Posted on 02/24/2011 8:06:38 PM PST by Bigtigermike
My heart sank when I read it, but look at it this way: Is this really the hill you want to die on? The GOP’s proposed budget cuts, while steep by normal standards, are nothing more than a token to please the base.
Whether we end up cutting $100 billion or $60 billion or $10 billion doesn’t matter; it’s chump change if you’re focused on a long-term fix for the budget. The real money is in entitlements, so the idea (I hope) is to use these early budget fights to cultivate an image of “reasonable, responsible” fiscal solutions and then use that cred later to sell Social Security and Medicare reform as both reasonable and responsible. Hence the need to avoid a shutdown, which might — might — generate a lasting backlash.
Or am I rationalizing?
Fully 65 percent of Republican insiders say it’s not in their interest to play this game of chicken. Can you feel the despair?
“The Republicans look awful if there’s a government shutdown and they are seen to have caused it,” said one GOP Insider. “I remember how the last shutdown went and find it impossible to believe this one could go any better,” said another.
Indeed, several recalled how a new Republican House Speaker empowered by a huge victory in the midterm elections was outmaneuvered by a first term Democratic President. “As Bill Clinton proved, the president has the bully pulpit in these situations, something Newt Gingrich never recovered from,” recalled a GOP Insider. Another cautioned of the possible shutdown: “We always think it’s a good idea until we do it and get our butt kicked when real people start suffering for it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
We as Republicans should just wait until we have an overwhelming majority in the House and Senate, control the White House, and 5 of the 9 USSC Justices. Then we will make our move......when pigs fly. If they don’t cut at least spending by a trillion dollars in the coming budget, I will not vote for a single Republican in the next election cycle.
We are at war. They, the Socialist Democrats declared war on our Constitutional Republican form of government, and have moved to replace it with their own form of Socialist government, and they are moving rapidly.
Shutting down their government is an important part of addressing their declaration, and their actions IMO. We have to proceed in the defunding of every major aspect of their government that is by design to employ more soldiers at our expense as taxpayers for their combat over our Constitutional Republic.
We have to win. There is no alternative.
Well, now, the Republicans really don’t have any choice but to STAND for what they were voted in for, even if the Democrats shut the place down. And the fact is, the Dems ARE going to shut it down. PERIOD. They WANT a chance to pull that 1995 crap all over again — so Republicans better GROW a set and stiffen their spines and set their feet and get prepared for the combat to come. TAKE THE OFFENSIVE! Stop being wusses and TELL the American People what to expect from the Dems! They are NOT hard to figure out!
“The real money is in entitlements,”
I keep hearing this, but then they jump to “Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid” as being those “entitlements”. That doesn’t jibe, though. SS and Medicare are still almost paying for themselves through their own payroll taxes. That leaves just Medicaid as an “entitlement” culprit, but that can’t account for deficits growing from $500B in 2008 to $1,600B in 2011. Medicaid spending plus the Medicare shortfall combined only account for $300B.
So ... if we rolled back everything to 2008 levels, we should be able to cut over $1T in spending and almost none of it would be cuts to “entitlements”.
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