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Jewish World Review July 18, 2011 / 16 Tamuz, 5771 Time to raise demagoguery ceiling By Jay Ambrose
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says he was deferential, not belligerent, and just asking if he might speak when President Barack Obama took offense and walked huffily from the room, barking "enough is enough" and saying no one should try to call his bluff.
Others see it differently. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Cantor was "childish" during the White House debt ceiling negotiations, although a quick check of the record shows Reid has never, ever said anything perceptive, sensible, accurate or adult himself. The slur may have been improperly employed.
The worst thing, of course, would have been if Cantor had stood up and said, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure." There would have been a gasp as Cantor continued, talking about "reckless fiscal policies" that weaken the country "internationally and domestically."
But Cantor did not utter that denunciation. President Obama uttered it when he was Senator Obama, and then went on to vote against raising the debt ceiling without murmuring a word about sure-enough defaults making us a banana republic or the elderly and disabled being immediately deprived of Social Security checks
No, all of that would be reserved for another time, when another mode of attack was necessary and when Obama would again burst through the demagoguery ceiling, which really should be raised for the sake of a skull that will otherwise be perennially bruised. That is not the whole story, however, for he is a truly sincere welfare-state enthusiast, a redistributionist, a devout believer in big government and, when recession wanders into the room, he is a Keynesian who thinks you can spend your way to glory.
Thus, on top of entitlement promises that cannot conceivably be kept, he gave us an unaffordable health-care abomination when an effective plan could have been adopted at a fraction of the cost. He backed a clumsily, corruptly crafted stimulus plan that is more a debt threat than a job creator. He added hundreds of billions to a 2009 George W. Bush budget and went crazy with a 2010 budget. The Heritage Foundation says our debt of $14 trillion-and-climbing comes to something like $45,000 per capita and is equivalent to every nickel's worth of value produced in the country in a year.
That's danger, friends, and not only as seen by Tea Party activists, but as seen by one of the world's foremost debt experts, Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff, who says you need a long-term plan with specifics right away. Obama's answer was to appoint a commission with some members who actually did something, saying we need really tough budget cuts over time and revenue-producing reform giving us an efficient, fair system without all the dodges that now exist. Our president said thanks and then came up with a 2011 budget that, in its insane deficit projections over the next decade, would essentially mean the sinking of the good ship USA.
When House Republicans devised a contrary plan with cuts over 10 years and passed it while saying they wouldn't go along with raising the debt ceiling minus spending cuts, Obama said he would get rid of trillions of dollars in expenditures. It was all mush with no details even for dessert. Skipping over seriousness about tax reform, which could well have garnered GOP support, he called for a tax on the rich that done at this moment would be a hindrance to new jobs.
Two good compromise ideas have come up, both from Republicans and one of which Obama has incredibly rejected because it does not cut as much as this brand new ambition of his demands. While Congress should stop regarding debt ceilings as if they were electronic speed signs adjusting to however fast cars are going, we do need to raise this one at this point, and my suspicion is we will if Obama quits walking out of the room.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here. Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
• 07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly • 07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated? • 07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery
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