Freshmen shrugging off Tea Party primary threats over spending deal

The Hill ^ | 04/14/11 | Shane D’Aprile

[Qbert]

House Republicans aren’t worried about primary threats from Tea Party activists, who are unhappy with the level of spending cuts in the 2011 budget deal and the possibility of raising the debt limit.

Mark Meckler, co-founder of one of the nation’s largest Tea Party groups, said votes in favor of the budget deal and raising the debt ceiling will make for a toxic electoral combination for House Republicans.

“I’m literally getting emails by the hour from people talking about primary challenges,” Meckler, a leader of the Tea Party Patriots, said. But freshman members of the House don’t appear concerned.

“It’s not that I’m not worried about them. And I would like to be all things to all people, but if you try to do that, you’re nothing to anybody. So I’m more inclined to just vote yes and move this in the right direction,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), a freshman lawmaker who’s a favorite of Tea Party activists back in his home district.

The conservative grassroots movement says opposition to the budget deal, which was negotiated late last week by congressional leaders and the White House, has increased in recent days. The proposal cuts $39.9 billion from current spending levels, but Tea Party activists were encouraging GOP leaders to shut down the government in order to get higher cuts.

They also don’t want Congress to raise the debt ceiling, arguing it would permit more borrowing by the federal government rather than dealing with the $14.3 trillion national debt.

But House freshmen said they’re not hearing complaints.

“I have to tell you, I’m not getting that negative feedback about this [budget] agreement. I’m really not,” Kelly said.

“The people that I’m talking to are saying, ‘Look, this is moving us in the right direction and that’s what we needed to see,’ ” he added. “Is it enough? No, it’s not enough. But unless I see something that’s overwhelmingly against everything I believe in, I’m voting for it.”

Meckler said local coordinators are organizing phone and email campaigns to lobby individual members to vote against the full budget compromise when it comes to the floor this week.

He also said activists on the state level are seeking out primary challengers for House Republicans who vote in support of the measure.

Blogger Erick Erickson summed up the conservatives’ frustration with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a post on RedState on Wednesday, writing that Boehner’s “leadership has been crap lately” and noting an increase in the number of phone calls and emails batting around the idea of challenging the Speaker in a primary.

Despite the bum deal on the budget, wrote Erickson, “John Boehner doesn’t need replacing, but he does need recalibrating.” He also warned that Boehner is “more conservative than [House Majority Leader] Eric Cantor [R-Va.], who’d most likely replace him.”

Meckler said that while no one’s truly sold on trying to oust the new Republican Speaker just yet, activists around the country are watching with an increasing level of concern.

“If John Boehner really thinks there’s no daylight between him and the Tea Party, he’s not looking,” said Meckler.

Kelly defended Boehner and the House leadership, saying: “As a rookie in this thing, I don’t know how you negotiate any better than what they’ve done.”

The discontent among conservatives hasn’t prevented the House GOP leadership from expressing optimism that their rank-and-file will overwhelmingly back the agreement.

Leaders expect defections won’t be as large as some have predicted. Cantor said earlier in the week that the House will pass the 2011 spending bill Thursday with “strong Republican support.”

Members of the freshman class seem to be backing their leaders.

“As much of a fiscal conservative as I am, you do have to accept the small victory sometimes before you get to the bigger victory,” said freshman Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), who has taken some heat from Tea Party activists back in his home district.

“It’s not something I worry about,” Grimm said of the potential for a primary challenge. “My job is to lead and to govern. If I wanted to just sit back and not be a member of Congress and just be a member of a Tea Party, well, then I can espouse whatever I want because there are no consequences.”

Grimm praised Tea Party activists in his home base on Staten Island as “very reasonable and rational,” but he added he would rather make progress “a little at a time” than simply oppose a measure because conservative activists are railing against it.

“Sure, the cuts could be larger,” said freshman Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.). “But my view is that we should go ahead and build this bridge and then work on the next one.”

Palazzo is one Republican who has dealt with conservative opposition: Last year, the candidate he defeated in a primary claimed the Tea Party mantle and then endorsed Democrat Gene Taylor in November’s general election.

“At the end of the day, [the Tea Party] is just gonna have to grade each one of their legislators on their performance,” Palazzo said. “If you expect us to agree with you 100 percent of the time, you might as well just go ahead and start pulling out primary candidates now and start vetting them.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who’s weighing a presidential run next year, sees it differently.

Bachmann has committed to voting against the long-term budget deal and says she will vote against raising the debt ceiling when the issue comes to the floor, too.

While Bachmann said she won’t “stand in judgment” of her colleagues, “What I hear from people all across the country is that they feel like they’ve been let down. They don’t see people fighting and they’re wondering, ‘Why are you rolling over?’ ”

Bachmann said she’s received “a ton” of calls into her office over the past few days thanking her for her stance against the budget agreement, and warned her fellow Republicans that they ain’t seen nothing yet.

“One thing that I thought, especially with the freshman class, is if they supported this early budget vote and they thought that was a tough vote — just wait until the debt-ceiling vote,” said Bachmann.

[Qbert]

"One thing that I thought, especially with the freshman class, is if they supported this early budget vote and they thought that was a tough vote — just wait until the debt-ceiling vote,” said Bachmann.

- Considering that there are signs that the leadership is already planning on caving on the debt-ceiling vote, this is wise advice. Don't listen at your own peril, freshmen...

[Tigerized]

I’m tired of Meckler claiming to speak for the Tea Party.

Of course, you can’t get a concise sound bites from millions of patriots, but Meckler only speaks for himself.

No individual or organization “owns” the TP movement. It’s a bona fide grass roots uprising. As it should be.

[JOAT]

The tide of Lamestream stories continues to peddle the notion that the Tea Party is rapidly becoming irrelevant and that RINO domination is inevitable.

Go ahead and whistle past the graveyard, the tsunami of 2012 is building.

[Gasshog]

Spinless makes you flop to the floor like a jellyfish. Then you get sweeped out. Dems have no trouble pulverizing anything standing in the way. Rink and Demlite we gotta toss these jokers out if they are determined to just sit on their hands and do nothing!

[Soul Seeker]

I don’t want to primary the freshman that wouldn’t produce enough of a wave in D.C.. I want to take out Cantor and Boehner.

[Qbert]

“No individual or organization “owns” the TP movement. It’s a bona fide grass roots uprising. As it should be.”

I don’t have any disagreement there- but you haven’t addressed the substance of his (or Bachmann’s) arguments.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I am tired of this shutdown government talk.

800,000 workers won’t be paid? What about the 1,000,000 or so civilian employees who do the jobs government employees won’t do?

Companies like CACI, CSC, Accenture, Cognizant to name a few who have personnel working all over the world for the military? The drivers, bodyguards, caterers. The Datacenter workers who keep some of the bases throughout the US and the rest of the world running? The local economies that support the workers?

It’s nice to be an armchair quarterback and say “shut it down.” There is a lot more to it than a class not being able to access a bathroom in Ft. Marcy Park on a Saturday.

[Tigerized]

“...but you haven’t addressed the substance of his (or Bachmann’s) arguments.”

Yeah, I know. I think Bachmann is right on target.

I’ll withhold comment on Meckler’s since I find it hard to be objective.

[dalight]

Bachmann is 100% right. The only way to save the country we live in today is to halt the criminal destruction of our economy and banking system that is being imposed on us by the Fed and the White House.

I say it is criminal because the Dollar is being systematically destroyed before our very eyes and a crisis is sure to occur not 5 years down the line but next month or in a similar short time frame..

The problem at its heart is QE2 and the course it creates that cannot be stopped without a massive interest rate shock which is now scheduled for June 30, 2011.

The underlying Commodities Prices have been responding to QE2 just like Palin said. Immediate and massive inflation:

And in June, QE2 runs out. After this, with 30% inflation already imposed on the dollar by QE2, interest rates have to rise to 20%+ to maintain the value of the principle in the first year of the note. No one who has had the first course on finance can fail to see the problem here.

The Fed isn't really auctioning anything right now.. they are buying their own Bonds and can set the rate to anything. But, this ends in June.

from: http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/federal-reserve-treasury-department-treasuries-bond/4/8/2011/id/33844

And as this author asks, "Who will buy the Treasury supply in July?"

The obvious answer is, no one or only fools. So if the Debt Ceiling is raised. It is a green light for QE3 and this will immediately lead to the Dollar losing "Reserve Currency Status" and the Treasury Notes of the US to lose their AAA Bond rating, if not in the newspapers, in the eyes of anyone with money to invest.

Until the whole concept of Quantitative Easying.. or to give it the real name.. Printing Money to Monitize the Debt, is taken off the table and made illegal as it is outright theft from all of the Citizens of the US as well as any Bondholder worldwide, we are screwed. This means the Debt Ceiling flight will have to be bitter, bloody and cut Deficits immediately.

If the Republican's can't find the Balls to start this process now.. when will they? After we can't buy food???????

[EternalVigilance]

No matter how many times we observe it, it’s still amazing to see how fast most of them go native.

[King_Corey]

We will remember in November, but on Tax day around here, we have the warmup to getting rid of useless RINOs.

[Prokopton]

It’s nice to be an armchair quarterback and say “shut it down.” There is a lot more to it than a class not being able to access a bathroom in Ft. Marcy Park on a Saturday.

If you're not ready to take tough measures, than leave the field and take a seat in the grandstand. We need real adult leadership with courage and vision. If we cringe every time one group or the other screams because fixing our economy will be painful for them, we have no chance of success.

Unfortunately, Trump appears to be the only adult leader willing to speak the truth. The Republicans have already been sold out by their crybaby, effete, elite, career politician, "leader".

God help us.

[Qbert]

Yep.

Great lineup of speakers, btw.

[HarleyD]

The 2011 budget isn’t that important. But it would be a mistake to cave in on the debt ceiling. They should link Paul Ryan 2012 budget and the debt ceiling together. If they give in on the debt ceiling, Ryan’s budget is toast. The debt ceiling is the ONLY card they have to play.

[dalight]

If they give in on the debt ceiling, Ryan’s budget is toast.

If they give in on the debt ceiling, Ryan’s budget is we are toast. There will be nothing to stop QE3.

[Qbert]

“The 2011 budget isn’t that important. But it would be a mistake to cave in on the debt ceiling. They should link Paul Ryan 2012 budget and the debt ceiling together. If they give in on the debt ceiling, Ryan’s budget is toast. The debt ceiling is the ONLY card they have to play.”

—We’ve seen this movie too many times, I’m afraid. Whaddya wanna bet that there will be some new, last-minute orchestrated crisis or distraction right before the debt-ceiling vote? Wall Street is already warning of doomsday if Boehner and crew don’t cave, and the MSM of course will trot out more examples of “70,000 children perishing; 700,000 jobs lost, etc.”. All the Left has is fear-mongering, but the Repubs are too stupid to realize this and counter back with rationality.

The time to fight is right now. We may not win the battle, but at least we should be taking a big chunk out of our opponents- to weaken him even more for the next battle.

The Repubs are acting solely out of fear, and it is obvious to anyone who is honest. This will never go away on its own. Sooner or later, they will have to have the courage to ask that cheerleader to the prom dance, so to speak. It’s better to act now- who knows? Maybe she’ll say yes.

[HarleyD]

We’ve seen this movie too many times, I’m afraid. Whaddya wanna bet that there will be some new, last-minute orchestrated crisis or distraction right before the debt-ceiling vote?

I agree. The Republicans know this. They've been playing this game a while now. Their no better than the "Blue Dog" Democrats-"fiscally conservative" until the final vote when they hope no one will notice. They're just part of the problem. We need more Tea Party members who will dig in their heels.

[JoanVarga]

Mike Kelly puts the class in the freshman class. He takes the House to the woodshed. It's a thing of rare beauty in D.C.