to quit their “whining” and vote for the Boehner plan. “The debt limit vote sucks,” Cantor is said to have admitted, but it was time to “call the president’s bluff” by passing spending cuts and a short-term debt ceiling hike.
Thursday’s vote on the House Republican debt-limit bill has quickly become a referendum on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
It is, without question, the biggest vote of Boehner’s reign. Some are even speculating that Boehner’s Speakership is on the line.
Of course, any bill acceptable to 218 House Republicans may be impossible to get approved by Harry Reid’s Democrat majority in the Senate. All 53 Senate Democrats signed a letter to Boehner yesterday, saying the House GOP’s bill is not “responsible” and “will do America more harm than good.” Allahpundit at Hot Air comments:
So that’s how this story ends. With the party of endless spending and entitlements unto death lecturing fiscal conservatives on how they’re leading the country into a credit downgrade. Perfecto.
Harry Reid has his own plan, but hasn’t brought it to the Senate floor yet and, as Alison Acosta Frazier of Heritage explains, Reid’s plan hands Obama an immediate $2.75 trillion blank check in return for . . . uh, not much. Never mind the CBO scoring. Reid’s proposal employs a typical D.C. budget gimmick: “We’re going to cut X, Y and Z in year 7, 8 and 9 of this 10-year plan — and you can trust us to keep our promises, right?”
Yeah, Mom, I promise I’m gonna eat that broccoli casserole tomorrow. Now can I have some ice cream?
But this is all hypothetical anyway, because even if a compromise can be worked out between the House and Senate — and the Senate has so far passed absolutely nothing — Obama has promised a veto.
So expect a lot of hooplah on the cable-news networks, making the grand kabuki dance seem like a world-historic event, but passing the Boehner plan in the House will really be just the first tiny step toward bringing this mess to a conclusion.
Turned the TV on this afternoon to try to get some news about the Oslo terrorism attacks and instead, I get a hectoring and angry President Obama.
It appears that House Speaker John Boehner has found his spine and isn’t going to be bullied into raising taxes, and this has driven the president into paroxyms of inchoate rage.
To quote Don Surber: “Washington has more Drama Queens than a Barney Frank luau on Fire Island.” And Obama’s the biggest queen of them all.
No more interrupting the actual news with your selfish hissy fits, Mr. President. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress to ask “how high” when you say “jump.”
Get off my TV!
UPDATE:Linked by That Mr. G Guy — thanks! — and at The American Spectator, Quin Hillyer summarizes it in six words:
President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner rushed Thursday to strike agreement on a far-reaching plan to reduce the national debt but faced a revolt from Democrats furious that the accord appeared to include no immediate provision to raise taxes.
With 12 days left until the Treasury begins to run short of cash, Obama and Boehner (R-Ohio) were still pursuing the most ambitious plan to restrain the national debt in at least 20 years. Talks focused on sharp cuts in agency spending and politically painful changes to cherished health and retirement programs aimed at saving roughly $3 trillion over the next decade. . . .
Maybe my hunch is wrong, but isn’t it possible that all this is being waaaayy over-dramatized?
Here’s what I mean: The great Clinton-Gingrich budget showdown occurred in December-January of 1995-96, a mere 10 months before Bill Clinton faced re-election. By contrast, the current debt-ceiling battle is being fought 15 months ahead of the next election, during the summer, when millions of Americans are on vacation and ignoring the news. (Except, of course, the genuinely important stories about teen starlets and such.) Therefore, it seems to me, the current debate — and whatever godawful “bipartisan compromise” legislation brings it to a conclusion — is less likely to affect the next election campaign than was true of the 1995-96 showdown.
Something else: When Americans went to vote in November 1996, the economy was already clearly in recovery — the dot-com boom was beginning — and Clinton’s evident willingness to compromise on welfare reform stood him in good stead for re-election.
Now? Nothing I’ve seen suggests we’re anywhere near ending the Obama recession, and some indicators — e.g., “strategic default” in Greece — suggest the economy could actually be worse in November 2012 than it is now. And Obama’s poll numbers lead me to believe more Americans are seeing him as the problem than as the solution.
Of course, I could be wrong. But the Democrats who see this debt-ceiling battle as a predictable re-run of the 1995-96 budget showdown, with Obama replicating Clinton’s re-election triumph, may ultimately prove to be a lot more wrong than I am.
It’s a matter of public record that I did not go to Harvard Law School, but I can add.
The same “experts” who got us into this mess are now telling us that the only way out of our debt crisis is to “increase revenue,” but not by creating more jobs and therefore a larger tax base; no, they want to “increase revenue” by raising taxes on job creators who are taxed enough already! As Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That’s where we are now. Hard working taxpayers have been big government’s Sugar Daddy for far too long, and now we’re out of sugar. We don’t want big government, we can’t afford it, and we are unwilling to pay for it.
This debt ceiling debate is the perfect time to do what must be done. We must cut. Yes, I’m for a balanced budget amendment and for enforceable spending caps. But first and foremost we must cut spending, not “strike a deal” that allows politicians to raise more debt!
We should listen to the voice of reason: “We’ve got to get our fiscal house in order here in Washington. I’m not sure it’s going to happen under the current leadership.”
There is good reason to think that Boehner will be a much more formidable opponent for Obama than Gingrich was for Clinton.
So why were Reid and Obama so eager to celebrate Boehner’s compromise with his conservative members? The Democrats believe it’s good to look like a winner, even if you’ve lost. But they’re sacrificing more than they let on. By celebrating spending cuts, they’ve opened the door to further austerity measures at a moment when the recovery remains fragile. Claiming political victory now opens the door to further policy defeats later.
Yeah, don’t let the ocular sprinkler system fool you: Boehner would not have made it where he is without some savvy. Even Princess Pelosi has her low animal cunning.
Look at the tell: “it’s good to look like a winner, even if you’ve lost“. Hey, Ezra: Socialism is an utter, abject, systemic, historical failure. Utopia is simply not for sale at any price. If your ideas are fundamentally baked, then no amount of botox and makeup are going to bring more than a transient, superficial appearance of success. If you want to avoid losing, focus the fundamentals of winning. Crikey.
“. . .opened the door to further austerity measures at a moment when the recovery remains fragile.”
So we’ve paused in the drinking long enough to feel the first pang of the hangover to come. Now, we can reach for more tequila, or commence hydrating. “Claiming political victory now” is reaching for the former. And it’s not about “further policy defeats later“, Ezra: we’re talking about managing economic calamity. You seem stuck in theater mode, where it’s all about costumes, lighting, and dialogue. There is no spinning reality, Klein. Economic gravity is bringing the social welfare state crashing down, in the U.S. and in Europe.
The chief application of your writing seems to be a tool for rube identification. None of the people who have a clue, e.g. Sowell and Hanson, take you seriously. But keep paying attention. With age and sobriety, a clue may find you.
