Ok, I really had to mull this over the weekend. Because my immediate thought was that we should close the federal government down until the other side, the Democrats, agreed to at least $61,000,000,000 in budget cuts.
But then I did some thinking about the whole thing.
Speaker of the House, John Bohener (R-Ohio), did get the Democrats from zero-0-budget cuts to the neighborhood of $40,000,000,000. Not bad. Not the $61,000,000,000 that I would have liked to see. But some progress.
Then another thought came to mind.
The fact is that the Republicans are, once again, cleaning a mess of the Democrats making.
After all, this is all about the 2010 fiscal year budget. A budget that fell under the auspicies of the previous, 111th congress. And what party controlled both houses of congress. Wait, I've got it! The D E M O C R A T S! And why was there not a budget passed in the first place?
Well the reason the Dems did not want to pass a budget. They spent every bit of their capital passing the dreaded Obamacare so called health care "reform". Because they spent little if any time on any cuts in the federal budget, and it got closer to the mid-term election, they realized that passing a budget would be a loser. A loser of more seats, especially in the house. So, they just let it sit there like a turd. And still lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives.
Now comes the Republicans and they won on the basis that they would actually cut the fat of the federal budget. And this is the starting point.
Again, please note that we got the Dems to go from nothing to nearly $40,000,000,000 in cuts. It is part of the point that Ed Morrissey makes over at Hot Air. And Ed makes this very important point:
One last point along these lines. Democrats have spent the last four months arguing that Republicans were too radical to govern and wanted to destroy government. Instead, Republicans fashioned a deal on their own terms and passed a budget deal — something Democrats couldn’t or wouldn’t do when they had all the power in DC. This gives the GOP a lot of credibility on leadership and governance, and all of it at the expense of Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
It may be a bit o' nuance, but it is true. The threat of a government shutdown in the end made the Dems blink.
So, some believe that a shutdown would be OK.
I am there. I think that while the shutdown hung over the head of both parties, the narrative was that it would hurt the Republicans just as it did in 1995 when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were duking it out over the federal budget.
But today is a different time.
While Newt and the GOP took it in the chin, there are ways to blunt that today that were not available in 1995.
Today there is the internets. There is conservative talk radio. There is Facebook. There is twitter. There is Fox News Channel. In other words, a way to smackback at the leftywhore media. Sure, we saw all the stories of doom had the government shut down. But there were those of us trying to explain why it may have been nessecary.
But, it did not happen. And that is a feather in the hat of the Republicans.
So, let me take you around the conservative media to give you some of the reaction to the deal.
For those that see the forest through the trees, W. James Antle over at The American Spectator makes the point that it is a long term war, not a short term victory that this is all about.
Andrew Stiles at National Review says that this is a win for Speaker Boehner. Not that it comes without perils, but a victory none the less.
Jim Geragthy at the Campaign Spot puts it this way:
So if the GOP stands its ground, the government shuts down, and they lose the messaging war . . . then what? What do Republicans do if two weeks into a shutdown, they've lost all the independents and they're limping along with only 30 percent of the public backing them? Keep in mind, no matter how the 2011 budget fight ends, there are two more major spending fights coming up, in the decision to raise or not raise the debt ceiling, as well as the 2012 budget. What happens if the Republicans are politically crushed before those fights begin?
There are some budget hawks who seem extremely confident that the public will stay on their side; I suppose others would say that congressional Republicans should have held out for the full $100 billion in cuts even if they had approval ratings of 10 percent. But at the end of the day, you don't have the votes to get what you want, and the government has to reopen sometime (remember, as of midnight on Friday, our
men and women in uniform would be serving without pay until the shutdown ended).
I'm not saying I wouldn't have liked to have seen steeper cuts. I'm just not seeing a viable strategy to get there with the GOP's current limited leverage. If anybody has one, I'm all ears.
Which is in reality the fundamental problem.
But, that does not stop some very valid critism of this deal.
Andy McCarthy at National Review pretty much makes the case here, here. Yes, it is a fight in The Corner, but Mr. McCarthy makes some very salient points, especially on the constitutional issues.
Mark Levin is livid that a deal was cut. Check out some of his Facebook posts.
The Other McCain makes a good point. That a lot of people in the Republican grass roots are not going to see this as much of a win.
So, my take.
It is the Republicans mopping up the Dem mess. In the grand scheme of things, this is a down payment on the proposals of Congressman Paul Ryan to finally reign in the grotseque spending of the federal government.
We need to claim victory and set the stage for Congressman Ryan and the Republican party to get this spending and government under control.
This is a battle in a long term war and I think that this is a tactical win for the Republicans.
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