Republican Leaders Again Equivocate on Spending Cuts‏

Once more since arriving on Capitol Hill, the new Republican dominated House of Representatives and the newly reinforced Republican Senate minority has equivocated on the topic of spending cuts. By now we are all well aware that the Republicans have abandoned the goal of cutting $100 billion dollars this fiscal year and likewise, they have failed to produce a pro rata spending reduction plan to address that shortened year. We all remember that taxes, debt reduction and spending cuts were in the forefront of the Republican agenda for the 2010 elections as these headlines from conservative sources show: “Tax, Spending Cuts Top GOP Campaign-year ‘Pledge” or “Tax, spending cuts lead Republican campaign manifesto” Needless to say, You get the idea.

Okay so what then happened to all of the bold talk about taking on entitlements and spending? When faced with having to answer that question on national television Mitch McConnell echoed the reluctance that Speaker of the House John Boehner had previously stated. As if by magic, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appearing on “Meet the Press” danced around the question that Republicans seemed obviously reluctant to come out with bold measures to tackle deficit spending as the following exchange between Senator McConnell and host David Gregory reveals:

“MR. GREGORY: Well, that’s very interesting because I’ve also detected a great deal of caution on the part of Republicans who, who campaigned on the idea of spending cuts. And yet, when it comes to a program like Social Security–it was Speaker Boehner who told a group of us this week, “Well, look, we need to spend more time defining the problem before we get in the boat with the president here and say that we’ve got to make long-term changes.” Is that your view?

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, look, we have, we have two problems here. It’s our annual deficit, completely out of control. We’re going to send the president a lot less–we’re going to allow him to sign onto a lot less spending than he recommended the other night and that he’s likely to send us in the budget. Then with, with regard to long-term unfunded liabilities, the entitlements, Speaker Boehner’s correct, you cannot do that on a partisan basis. President Bush tried doing that in 2005 with regard to Social Security’s problems. And by the way, the announcement this week that Social Security’s gone into deficit, it will run a $45 billion deficit this year and for as far as the eye can see. Look, entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis. It’s happened before. Reagan and Tip O’Neill fixed Social Security in ’83. Reagan and the Democratic House did tax reform in ’86.

MR. GREGORY: So, but if the president were to say, “OK, Leader McConnell, if, if you’re prepared to deal with some revenue increases, we can also deal with some benefit cuts. Let’s take a balanced approach to Social Security,” you could support that?

SEN. McCONNELL: Look, you know, you’ve tried this before. I, I’m not going to negotiate the deal with David Gregory. I’d be happy to negotiate it…

MR. GREGORY: I keep hoping you’ll change your mind.

SEN. McCONNELL: I’d be happy to try to negotiate the deal, and Speaker Boehner would too, with the president and the vice president and others.

MR. GREGORY: But does the president have to go first before you’ll take on entitlement reform?

SEN. McCONNELL: We have to go together. We have to go together. The American people are asking us to tackle these problems. I think the president needs to be more bold. We’re prepared to meet–I’ve got a lot of new members, and Speaker Boehner does as well, who came here to tackle this big problem. We were waiting…

MR. GREGORY: But you’re saying, “Be bold on entitlements and Republicans will meet you halfway”?

SEN. McCONNELL: We’re happy to sit down and talk about entitlement reform with the president. We know Social Security is in trouble. It was just announced by CBO this week. We know Medicare is on an unsustained path. They took a half a trillion dollars out of it to fund this healthcare program that they enacted. Look, we need to get serious about this.”

As the above commentary reveals, what we have before us is a Republican leadership cadre that has already deviated from the rhetoric of the campaign trail by putting the ball in Barack Obama’s court by stressing that it is the duty of the President to come up with “bold” proposals on deficit and spending reduction as per Senator McConnell’s commentary above. But wasn’t that what the Republicans ran on in the first place? For all of the rhetoric of 2010 can’t they showcase their own bold ideas on “Meet the Press”, America’s premier Sunday morning political talk show? Likewise, Speaker Boehner’s comment that Republicans “need to spend more time defining the problem” also seems to ring hollow, coming from a guy who on this very show said before the 2010 elections that the G.O.P. had spent the past last year listening to “the American people.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the Republicans present themselves as the people who had this problem figured out and who knew what to do to get this country back on the right track, which oddly enough they got us off of in the first place when they squandered a trillion dollar plus surplus and launched two wars while cutting taxes, a historical first for the United States? They had the opportunity to put that surplus into the Social Security system or to use it to pay down the national debt as they were advised to do by Alan Greenspan, yet they chose to do otherwise. Now when elected to produce bold public policy to address our fiscal problems they plead for “more time” and look a president much maligned by them for “bold” proposals!

What’s also semi-comical is Mr. McConnell’s new found affinity for bipartisan cooperation. Isn’t it a bit curious that they very guy who said it was his goal to see that Barack Obama be a one term president, now openly solicits the President’s support and cooperation? Is this borne of a realization that the Republicans can’t possibly meet their agenda alone? Is this a maneuver concocted to throw a curve ball at the Tea Party crowd as there has been little beyond rhetoric on the part of the G.O.P. when it comes to deficit reduction specifics? We’ve all heard about Congressman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America” yet it’s a document that few in the Republican Party had signed onto in the run up to 2010.

In the final analysis it seems that the bold rhetoric of the campaign trail has now faded in the harsh winter of political reality. Hence the old adage, “talk is cheap.” Now that they are in a position of power in Washington, the Republicans will have to finally translate their rhetoric into policy, thus far they have done little but dance around the tough issues and meet tough questions with clever rhetorical replies. How long will that last before their constituents hit the streets and demand some form of accountability from those who went to Washington to turn back the tide of Obama “the Socialist.”

Steven J. Gulitti

1/30/11

Sources:

Meet the Press transcript for Jan. 30, 2011 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41317645/ns … anscripts/

The Tea Party Agenda: Is It Already Slip Sliding Away ?
http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_j_gul … iding_away

Republicans Lower Goal for Cuts to Budget;
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/po … 1&emc=eta1

GOP Exempts Deficit Busting Policies From New Budget Rules;
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011 … -rules.php

New pay-go rules reveal GOP’s misplaced priorities;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … s_opinions

House GOP Backtracking on Promised ‘Reforms’ Before They Even Get Started;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 … 04227.html

“Tax, Spending Cuts Top GOP Campaign-year ‘Pledge”
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/USRe … /id/371215

Tax, spending cuts lead Republican campaign
manifestohttp://www.cleveland.com/natio … publi.html

The Tea Party Agenda: Is It Already Slip Sliding Away ?

As the 112th Congress gets down to business, a major element of the Tea Party agenda, deficit reduction, seems to have already been reduced in scope, now seemingly becoming the object of negotiation and political theater. Having reached the halls of Congress it’s a bit ironic to see such a major plank of the Tea Party platform slipping away so soon. It reminds one of that old Paul Simon refrain: “Slip sliding away, slip sliding away. You know the nearer your destination, the more your slip sliding away.” According to Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: “Many people knowledgeable about the federal budget said House Republicans could not keep their campaign promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending in a single year. Now it appears that Republicans agree.” This new found reluctance to enact budget cuts is a function of several factors. First, the federal fiscal year is already one third over so the amount of time left to affect meaningful cuts is greatly reduced. Second, lacking control of the Senate effectively stymies any attempt at drastic budget reductions over the next two years. Moreover, there is a reluctance on the part of Senators on both sides of the aisle to enact deep budget cuts during a time of severe recession as such measures may derail the weak but building recovery. Again to Calmes: “a House vote would put potentially vulnerable Republican lawmakers on record supporting deep reductions of up to 30 percent in education, research, law enforcement, transportation and more.” This degree of debt reduction would take millions of dollars out of the economy in the short run in spite of the longer term concerns about debt levels. While we can’t ignore the deficit problem indefinitely, any attempt to reduce the simulative effects of government spending in a weak economy may be just to risky for those currently occupying the halls of power. Thus the new line coming out of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill is that the $100 Billion number was a hypothetical figure to begin with. So much for a radical new day in Washington.

Then there is the fact that many of the proposals favored by the Republicans may do little if anything to rectify the budget deficit issue. According to Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo: “Republicans’ deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically. To get around this fact, they’ve included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more…. The health care law, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will reduce the deficit by $143 billion through the end of the decade, and more so in the decade after that. Thus, repealing the law will blow a similarly sized hole in the deficit.” Likewise a recent editorial appearing in the Washington Post comes to a similar conclusion. Quoting from “New pay-go rules reveal GOP’s misplaced priorities”; “ARE HOUSE Republicans serious about dealing with the deficit? You could listen to their rhetoric – or you could read the rules they are poised to adopt at the start of the new Congress. The former promises a new fiscal sobriety. The latter suggests that the new GOP majority is determined to continue the spree of unaffordable tax-cutting. The ominous signs come in the wording of the new majority’s version of its pay-as-you-go rules, which normally require that new programs or tax initiatives be covered with cuts to other programs or new revenue. In the GOP concept, pay-as-you-go applies only to spending programs. When it comes to tax cuts, it’s all go, no pay. Taxes can be cut, and the national debt increased, without any offsetting savings.” Now granted it was not the newly elected Tea Party backed lawmakers who engineered this shift in strategy, it’s their new found partners within the Republican establishment. Thus it would appear that we are on the verge of a three way fight in the halls on Capitol Hill between the Democrats and the G.O.P., and between the G.O.P. and the Tea Party. That begs the question, what does this mean for the future of the Tea Party agenda and the movement’s ability to produce the single most important product a party creates, policy.

As the first day of the 112th Congress came to a close, two veteran political observers in Washington, both appearing on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, took stock of the new Congress, its Tea Party contingent and what could be expected going forward. Norm Orenstien of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that the Republican Party had the “freedom” to pass whatever they wanted to in the House so as to attempt to undo the legislative achievements of the past two years. However, they also know that anything too radically to the right won’t survive the Senate or the President’s veto pen. That said, all that the newly radicalized lawmakers could accomplish was to “bollix up the health care debate and the legislative process”, to paraphrase Orenstien. Presidential historian, Michael Beschloss, cautioned that it was unwise to read too much into the stunning Republican victory of 2010. Beschloss pointed out that while the Tea Party crowd ran for office on a radically rightwing agenda, the historical record shows that undoing the type of legislation just enacted doesn’t happen too often. Pointing to the G.O.P.’s similar victory in 1952, Beschloss said that while this victory was freighted with ideas such as dismantling Social Security and rolling back the Soviet Union militarily in Eastern Europe, none of that ever came to pass. In fact the Democrats regained Capitol Hill and basically held onto it until the election of 1994. Likewise Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal in her “after action report” on the 2010 election pointed to the fact that last November’s results don’t politically guarantee anything: “History doesn’t inspire optimism. Over the past 100 years, every time a president two years into his first term lost Congress, he went on to re-election: Truman in ’48, Eisenhower in ’56, Clinton in ’96. Newt Gingrich even wrote a book, “Lessons Learned the Hard Way,” about the GOP mistakes in the wake of 1994. It boiled down to Republicans over-promising and under-delivering—becoming the foil off of which President Clinton was able to skillfully pivot away from his own liabilities.” Thus we are about to witness some of the most interesting politics, political theater and political oratory to come onto the American scene since the end of the Second World War. At the very least is should be interesting as well as colorful.

Steven J. Gulitti
1/5/11

Sources:

Republicans Lower Goal for Cuts to Budget;

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/po … 1&emc=eta1

GOP Exempts Deficit Busting Policies From New Budget Rules;
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011 … -rules.php

New pay-go rules reveal GOP’s misplaced priorities;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … s_opinions

House GOP Backtracking on Promised ‘Reforms’ Before They Even Get Started;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 … 04227.html

The GOP’s 2012 Game Plan;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 … 93940.html