Boehner loses: time for a TEA party Speaker in '12

[AZRedhawk44]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-abandons-efforts-to-reach-comprehensive-debt-reduction-deal/2011/07/09/gIQARUJ55H_print.html

Basically, Boehner couldn't get huge spending cuts without matching increases in taxes.

So, he agreed to small spending cuts without matching increases in taxes, in order to get an increase in the debt ceiling.  That's all Obama would go for, in the end.

So, he's backing away from the "default" edge of the cliff.  Giving Obama the debt increases, with insufficient cuts in spending.

He blinked.

I'd just as soon have the FedGuv be in turmoil until August 1st.  Hell, even go passed the August 2nd deadline.  It's no skin off my nose if the FedGov is unable to pay welfare, SS, Medicare and other crap for a couple weeks.  Everything was fine in 1994.

Time for a TEA party Speaker, in my opinion.  Someone that will go to WAR for the solvency of the Republic.  I'm perfectly OK with the government doing NOTHING for an indeterminate future.  The .mil complex will still operate, even without paychecks temporarily.  That's the only thing we really need the .gov to do, when you boil it down to its barest essence.  Everything else is fluffy bunnyshyte.

[De Selby]

Do you honestly believe that spending billions on wars all over the planet should be the priority for tax money?

Medicine and sustenance for the old and sick are just crap compared to the worldwide security state.  I find that a bit hard to accept, and highly doubt that you will still want to live in America if/when this fantasy comes true.

[RocketMan]

Do you honestly believe that spending billions on wars all over the planet should be the priority for tax money?

How in the H-E-double toothpicks did you get that from AZRedhawk's post?  Or do you not know what to speak figuratively is?

[De Selby]

How in the H-E-double toothpicks did you get that from AZRedhawk's post?  Or do you not know what to speak figuratively is?

I got that from this:

It's no skin off my nose if the FedGov is unable to pay welfare, SS, Medicare and other crap for a couple weeks.

and

this:

  The .mil complex will still operate, even without paychecks temporarily.  That's the only thing we really need the .gov to do, when you boil it down to its barest essence.  Everything else is fluffy bunnyshyte.

[MicroBalrog]

Do you honestly believe that spending billions on wars all over the planet should be the priority for tax money?

Yes.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Yup.  The US Constitution lays out a few very carefully defined things that the Federal Government is supposed to do.  Nowhere in that list have I ever seen Social Security, Medicare, Education, or any of a couple thousand other things.  However, it *is* listed that the Federal Government is responsible for making war. 

[Fitz]

I got that from this:
 and

this:

Hint: national defense is constitutionally mandated.

Handouts are not.

[French G.]

That and national defense is a drop in the bucket. Let's rape the 15% that buys that but ignore the other 85% for the childrens.

[TommyGunn]

Do you honestly believe that spending billions on wars all over the planet should be the priority for tax money?

Medicine and sustenance for the old and sick are just crap compared to the worldwide security state.  I find that a bit hard to accept, and highly doubt that you will still want to live in America if/when this fantasy comes true.

Whether you like the wars or not, the fact is they are not a huge factor in our national debt despite what the demotalkingidiotheadrobots would have us believe when they repeat MOVEONDOTORG talking point #3456576745 about "unfunded wars." 
"Medicine and sustenance for the old?" Oh ... really.  You think all old people in America are poor, impovershed and live in hovels?  No, they aren't and don't; there's a LOT of $$$$ in them that "old people."
If they are impovershed, really, that's one thing.  But let's not keep using old people as some sort of idiot "sacred cow" because they DO NOT go "moo" and many, many CAN take care of themselves.  Thank you for reading this.

[RoadKingLarry]

Hint: national defense is constitutionally mandated.

Handouts are not.

Maybe he don't understand what "Promote the general welfare" really means.

[MechAg94]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-abandons-efforts-to-reach-comprehensive-debt-reduction-deal/2011/07/09/gIQARUJ55H_print.html

Basically, Boehner couldn't get huge spending cuts without matching increases in taxes.

So, he agreed to small spending cuts without matching increases in taxes, in order to get an increase in the debt ceiling.  That's all Obama would go for, in the end.

So, he's backing away from the "default" edge of the cliff.  Giving Obama the debt increases, with insufficient cuts in spending.

He blinked.

I'd just as soon have the FedGuv be in turmoil until August 1st.  Hell, even go passed the August 2nd deadline.  It's no skin off my nose if the FedGov is unable to pay welfare, SS, Medicare and other crap for a couple weeks.  Everything was fine in 1994.

Time for a TEA party Speaker, in my opinion.  Someone that will go to WAR for the solvency of the Republic.  I'm perfectly OK with the government doing NOTHING for an indeterminate future.  The .mil complex will still operate, even without paychecks temporarily.  That's the only thing we really need the .gov to do, when you boil it down to its barest essence.  Everything else is fluffy bunnyshyte.

But other Republicans said Boehner had finally realized that he could not sell the tax framework within his party. Many House Republicans, particularly the influential 87-member freshman class, won elections vowing to never raise taxes. At a Thursday meeting at the White House, Cantor said the tax package could not pass the House. And at a Friday morning news conference, every member of Boehner’s leadership team denounced the idea of including tax increases in the debt legislation.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates have been putting additional pressure on Boehner. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) vowed in her first campaign ad to never vote for any debt-ceiling increase, no matter what provisions were attached to it.

On Saturday, top Republicans offered tepid support for Boehner’s decision. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said McConnell, too, “remains concerned with the Democrats’ unwillingness to take steps to protect entitlement programs from bankruptcy.”

So, what did Boehner blink on?  It sounds to me like he was leaning toward making a deal even if it wasn't very good and many in his own party shot it down.  It sounds like the right people are putting pressure in the right places to push this. 

If I would say he blinked, it would be the completely nutty idea that Republicans would vote to give the Dems a few things in return for making changes "by the end of the year".  If they expect Dems to uphold their end, they are idiots. 

[MechAg94]

In private negotiations with the White House last week, Boehner dangled a tax deal that he thought might bridge the divide. Republicans would immediately extend the Bush tax cuts for middle-class households, leaving the cuts that benefit the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers on track to expire next year. That would have been a huge win for Democrats, whose liberal base views ending tax cuts for the rich as a top priority — and one that Obama has failed to deliver.

Democrats, in turn, would agree to a rewrite of the tax code by the end of the year, to lower rates for everyone, a top GOP priority. As recently as Friday, the speaker’s office and the White House were trading proposals, trying to reach agreement before the Sunday meeting with other top congressional leaders.

People in both parties said talks broke down over tax reform: On Friday, the White House said changes in tax law must not shift the tax burden more heavily onto households earning less than $250,000 a year. After that, suddenly things went dark, said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

Some Republican aides said the deal was simply not good enough, in part because Obama refused to cut entitlement programs deeply enough to restore them to solvency. They also complained that, as part of a mechanism to force lawmakers to overhaul the tax code, the president wanted a trigger that would automatically raise taxes if tax legislation was not enacted by the end of this year.

I gotta wonder just how serious this potential deal really was.  That whole thinks sounds like lunacy and just plain rolling over.

[Stickjockey]

Larry;

There's a difference between "promoting" the general welfare and " providing for" the general welfare.

[Perd Hapley]

There's also a difference between "general welfare" and "individual welfare."

[birdman]

I think NO MATTER WHAT, that whatever deal is eventually chosen is selected to ensure AT MOST a 12 month extension.  If we (taxpayers) don't get things this time, I want this debate to occur again with 2-4 months before the 2012 election.  If the current deal is bemoaned by the libs for "hurting" people, (which we know it really won't), it puts fiscal conservatives in a great place next year to say "look, they said it would be bad, and it wasn't", combine that with net positive aspects (REAL spending reduction and/or tax reduction yielding better economic factors), and while it gives POTUS a better platform (look, I improved things with a deal), it gives the main proponents of the deal a way to also say "not only did things not get worse, they got better".  Personally (don't hate me, I'm thinking "least worst" scenaio), IF I can't have a fiscally conservative POTUS AND congress, I'll take a congressional majority/supermajority in both houses and another 4 years of a neutered Obama.  Especially if the balls that come with a majority allow good and fast "oh no you don't" responses to any executive order BS.  Let's face it, the ONLY way we can start unwinding all the crap from the past 10. Lt alone 40 years is with both houses And preferable, a veto-proof majority, otherwise, it will be deal upon deal, and we are only slowing the inevitable.

[Waitone]

Obama is the one under pressure.  He will no doubt benefit from any deal which appears to control spending.  They fact that Boehner has yet to cave is a testimony to the pressure he is facing from his own party.  I honestly believe left to his own resources he would have caved a long time ago.  Another encouraging sign is Boehner hasn't fallen (yet) for the Charlie Brown and Lucy play by democrats.  What I look forward to is some politician on one of the two sides coming up with a really good idea:  10% across the board cuts.  No questions, no exceptions. 

[birdman]

Obama is the one under pressure.  He will no doubt benefit from any deal which appears to control spending.  They fact that Boehner has yet to cave is a testimony to the pressure he is facing from his own party.  I honestly believe left to his own resources he would have caved a long time ago.  Another encouraging sign is Boehner hasn't fallen (yet) for the Charlie Brown and Lucy play by democrats.  What I look forward to is some politician on one of the two sides coming up with a really good idea:  10% across the board cuts.  No questions, no exceptions. 

The problem with across the board cuts, or even targeted reductions, is they are cuts from a baseline, perpetuating the "once in place, a government program exists for eternity" situation we are in.  I would much rather have a smaller percentage in the end, combined with actual elimination of programs/agencies/administrations/departments/etc. As that way the cut is from the baseline, and it requires a new law (and thus debate and on-record voting) to reinstate, which I think given the more scrutiny congress is under now vs 20-40yrs ago, makes the creation of new spending entities significantly more difficult

[Waitone]

What you propose is what one would expect in a rational, logic based world.  We ain't there.  Politicians are playing their usual games whilst the voter is getting increasingly stink-eyed over the whole mess.  The elites (both parties included as well are bureaucratic strap hangars) honestly believe actually cutting both budget and government would create a catastrophe for the country.  An across the board 10% cut would demonstrate it could be done and it could be done fairly easily.  Every business in the country has at one time had to cut the budget mid-year and they survived.  A 10% cut isn't optimal but it is a sight better than what we're doing now.  We are going no where in a hurry.

[De Selby]

Yes.

In other words, it's better for the government to spend money on a "war on terror" that actively does harm to Americans privacy rights, and arms Obama with the most fearsome surveillance apparatus ever created, but spending that same money on welfare handouts it's just wrong.

I'd rather let that money be rorted by bums, who will at least do no more than drive past me with fancy wheels.  That's a lot less harmful to my liberty than a decade of warfare.

[TommyGunn]

DeSelby, were you as militant as you are now when Echelon went through kongress?

[MechAg94]

In other words, it's better for the government to spend money on a "war on terror" that actively does harm to Americans privacy rights, and arms Obama with the most fearsome surveillance apparatus ever created, but spending that same money on welfare handouts it's just wrong.

I'd rather let that money be rorted by bums, who will at least do no more than drive past me with fancy wheels.  That's a lot less harmful to my liberty than a decade of warfare.

You have got a one track mind aimed at lunacy.  "War on Terror" spending did not significantly expand our budget.  We could cut all WOT money and bring the DOD down subsistence level spending and it wouldn't even come close to balancing the budget.  Were we still at 2007/2008 budget levels, that stuff, MIGHT be significant, but not now.  The Democrats greatly expanding Govt spending across the board of domestic programs and added new ones.   They doubled and tripled the budget deficits we had.  Now they are standing in the way of even meaningless small cuts in spending.

[RaspberrySurprise]

Maybe he don't understand what "Promote the general welfare" really means.

I'd say not jamming socialism down peoples throats is one good way to promote the general welfare.

[gunsmith]

I do not agree with every mission our current  POTUS or even the last dozen have sent the troops out to fight, but I agree with paying them.

the radlibs are parasites, not knowing that if they kill the host they die too.

I'm broker now than I have been in yrs, even more broke then when I was working while living in a car, I am voting for conservatives/tea parties because I want work, not bureaucratic red tape.

if the radlibs win, they'll destroy the USA, its what they want really. I know because I was once a young idealistic anarchist radlib myself.

The combo of workers world/dem socialist/islamonutbaggers that the radlibs want to run the planet will make the 20th century's genocide look like utopia in comparison.

[Balog]

In other words, it's better for the government to spend money on a "war on terror" that actively does harm to Americans privacy rights, and arms Obama with the most fearsome surveillance apparatus ever created, but spending that same money on welfare handouts it's just wrong.

I'd rather let that money be rorted by bums, who will at least do no more than drive past me with fancy wheels.  That's a lot less harmful to my liberty than a decade of warfare.

Again, this is a false dichotomy. It's not "Either continue the WoT (which A. is no worse than the WoSD in terms of rights infringement B. is a drop in the bucket, budget wise) or continue the welfare state."

We could cut the .mil entirely, and it would not stop SS/Medicare/caid etc from bankrupting our country.

[AZRedhawk44]

Again, this is a false dichotomy. It's not "Either continue the WoT (which A. is no worse than the WoSD in terms of rights infringement B. is a drop in the bucket, budget wise) or continue the welfare state."

We could cut the .mil entirely, and it would not stop SS/Medicare/caid etc from bankrupting our country.

Indeed.

The 2010 budget:



Note that DOD is 18.74% of the budget.

SS, Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid comprise 56.74% of our national budget.

Those 4 social leech programs consume 3 times the money as the entire DOD.