Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Remember Charlie Stenholm
Jul28
By John Feehery
Charlie Stenholm, the former Congressman from Texas
Charlie Stenholm, the former Congressman from Texas, perennially sponsored and pushed for a balanced budget to the Constitution. Charlie was a Democrat, and sponsoring the balanced budget amendment helped him immeasurably in many, many campaigns.
Old Charlie could vote like a Democrat on most things, but sound like a fiscal hawk because he was the sponsor of the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.
Congress after Congress, the balanced budget amendment would come up for a vote, and Congress after Congress, the BBA would just barely die in the House. One year, it even passed the House and it almost passed the Senate. Ironically, it was a Republican – Mark Hatfield — who ended up killing it in the Senate when it did pass the House.
House Republicans are now pushing the Senate to take up a balanced budget amendment as part of the Cut, Cap and Balance plan. That all sounds very well and good, and as a good little Republican, I support the concept of the Cut, Cap and Balance plan.
But I have one little nagging concern about the CC and B plan.
What if some of those Democrats in the Senate who are up for re-election in states where a Balanced Budget Amendment would be popular vote for such an amendment knowing that it will never get the two/thirds vote? What if these members decide to sprinkle themselves as Charlie Stenholm Democrats, and then all of a sudden look mighty appealing to independent voters who care about fiscal responsibility?
I can think of a few who salivate over such a possibility. Claire McCaskill, for example, must be very excited to vote for a BBA. She has a little problem with misreporting her airplane income, but all could be forgiven if she were somehow able to re-brand herself as a conservative Democrat. She has already endorsed Bob Corker’s Cap Act, knowing full well that it will never get enacted into law.
Or how about Jon Tester? He has a tough race against Denny Rehberg. A vote on the BBA could give him some conservative street cred. Or how about the Nelson boys, Ben of Nebraska or Bill of Florida? I am pretty certain that if they were given the chance, they would jump to re-brand themselves as born-again fiscal hawks.
Or how about Joe Manchin, Tom Carper, Bob Casey or Kirsten Gillibrand? Nothing better than taking a big issue off the table, knowing that a Balanced Budget Amendment is a great way to look conservative.
This whole exercise reminds me of when Lucy would take away the football just as Charlie Brown would attempt to kick it. That was a running gag during the lifetime of the Peanuts Comic strip. This game that the Democrats will play on the balanced budget amendment is the same thing.
If conservatives want to cut spending, they should cut spending. What they shouldn’t do is help embattled Democrats get re-elected by giving them a vote on the balanced budget amendment as part of the debt limit deal. Why give these guys cover?
Charlie Stenholm survived for years playing the balanced budget game. Conservatives ought to remember Charlie Stenholm when they push the Cut, Cap and Balance plan.
Collapse of Cold War Consensus
Jun15
By John Feehery
It took awhile, but the Cold War consensus is finally shattering.
The Cold War consensus centered around a basic proposition: America was going to both pay and provide the military might to insure the national security of the free world.
America founded NATO as the alliance to promote that security and Congress paid for a national security establishment that guaranteed the dominance of American troops.
That Cold War consensus obviously started at the conclusion of the Second World War, survived both Korea and Vietnam, teetered a bit during the Carter years, and then came back strong during the Reagan years. After the Soviet Union fell apart, it took a while for the Cold War consensus to gain its bearings and its true raison d’etre.
The collapse of Yugoslavia gave the Cold War consensus a shot in the arm, as NATO rushed to the rescue of the Serbian Muslims. George Bush browbeat the alliance in helping with the War on Terror, as the Cold War consensus stretched beyond its natural life.
The war on terror is winding down. We will be out of Iraq before the next election and we may be out of Afghanistan if Congress has anything to say about it.
Secretary Gates just returned from a whirlwind trip, where he basically told the NATO member countries that they had to pay more for their own protection. Many of these countries, especially the Germans, have become both passive and pacifist. They are more than happy to see the Americans take the lead and, oh, by the way, they are against war.
Well, it is all well and good to be against war, and to let the Americans take the lead in offering protection, up and until the point where the Americans, and more specifically, the United States Congress, says, we aren’t paying any more.
We have reached that point.
The United States is broke. The military industrial complex is trying hard to keep Congressional spending on defense on an upward path, but they are on the defensive. The Obama Administration and even Congressional Republicans now say that defense cuts have to be part of any deficit reduction package.
The Republican debate earlier this week hammered home this point. Republicans are now listening more to Ron Paul than they are to Dick Cheney. They are returning back to their familiar philosophical aversion to foreign entanglements and foreign wars.
Republicans don’t want to increase taxes to pay for more foreign adventures. They don’t want to increase taxes to pay for anything.
This is a sea-change. Since Ronald Reagan, Republican orthodoxy had held that we would spend a lot more than necessary on our defense establishment to intimidate our enemies into peace. And George Bush the II made the global war on terror a truly global fight.
This consensus is now ending. Republicans are returning to their more isolationist roots, just as our European partners refuse to pay for their own defense.
The Cold War consensus is collapsing. Who knows what will replace it in the years to come.
