Posted on 12/14/2012 5:01:20 AM PST by Kaslin
At this stage of the fiscal cliff pseudo negotiations, do the American people have any idea what the Republicans stand for other than to protect the wealthy and cut Medicare and Social Security to harm the sick and aged?
People constantly invoke Ronald Reagan, but one thing is certain and very relevant: If Reagan were on the national stage today, the public would not be confused about what the Republican Party stands for and why it matters.
The GOP is having difficulty even consolidating around a central message, much less selling it to the public. There is no excuse for that.
Though following its election defeat the party has all the confidence of an abandoned stepchild, it needs to shake the dust off, stand up and begin fighting like it truly believes the nation is worth fighting for.
It is automatically assumed in virtually all corners that President Obama has all the leverage in these budget talks. But is that necessarily true?
Let's look briefly at our current economic and fiscal condition and then compare the outcomes of going over the cliff versus reaching a deal and avoiding the cliff.
We have nation-threatening debt, and it's overwhelmingly because our spending is out of control. To the extent that revenues are contributing, it is not because tax rates on the rich are too low. It is because we have an anemic economy.
We have the worst recovery and the longest sustained period of high unemployment in 50 years because of Obama's anti-growth, private sector-smothering taxing, spending and regulatory policies. These policies ensure an endless circular pattern of debt explosion by destroying jobs, which shrinks the tax base and reduces revenues but also increases spending as the unemployed move to the welfare rolls.
Obama has jacked up federal spending across the board, save defense spending. Though he didn't cause the demographic changes leading to runaway entitlements -- except for adding Obamacare -- he is single-handedly standing in the way of reforming these programs.
This is Obama's economy and his financial crisis.
That's where we are. How about where we're headed?
If negotiations fail, we'll end up with automatic spending cuts, which, except for defense, would be a step in the right direction, and tax increases for everyone, not just the rich. Forget whether this is the result Obama wants. The question is whether it's better for the country than what the GOP would have to agree to for Obama to sign a deal averting the cliff.
Obama won't agree to serious spending cuts or entitlement reform, and he's demanding punitive, revenue-negligible tax increases (and elimination of deductions) for the wealthy. Further, he insists Republicans unconstitutionally delegate to him unilateral authority over future spending ceilings and thus abandon any future leverage they would have to force him to cut spending.
Why is it just assumed by Republicans and even conservative commentators that Republicans can't make their case against a reckless president who is primarily to blame for our problems and for any budget breakdowns?
Why, indeed? Fox News just released a poll showing that 89 percent of Americans believe that if taxes go up on the wealthy the president should agree to major spending cuts.
Polls also show the public fears the reduction of entitlement benefits more than it fears an economic collapse mostly caused by entitlements. So Republicans must explain clearly that entitlement reform is what ensures they will keep their benefits and that without reform we will have an economic collapse in which everyone will lose their benefits or receive substantially less.
Republicans appear feckless, unconfident and tongue-tied. They need to go on the offensive and show that Obama is causing these problems and preventing their solution. They need to refuse any deal that doesn't include major spending reductions and substantial entitlement reform, because such a deal would accelerate the bankruptcy of America, while tax increases on the rich won't help at all.
Even going over the cliff would be preferable to accepting Obama's unreasonable demands, which would be destructive to the economy and our financial situation and pointless, except to punish the rich and damage the Republican brand. While the automatic tax increases would be anti-growth, at least we'd have spending cuts, and Republicans will have stood on principle.
Thus, if the negotiations break down and we go over the cliff, it will mostly be Obama's fault. Obama refuses to address the financial crisis. Republicans insist we do. And we can't win this argument? Are we 2-year-olds who can't complete a simple sentence?
It's time for Republicans to draw their line in the sand and spell this out with a strong, unified, articulate voice. And while they're at it, perhaps they could make their case for a pro-growth society rife with opportunity, as contrasted to a future of ever-increasing economic malaise and government dependency.
Well there can be no argument here. Let’s not go over the cliff together. If we do, the results are not completely known and we surely will get the blame.
Q: Why is it just assumed by Republicans and even conservative commentators that Republicans can’t make their case against a reckless president who is primarily to blame for our problems and for any budget breakdowns?
A: Because Republicans do not offer an internally logical alternative and therefore do not possess the credibility to make the argument that Limbaugh advances. So far as I can ascertain, the GOP argument can be reduced to this: we advocate a slightly smaller government than the Democrats, although any savings are likely to be funneled to the defense establishment, but we are unwilling to pay for it with tax revenues, rather preferring to run an enormous, although slighly smaller than the Democrats prefer, budget deficit. They talk endlessly about cutting government spending, but never specify what is to be cut, knowing that every dollar spent has two constituencies: those who benefit from the spending and those middlemen who manage the redistribution.
May I suggest that the GOP focus on policies outside of spending and taxing that will improve economic competitiveness in the U.S. Once they have established a measure of credibility in these areas, the GOP will earn the political capital required to put forth conservative solutions to our insane fiscal situation.
As it stands, voters question whether there is meaningful cost to borrowing and spending and fear that budget cuts will produce short-term pain without giving rise to long-term benetis. These voters will not return the GOP to power until they are convinced that the party’s solutions will deliver net benefits to the economy. Clearly they don’t and I doubt that any unbiased observer with knowledge of economics would either.
of course they have leverage. but they have no balls.
Bingo
time to dump the GOP for a constitution protecting party with a pair.
The RINOcrat’s tactics will be to whine, cry, moan, then cave in.
The Republicans could have the best argument in the world, and if no one hears it what good does it do? They need to campaign to sell their ideas and their brand to get past the MSM. Commercials, talk shows, news show, etc.
“The GOP is having difficulty even consolidating around a central message”
We all know their central message...me,me,me,me,me,me,meeee!
Think Robert Preston in “The Music Man” when you sing the me vocalization. I’m sure most of them do it in the mirror each morning.
Republicans should do this. Republicans should do that. Bla bla bla bla.
Guess what, the Republicans won’t because they are being led by fools.
The same rinos that ignore 0bama’s birth certificate, SS#, Selective Service fraud, election fraud, etc., etc., aren’t going to do anything about the budget crisis. They won’t even make a totally missing budget from the Senate for 4 (four) years an issue. They are mot part of the solution, they are part of the problem.
“May I suggest that the GOP focus on policies outside of spending and taxing that will improve economic competitiveness in the U.S. Once they have established a measure of credibility in these areas, the GOP will earn the political capital required to put forth conservative solutions to our insane fiscal situation.”
As long as there is a MSM that is complicit with leftwing ideology, there can be no Republican message.
Here is a suggestion. The people of this country who believe in this country need to Alinsky the MSM to a point where an editorialist fears for his life if he/she writes negative things about the GOP.
It is working for Allah. Hate to say it, but we need to take a lesson from them. Until we are willing to get into the mud with the left we will always be portayed as evil.
’ The people of this country who believe in this country need to Alinsky the MSM to a point where an editorialist fears for his life if he/she writes negative things about the GOP.’
We really must have our own TV media to ‘alinsky’ the lamestream.
If Trump is serious, he should put his millions to work, get together with all the conservative celebrities and leaders to create a TV network to broadcast our messages and to put fears into the lamestream.
The media is most influential in delivering messages, framing issues and brain-washing people. We conservatives must share a big piece of that pie to make progress.
Newsmax
Rove: Obama’s True Aim in Cliff Talks Is to Regain House
Thursday, December 13, 2012 10:28 AM
By: Newsmax Wires
While President Barack Obama’s budget proposal to solve the fiscal cliff partly represents an effort to impose his ideology, the president’s fundamental aim is political, says Republican strategist Karl Rove.
“Mr. Obama’s real goal is having Democrats recapture the House in 2014 and once again stave off losses in the Senate,” he writes in The Wall Street Journal.
This author makes some good points until he suggests that Republicans can refuse to extend (meaning even hold a house vote) the <$250K income tax cuts for everyone by themselves as Dems are demanding they do.
If Republicans really hold out on those extensions then they will be just confirming what many already believe, that the R party only cares about cutting the rich’s taxes and will hold all others tax rates hostage to that end.
And in the end they would give in anyway on it, but only after being seen as being forced by Obama ‘protector of the middle class’ to do it.
That would be a great way to help Hillary to be POTUS in 2017, and who knows, maybe Speaker Pelosi in 2015 ???
Rove Is a chubby little doooosh
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