I got little tonite 'cept a quick thought on the DC Republicans returning a victory to Customer Service - Granite Grok

I got little tonite ‘cept a quick thought on the DC Republicans returning a victory to Customer Service

…and seeing a beaming Harry Reid and Obama on the other side of the counter.  After all, by not fighting hard and not throwing sand into the gear works, Democrats have now flipped the ideological bent of the DC Court of Appeals with Reid’s nuking of the filibuster – Obama will probably not have to worry at all about suits against Obamacare regulations (or anything else) as it is the locked door to the Supreme Court.

And now, the ONE item that actually implemented the idea of “limited government” – the sequester – has been blown up with the “news” of the micro-Grand bargain of US Rep. Paul Ryan (R) with the uber-Progressive Patty Murray.  Could you praise her any more, Paul?  Bipartisanship is not giving up the only real  achievement that the Rs were able get that actually reduced spending – it’s a cave-in as nothing of real value was gained in return.  Future leverage, from the scant details available thus far (but don’t sound good), has also been removed.  No long term restructuring of entitlements, of the “non-discretionary” programs – and $20 billion “reduction” (in the realm of a $4 Trillion annual budget) isn’t even worth spitting on.

All for the sake of “no government shutdown” (PLEASE, DON’T CALL US BAD NAMES ANY MORE) and “stability” – the same status quo that has given us a $17 Trillion national debt.

Way to motivate the base, duds. Nice present for the Democrats.  UPDATE – some details from Redstate (emphasis mine):

  • Under this agreement Congress would reinstate more than half the sequester for the next two years. Budget caps would be set at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015; current law is $967 billion & $995 billion respectively. It’s interesting how establishment Republicans argue that we can’t use the budget process to repeal Obamacare, but we evidently can use it to repeal the sequester. Paul Ryan said tonight that he is forced to “deal with things the way they are.” But that is not true. The default position was that the sequester was the law of the land. This will set a precedent to reverse that default, paving the road for future tax increases in order to offset the inevitable spending increase.
  • The sequester was one of the few battles in which Republicans successfully overcame liberal demagoguery. Obama tried to make the sequester as painful as possible by gratuitously shutting down popular services. It didn’t work. They claimed the economy would tank. The economy actually got stronger. Why would they throw this away?
  • The most important outcome of this bill is the long-term effect on fighting Obamacare. Rather than work out a one-year deal, Ryan essentially killed our leverage for the next two years. So even if Obamacare becomes more catastrophic and the public rises up against it, we will not have any leverage to fight it in the budget process for next year.
  • The spending offsets are a joke. Most of them are very intangible. The only thing definitive is an increase in airfare taxes to fund the TSA. [It’s not a tax, just “fees’ – Skip]
  • Mitch McConnell is directly responsible for this. He likes to say that he supports keeping the sequester, and indeed, he might vote against this deal, but he was the one who cued it up with his sabotage deal in October with Harry Reid. Hence, McConnell will secure his optimal outcome – all budget confrontation will cease for two years, but he won’t have his fingerprints on the deal, enabling him to keep his legislative scorecard high enough to hoodwink conservatives. Even as other leaders publicly supported the deal, McConnell said he would not be commenting on it tonight. Remember, he is the GOP Senate Leader, and has obviously known about the deal for quite some time.
  • And why would Republican leaders want to jettison all budget confrontation for two years? As we noted yesterday, the only plausible explanation is that they want a clear lane to drive through an amnesty bill without fights over Obamacare moving their prized issue to the back burner.
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