Conservative “Tea Party” congressman Joe Walsh from Illinois told CNN today that he will be voting against the deal to struck by the White House and congressional leaders to prevent default. For the first time in it’s history, the United States risks a lowering of it’s AAA credit rating, as well as welching on it’s foreign debt. If the deal does not pass, Americans will see interest rates increase, government come to a screeching halt, and benefit checks disappear.
What makes Rep. Walsh’s comment interesting is that regardless of his adamant disapproval of the bargain, he still believes that the bill is a win for Republicans and a loss for the President and Democrats. If you are confused by his reasoning, you are not alone.
This type of faulty logic runs rampant amongst the “Tea Party” caucus in congress. The delusional idea that you can oppose a bill, and still benefit from it’s passage is one symptom of everything that is wrong with this group of far right freshmen.
The bottom is, this is in fact a bargain. Americans love divided government because it forces our leaders to compromise. But when you have a fringe group of partisan extremists who do not understand their obligation to make government work, government doesn’t work. After all, they were elected on the premise that government is the source of our nation’s problems. It is like having an umpire calling your baseball game that doesn’t believe in the rules of the sport. It cannot function.
Americans have learned a hard lesson about electing these types of people to Congress. When the “Tea Party” was ushered in by the 2010 elections, they promised to represent their constituents. Instead, they have proved that they have no interest in voting according public opinion, which overwhelmingly supported both spending cuts and revenue increases. Instead, they have continually voted in the interest of the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations.
This bill is ultimately a wash. You can go online and read the 75 page bill if you would like, but here are the highlights:
1) $800 billion in immediate cuts to discretionary and defense spending (+- $400B to each)
2) Raising the debt ceiling by dearly $1 Trillion
3) Establishing a bi-partisan commission to identify an additional $800 billion in spending cuts over the next decade
The immediate cuts are all that is certain to take affect. Republicans are already bellyaching about the defense cuts, even though they are the first military cuts since the early 1990s.
Cuts to discretionary spending affects all congressional leaders looking to bring pork home to their constituents as a means of winning reelection. This is a political wash impacting both parties equally.
Raising the debt ceiling should be in the shared interest of both parties, but has suddenly become a partisan issue. Getting the full raise, which is needed to pay for what we have already spent on our wars and entitlement programs, seems to be a win for the President and congressional Democrats.
The bi-partisan commission is the only part of this bill that is uniquely a GOP idea. Senator McConnell wants this commission as a means of making cuts to entitlements in the future. If agreement cannot be made amongst these committee members, an across the board budget cut will be established in order to cut the additional $800 billion. With the big three (Medicare, Medicaid and social security) totaling 40% of the budget, this inevitable stalemate in this committee will affect these programs most.
Ultimately, the bargain does nothing for either party but allows our nation to continue operating and borrowing money, while proving to the American people that our leaders have issues with compromise. In this type of scenario, we have to look at the glass half full. While it came down to the wire and caused for some unrest amongst our citizens and leaders alike, this exercise in democracy proves that even the radical “Tea Party” is unable to bring our nation crumbling down. Democracy proves to us again to be as Winston Churchill once described it, “the best worst system of government.”
The bill has yet to be voted on, but it is unlikely to fail at this late hour. Unfortunately, the “Tea Party,” which forced this issue, has announced it’s unwillingness to vote for it, proving that in the face of compromise, these radicals are unwilling to to do the right thing. Luckily our American system is stronger than their caucus, and will prove strong again in 2012 when they are voted out of Congress.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | congress, credit rating, debt, debt ceiling, default, democracy, McConnell, Obama, Tea Party
