Posted on 11/15/2011 9:17:55 AM PST by Qbert
Now comes an opportunity for House and Senate Republicans to push a strong Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA), but not only have House Republicans tossed an interception on the BBA, but they also appear to have preemptively surrendered a touchdown to the liberals on tax policy as part of the Super Committee negotiations.
If conservatives want to win, they should take the BBA and the $1.2 trillion in cuts mandated by the Super Committee directly to the American people, who tend to reward politicians who fight tax hikes and push for deep cuts to the federal government. Yet they seem intent on letting this fumble take its course.
Weak Balanced Budget Amendment
Last week, House Republicans tentatively agreed to put on the floor a weakened version of a BBA, H.J. Res. 2, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R.-Va.). They are trying to get enough Democrats to support a weaker BBA so that they can get some BBA passed by the needed two-thirds vote. Conservatives may want to consider fighting this.
The debt-limit deal passed by Congress locked in a House and Senate vote on a BBA. The law states that before the end of this year “the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, shall vote on passage of a joint resolution," the title of which is as follows: "Joint resolution proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” But the law made no provisions forcing a vote on a strong or weak BBA, and it seems as if there will be three different versions of a BBA considered by the House and Senate as early as next week.
The Goodlatte BBA would subject an unbalanced budget and a debt-limit increase to a “three-fifths” vote of both the House and Senate. It also has a provision that allows for tax increases “approved by a majority of the whole number of each House.” This provision may make tax-increase votes on the House suspension calendar (requiring a two-thirds vote) and Senate points of order (requiring 60 votes) unconstitutional. Goodlatte might have unwittingly made it easier to raise taxes with his version of a BBA.
Another version, sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) and Mike Lee (R.-Utah), provides for the cap on the size of government to be 18% of the gross domestic product, forces a supermajority vote for tax increases, and strips from courts the power to raise taxes. Hatch-Lee (S.J. Res. 10) addresses the problem of increased taxes and bloated government.
Sen. Mark Udall (D.-Colo.) has the Senate Democrats’ version, S.J. Res. 24. The Udall BBA exempts Social Security and would enshrine class warfare into the U.S. Constitution. It contains the following provision: “Congress shall not pass any bill that provides a net reduction in individual income taxes for those with incomes over $1 million."
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, feels that the strategy of going with a weak BBA is a huge mistake.
Norquist believes that the smart strategy is to roll out the tough BBA and force the Democrats to vote against it: “While many moderate Democrats will vote for a weak BBA, most Democrats will vote against a robust BBA, and that opens those in moderate districts to the possibility of defeat on this issue.” Grover is correct. Once you force the Blue Dogs to vote against a strong BBA, and some lose an election over the issue, the others will then fall into line and vote for the strong version the next time around.
Super Committee Sellout
Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. Republicans on the Super Committee offered a $300 billion tax increase over the next 10 years in exchange for lowering top income tax rates. That's right, Republicans supported a tax increase. They are not good students of history.
The Super Committee is wrestling with the budget and the debt, and has to report a bill just before Thanksgiving if members can come to a bipartisan agreement. Democrats and Republicans have reportedly put offers on the table. If no deal is cut, then programs such as the defense budget will come under spending caps and be reduced.
Democrats are doing everything they can to make Republicans a little pregnant on supporting tax increases. The Democrats are hoping that Republicans slit their wrists on the tax issue so that they can roll into the next election with a Republican Party on the record in favor of increasing taxes on Americans during a time of economic crisis.
President Ronald Reagan supported a tax increase to purchase cuts in spending. The promised cuts never materialized, and Reagan later said he regretted the deal. The Republicans of today should learn from Reagan's mistake.
Well, McConnell’s idiot plan undermined cut, cap and balance initially and Boehner and Cantor undermined it further by, like McConnell, being weak in the knees.
This is what we get from not ousting the worthless establishment leadership.
Boner and McConnel threw away the victory they won in 2010.
They are incompetent boobs and should have been jettisoned from their leadership positions long ago. But since there are enough old time establishment jerks in the GOP still in office and some of the Tea Party people were intimidated by them, that didn;t happen.
Unless there is a groundswell in the next election primaries to boot out the GOP establishment types, the Republican Party will loose the 2012 Presidential Election and wind up whre it belongs - the dustbin of history with other political parties which have outlived their usefulness.
The present GOP is history. The TEA Party will elect a new group to office - or the republic will be socialized and degraded far more than we can imagine.
No it won’t because most people are still watching the MSM.
I had a plan that would have done the job but no.
(The 80 freshmen should have threatened Republican leaders by voting Pelosi and Dem chairmen the perks and office space of Speaker until we got the leadership we needed.)
You're right.
The flip side of this scenario is:
If the next President is a Conservative (and this can only happen WITH Tea Party support), the next national election will be a Tea Party victory AND the end of the GOP, as well!!
The coming Presidential election is a lose/lose for the GOP. THAT train has already left the station WITHOUT the GOP. That's how I see it.
What good would a BBA do anyway? Section 7 of Public Law 95-435 states, “Beginning with fiscal year 1981, the total budget outlays of the Federal Government shall not exceed its receipts.”
This has been the law of the land for 30 years. They (and that means BOTH parties) will not obey the law as written, what makes you think that they will obey a constitutional amendment? They pretty much ignore the Second!
By the way, thanks to the FReeper from whom I stole this when it ws included in another post months ago. I modified it a bit. I should have made note of the screen name, but...
No matter what are the merits or demerits of the proposed BBA, taking cues from Grover Norquist at this point is non-starter for me.
He has apparently been a supporter of some Conservatives and some Conservative causes, because doing so served him, financially, but I have become more convinced each year that he is not himself a Conservative and has over time decided his talents were for hire by some very unConservative people; including most recently some radical Muslim interests.
Four more years of 0bama and not only will the GOP be history, the United States of America will be as well.
Or you can get raw with these strings. Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.
Do it!
Ultimately, it is the American people who cling to the worthless establishment time and time again. They just can’t learn.
The Republican Party had a vigorous "youth," a very prosperous "Middle Age" from the 1870's through the 1920's, a satisfying old age until the the 1960's and is now a collection of crooks like Boehner and McConnell who have sold out to the Democrats in return for safe seats and favors for wealthy contributors.
The Republican Party will not have a dignified, evolutionary passing. It will be a horrible death on life support from the Democrats, who seek to keep weak opposition alive merely for the sake of the appearance of "democracy." The death of the Republican Party will be all the more horrible because it us who must pull the plug on this collection of self-serving poltroons.
Unfortunately, the Republic is at risk. Ain't nobody wrote she'll last forever.
McConnell’s GOP also took a big defeat in KY last week but it was expected and got little mention.
As weak as the old GOP is, it is still winning the hapless primaries. We don’t have the numbers to match them.
“...Democrats, who seek to keep weak opposition alive merely for the sake of the appearance of “democracy.”
It’s been a long time coming but people finally realize that we really are only permitted the ‘illusion of self-government’.
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