Posts Tagged ‘Senate’
The Obama Downgrade
Aug8
By John Feehery
Democratic spinmeisters have concocted a nice little phrase to describe the actions of the Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, which was used to little effect over the weekend: The Tea Party Downgrade.
Nice try. That is kind of like blaming the fire department for not putting out the fire fast enough.
The S&P believes that we spend too much as a nation and that we don’t have the political will to stop spending. The Tea Party was formed primarily to send a message to Washington that America needs to stop spending money we don’t have.
The Tea Party won’t get the blame for the debt rating downgrade. President Obama will get the blame and it will hurt him with the American people in the next election.
This 30-second ad takes less than 30 seconds to create. A picture of the President hanging out with his Democratic colleagues fades in and fades out. A screen shot fades in: “The first President to ever lose America’s AAA credit rating. Had enough?”
The President’s men know this is a bad hit. That is why Tim Geithner is attacking the S&P so harshly. That is why the spinners are trying to pin the blame on conservative Republicans. But it won’t work.
The President deserves the blame.
In his first two years, he let the spending process get out of hand. He signed a stimulus bill that was an economic and political disaster.
He pushed hard to pass a multi-trillion dollar health care law that we simply can’t afford. He then signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts, tax cuts that he himself said were fiscally irresponsible.
When the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission came up with a series of recommendations to bring the budget closer to balance – a commission he came up with, by the way – he walked away from their recommendations.
Instead, he proposed a budget that included no new proposals to deal with entitlement spending. His advisers said that he didn’t want to lead on entitlements because it would just become a political football. When asked why he didn’t lead with a reform plan, he said: “This is not a matter of you go first or I go first. This is a matter of … ultimately getting in that boat at the same time so it doesn’t tip over.”
Guess what? He is now the man overboard.
His lack of leadership helped to create the budget crisis we are in today.
He foolishly continued to insist up until the last week that Republicans include tax increases in their proposal to increase the debt limit, as if such a provision could pass either the House or the Senate.
Republicans aren’t going to raise taxes to deal with this debt crisis. They are going to cut spending first.
The deal struck by Congressional leaders was awkward and more than a bit unsatisfying. But it was the process and the President’s stunning lack of leadership that convinced the S&P to downgrade our debt.
Mr. Obama was elected because many voters on the left and in the middle (and more than a few on the right) wanted to feel good about themselves again.
A vote for Obama was a vote for the history books. Obama was a cross between FDR, the President who led us out of a recession, and JFK, the nation’s first (and only) Catholic President.
Voters, sick of 8 years of the Bush Administration, tired of war, and fearful in the wake of a devastating financial crisis, wanted to feel like they were on the right side of history by voting for Mr. Obama.
Obama has made history all right. He is now the first President in our history to lose America’s AAA bond rating. And come next November, chances are increasing that he will be a one-termer.
The Tea Party Takes It on the Chin
Aug2
By John Feehery
John Boehner won a complete and total victory in the House with an overwhelming vote to extend the debt limit.
His victory was so complete, many of his closest allies in the House could safely vote no to avoid primary fights next year.
House Democrats divided almost exactly in half, and their left wing is livid at the deal cut by the President.
The Tea Party, the rambunctious group of mostly second and third term members (and more than a few freshman) could only look on in anger and despair. They looked liked fools, their demands unrealistic, their rhetoric unnecessarily heated, their performance disappointing not only to their base, but also to Republican establishmentarians like me.
They demanded that the Senate pass a balanced budget amendment, but had to settle merely for a vote, a request that Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader was more than happy to grant, over the grimace of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Imagine how hard it has been for McConnell to explain to Jim DeMint how he is trying to take back the Senate and that giving Reid a chance to give his moderates cover to vote yes on the balanced budget amendment only hurts the cause.
Instead of wasting their precious rhetoric on a balanced budget amendment, wouldn’t it have been better for the Tea Party to demand some tangible things, like an extension of the Bush tax cuts or some long-term entitlement reform? Or how about ten trillion in discretionary spending cuts over ten years (achieved by freezing spending for a decade at 2008 levels)?
They didn’t do that, and they missed an opportunity to really set the terms of the debate.
Of course, the Tea Party wasn’t the only unhappy voting block in the House. So were the so-called Progressives. They were furious that the bill contained deep cuts, and no tax increases (at least not in this bill). They believed that the President had let them down, and of course, they are right.
The left has decided that the best way to characterize this mis-deal (from their perspective), is to call the Tea Party terrorists. Somehow when liberals use that language, the media gives them a break, but when conservatives do it, they are called racists or worse.
For Boehner, it must be very satisfying to see the Democrats so deeply divided. He can also take some satisfaction in knowing that his biggest critics in the House, including Michele Bachmann, made fools of themselves as he proceeded to get the best deal possible for his Republican Conference.
The Tea Party certainly did not win this battle, and they frankly didn’t prove themselves worthy of victory. They have shown themselves, instead, to be fringe players, akin to the left wing of the Democratic caucus.
This was a total victory for establishment figures like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. The losers include the Tea Party, a deeply divided Democratic Caucus and the President, who has seen his poll numbers drop like a rock in the last couple of weeks.
