government reform

DeMint Explains How to Fight Democrats

Mark Noonan2 Comments

First off, by having no illusions – from NRO’s The Corner:

…“The Democrats will not give us anything that will not humiliate and shame us, unless we make them,” he warns. “It’s a stare down, and a lot of Republicans don’t have a taste for it.” Yet DeMint sees no other choice: “If Democrats won’t cut public broadcasting, if they won’t cut Planned Parenthood, how do we expect them to really cut anything that means anything?”

He reminds Republicans that Democrats walked into “a public-opinion buzz saw” to pass Obamacare. And he predicts, “If we don’t pass anything, then we’re on defense the whole time.”…

And in light of that, DeMint is urging House passage of “cut, cap and balance”:  Cut spending by $700 billion next year, cap spending at no more than 18% of GDP and pass a balanced budget amendment which includes a requirement for a 2/3 vote to raise taxes.  With that, we can tell Obama and his Democrats that we agree to raising the debt ceiling – just as soon as “cut, cap and balance” passes out of the Senate.

This is a winning strategy – the people are on the side of real budget cuts; the people are on the side of a balanced budget amendment; the people are opposed to tax increases…but people are and will remain wary of default, and so the Democrats do have some leverage in the debt ceiling debate (the majority are wrong to view it thus – but a generally held opinion, whether well- or ill-founded cannot lightly be set aside).  This strategy gives us the whip hand – and the people will wonder why Democrats don’t allow it and thus also get the debt ceiling increase they claim is vital.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if the Democrats do or don’t – if they do, it works to our advantage because we will have put America’s fiscal house in order.  If they don’t, then they get to carry their profligate spending in to 2012.  I hope that the rest of the Congressional GOP pays heed to DeMint.

Sen. Paul Threatens Debt Ceiling Filibuster

Mark Noonan21 Comments

From the Daily Caller:

Tea Party favorite Sen. Rand Paul is planning a filibuster sometime next week to bring the debt ceiling negotiations to the Senate, the Huffington Post is reporting.

“We’ve not had one minute of debate about the debt ceiling in any committee,” the Kentucky Republican told C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” in a Sunday interview. He said after not having a budget or an appropriations bill in two years, he’s “part of the freshmen group in the Senate that’s saying, ‘No more.’”…

What Paul and other TEA Party Senators would really like is to link an increase of the debt ceiling to a balanced budget amendment.  So far, McConnell, the GOP Leader, says that is a non-starter – not enough votes for it.  To which I answer, “yeah, so?”.  Put the pressure on the Democrats for once – it is quite reasonable, and in keeping with American opinion, to demand some really hard and fast fiscal discipline.  In fact, the people are more and more demanding it.  Put it right in Reid’s lap – tell him that you don’t have enough votes to pass an increase unless Reid can round up enough votes for an amendment.

The good news here is that I feel more confident that our side will prevail, in the long run, than ever before.  Usually when we get to these points it is time for the GOP to cave and liberals to get what they want…now, not quite like that.  Unless there is some serious debt reduction, no deal can pass the House.  Naturally, Obama, Reid and the rest of the Democrats are hoping that the old tried and true tactics of allowing the MSM – and its manufactured polling – to stampede the GOP in to going along…but I don’t think it will work this time.  I think that when push comes to shove both TEA Party principal as well as political survival will rule the day:  the GOP will stand firm.

More on That “New Tone”

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From NJ.com:

Senate President Stephen Sweeney went to bed furious Thursday night after reviewing the governor’s line-item veto of the state budget.

He woke up Friday morning even angrier.

“This is all about him being a bully and a punk,” he said in an interview Friday.

“I wanted to punch him in his head.”…

Now, in Sweeney’s defense he claims that the Governor didn’t give him what he thinks the Governor agreed to…but it does seem that Christie and the legislative Democrats were supposed to get together to work out a single budge, but the Democrats went and voted on their own, instead. So, Christie just “line-item vetoed” everything he didn’t like. As it turns out, Republican Christie didn’t like a whole raft of things Democrat Sweeney liked – so, there’s the hurt feelings.

But, still, imagine if it were Christie who said he wanted to punch Sweeney in the head? If that had been the case, it would have resulted in a national news frenzy as the whole of the liberal power structure went in to overdrive to force a humiliating apology from Christie. No such thing will happen here – it was a Democrat offering violence, and so that is ok.

In the end, no matter how much Sweeney was offended and no matter who violent he becomes, Christie did the right thing…we GOPers really have to learn that you can’t negotiate with Democrats. It really just doesn’t work – Democrats are only interested in paying off the special interests which bought them at election time, as well as ensuring their own wealth and power. Some GOPers are like that, too, but it is endemic to the Democrat party. It is better to just hammer them down – and if we have the power (and it appears that Christie does), then you just use it to maximum effect. In the long run, this is healthier for the nation because each chip away at the bloated, anti-democratic, un-American, liberal Big Government power structure is another step towards a restored America.