GOP Must Use Debt Debate to get Real Cuts
I have been struck by the arguments here at FrumForum that the hard line Republicans against raising the debt limit are “radical.” I put aside the views expressed (according to press reports) by Michele Bachmann that she will not vote to raise the debt limit under any circumstances. What I wonder is if a vote for a rise in the debt ceiling only with enforceable, verifiable, and real structural spending cuts-passed by Democrats and signed by President Obama-without a rise in tax rates is truly radical or if instead, it is the proper Republican response to the Obama years? Those years have seen unprecedented spending with no plan to end the deficits and attacks on any Republican proposal to do so.
Mr. Frum is on record that a failure to raise the debt limit will hurt Republicans and the Republic (also here). He, and others worry that a failure of a deal hurts Republicans and would be a disaster. For purposes of this argument I won’t argue that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be bad for the country, though it is debatable. My argument is political, I’m not convinced that the Republicans risk much, by opposing a rise in the debt ceiling unless structural and real spending cuts are approved openly by the Democrats and the President. A rise in tax rates should also be off the table. We don’t have a taxing problem. We have a spending problem. The Republicans don’t want to vote for a rise in the debt ceiling and the Democrats don’t want to reduce spending. Each voting to do both is compromise.
This is so reasonable that for the first time in a long time Pat Buchanan and Charles Krauthammer agree on something. Buchanan thinks the whip hand belongs to congressional Republicans on spending and they should use it. Krauthammer, a “governing Republican” if every there was one thinks it is Obama and the Democrats being irresponsible and that the country knows it.
David Brooks has joined the “Republicans are radical” side of the argument but his love of Obama and his well creased pants are legendary. He has accused Republicans of bad faith and lack of honor for not wanting to continue to make promises they know will not and cannot be kept. When he criticizes President Obama and his “tax corporate jets to prosperity plan” in equally vitriolic terms I will take him more seriously. Also, as Krauthammer notes, his entire piece is based on cuts that have so far only been leaked to the press. President Obama’s unverifiable, unaudited leaks are given the status of holy writ by Brooks. This is not punditry but idolatry.
A pretty smart lawyer, John Hindraker weighs in here supporting a hard line of verifiable cuts for a raise in the debt limit. These “Sessions Seven” in the Senate are likely the target of the “responsible Republican” wing of the party but shouldn’t the Democrats have to produce a budget? I will lay down a marker here for what I think is responsible and reasonable for a Republican. I reject balanced budget amendments as slow, silly and prone to handing our fiscal future to the Courts and away from Congress where it belongs. I also think that as long as marginal rates are not increased, eliminating loopholes and subsidy is fine. In other words, I side with Tom Coburn over Grover Norquist in the debate on what revenue enhancements are legitimate for Republicans. A reduction of the corporate tax rate to the average for G-7 nations, for instance, coupled with a closure of corporate loopholes, particularly subsidies, strikes me as eminently reasonable.
Barack Obama is the President who will leave unemployment worse than he found it with no reduction to pre-recession levels in sight. He is the President who has created more debt than any other one term president in history. He is the President who ended American manned space flight that John F. Kennedy began so memorably. Does he want to be the first President to see America default on its obligations? Can he survive it? I don’t think he can. Why shouldn’t the Republicans extract all they can get?
What other opportunity will they have to hold the Democrat’s feet to the fire? To show Americans they will not engage in business as usual? Republicans insisting on real spending cuts-not the same false promises they have received in the past-that the Democrats have reneged on and then demagogued- are being wise, not truculent. The President who voted against raising the debt ceiling when he was a Senator can hold out for tax increases. He can maintain spending and use his power to keep the base line of spending at post-stimulus levels. Let the default then be on his head.
The Democrats have violated the law by not passing a budget in the Senate for 800 days. The Democrats have rejected President Obama’s own debt commission suggestions when there was time to do something. The Democrats and their mouthpieces push the canard that we don’t have a spending problem except for Defense. Their policies have nearly bankrupted us and done nothing to bring back prosperity. A new direction is imperative and they are weak. Their weakness should be exploited to maximum gain. The House should pass bill after bill raising the debt limit but cutting spending, defunding Obamacare, and defunding the Left. Let the Senate stop it and Obama veto. Who then is not raising the debt limit and making America renege on its promises? Are the spending priorities of liberalism more important than paying America’s bills? Who is radical now? Finally, when the debt limit is raised -and Obama and the Democrats have caved and have been seen to cave -the Republicans should make the next debt limit fight take place in September/October of 2012. The Republic will then have a choice. It can vote for Obama’s debt path and the Democrats or the Republicans. What could be fairer and more democratic than that? What fair-minded argument against running the election on the debt crisis of the West and of the U.S. can there be from good government types?
Mr. Krauthammer (and others) have laid out a plan for raising the debt ceiling and reducing spending. The House has passed a budget. The Right has risked political loss with Congressman’s Ryan’s Medicare program. We have been responsible. Your turn Mr. President.