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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Today, We Must Give Mitch McConnell His Due Credit

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 14th, 2011 at 02:51 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Today comes word that Mitch McConnell has signed on to the DeMint strategy of cutting, capping, and balancing the budget.

Legislation has been introduced by the Republicans and they are calling it CCB, for “cut, cap, and balance.”

With Moody’s statement yesterday that the nation’s credit is at stake and demanding a long term plan to deal with our debt, it seems McConnell’s own plan is off the table. It does nothing to deal with the debt to income ratio of the country and is a short term $2 trillion increase in debt with no real cuts.

So it is nice to see McConnell now signing on to the conservative plan. More striking, Eric Cantor and John Boehner have still not. In fact, conservatives in Congress are insisting that CCB be dealt with even before a Balanced Budget Amendment.

McConnell seems game to proceed on that front. Hopefully Boehner and Cantor will listen.

McConnell deserves our credit today for doing the right thing. I can only hope that he will, now signed on, aggressively push CCB and not be a supporter in name only.

Republicans have an easy battle cry thanks to Moody’s.

CCB=AAA rating.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, the President still won’t show us what he actually wants to cut.

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COMMENTS

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  • gpclaw

    Does anyone have any insight as to why Boehner hasn’t gotten this through the House yet? Does he not have enough votes, a lack of will, or is this just gamesmanship?

  • Death_of_the_Donkey

    whether we like it or not, government plays a huge role in the economy and it is simply laughable to assume that the private sector will immediately fill any hole vacated by the government. Thus, CCB=immediate deep recession, which of course leads to less revenue, which (under this proposal) leads to yet more cutting (and again deeper recession). While CCB makes for good political theater, it makes for very bad reality, especially once we have to explain how and what we plan to cut to get us down to the level of government spending/GDP proposed (since we haven’t been that low since pre-Reagan).

  • http://www.twitter.com/AWG9_yoyo yoyo

    and by defunding the rest, how much breathing room would that make at the ceiling?

  • speckk

    The actual CCB proposal has a gradual 5 year implementation window. It’s reasonable, incremental plan which will give the stability the bond and labor markets need to grow.

    All this talk of not cutting anything “until the economy improves”, or “over 10 years”, is pure fantasy because the politicians who aren’t gone (like Obama), will be adjusting to the new reality. Anyone who makes claims like these is either lying or too naive to believe.

    We’ve had plenty of broken promises about spending cuts and balanced budgets when times were good. Now that times are hard, we need the political will to do what’s right for America long term, or we’ll watch as the world passes us by.

  • Ned Reck

    Sir… no disrespect meant here… but continuing to believe that Keynesian-spending crap… government trickle-down philosophy is killing us.

    Back at the apex of the “misery index”… comin’ out of the Carter Catastrophe… we had double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment and high interest rates.

    What did Paul Volcker do as Fed-Res Chair to bring down inflation and unemployment? He jacked interest rates even higher? stopped the spending and borrowing binge… cold-turkey.

    I would much rather go through an expeditious but painful surgery… than suffer an extended period of pain administered by a thousand paper-cuts. A prolonged agony happened in Japan (called the “lost decade”)… and if you look further back… it happened during the 1930′s following the Great Depression (WWII pulled us out of it, not FDR). All because leaders felt like they could control sanity in the markets. Spend, spend, spend. But the great leaders could not control the markets. Markets are controlled by too many variables… many times more variables than even the Obama Brilliant Bunch can ascertain.

    We need to get this over with… stop the arterial bleeding now. Major surgery is required. We need to get well soon.

    Sorry? we can not take ten more years of this crap.

    Ned Reck

  • jmimac351

    that your argument is based on spending that is funded by the accumulation of record, debilitating debt.

    IT IS NOT REAL and the largest threat we face are the millions of slackers who are convinced they can’t survive without the government, and their willing facilitators in big government.

    Well, guess what? We can’t survive with them riding for free and we can’t afford a government this big any longer. Time for slackers to get to work and gubmint employees to find a new gig.

  • http://www.pursuit-of-liberty.com davidmiller

    Cut Cap Balance does not mean an immediate deeper recession. It only cuts about 8% of the budget and caps us at 2006 spending levels (not exactly “pre-Reagan”) in the short term. The balance part does not kick in until 5 years AFTER it is ratified by the states giving the private sector plenty of warning.

    Those who oppose this are afraid to make tough choices and prefer to shut their eyes to the consequences of perpetual deficits.

  • averagevoterdotcom

    Does that about sum it up?

    Just say No to the DEBTOCRATIC Party!

  • joecollins

    No, I will not give Mitch credit as today he sits in a secretive meeting with President Obama and Harry Reid. Topic of discussion? How to implement Mitch’s Plan B to give Obama blanket authority to spend trillions more of OUR money.

    No, no credit. Not a single bit.

  • jederrick

    We need a government that lives within’s it’s means.
    We need a government that consumes less of the GDP.

    Fiscal conservatives should unite on..
    1) Not raising the debt ceiling.
    2) Not raising tax rates – notice that I did not say raising additional tax revenue.
    3) Eliminating “loop holes”

    It might be rough for a little while, but it is a bump worth taking to turn the ship around. Change is never easy. Restructuring a country is never easy, but easier now than later…

  • http://christopherrenner.blogspot.com Christopher Renner

    -nt-

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    .

  • renny

    $128 billion in unspent stimulus money and $137 repaid TARP monies are remaining, but fearless leader have declared them “off limits.” About 5 months of Soc. Sec. payments at $50 billion a month.

    I think he wants the “stimulus” for walking around money in 2012.

  • freemanja1991

    We should not completely abandon the amendment, but just make it we want a clean vote on it as a condition, and if it fails we now have a great issue to defeat dems with and many would lose for it.

  • renny

    on Soc. Sec. and Medicare a slacker.

    Something will have to be done to address SS and Medicare. They can be converted and phased over to something, but you are not going to get rid of them in a couple years.

    little o has raised Food Stamps 44% in 2.5 years by using Americorps as his brownshirts to push Food Stamps (remember that IG who got fired for interferring in Moochelle’s directions to Americorps?). And some of these people are potential rioters.

    But as o has raised spending 25% in his term, that should be eliminated now. Go back to the 2008 budget. Also, o has hired 24% more gov’t workers. Fire them. It will cause havoc in MD and VA, but hey, the housing market is lousy everyhere else. They may as well experience the shared sacrifice.

    Bring home more of the thousands of millitary overseas. We do not need 50,000 in personnel everywhere we have fought for the last 100 years.

    But whatever happens people will hurt. That has been the whole purpose of building the socialist state. Making the majority dependent on the gov’t.

    Reps. and cons. will not be loved by hurtung people. Find a better tax: flat tax or fair tax or national sales tax but something so EVERYONE pays some kind of fed. tax. And open energy so jobs will increase and industry will start to flouish again. More work also means more revenues and fewer cuts.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I like that variation on the plan.

  • zzpat

    I’m of the opinion that the House is so dysfunctional that it’can’t pass anything. Cantor seems to agree. He says nothing can pass the House, nothing.

    When we elect idiots who don’t know anything other than campaign slogans, this is what we get…a very dumb congress.

    Again, can anyone name a meaningful piece of legislation passed by this House? If not, what are they waiting for?

  • zzpat

    Since the House is completely incapable of governing, then the president must do it by himself. Is it his fault that they can’t do their jobs?

  • zzpat

    Revenue as a % of gdp dropped from around 21% under Clinton to 15% under Bush and we went from record surpluses to record deficits. Not knowing this is one of the problems inherent in every discussion with republicans who refuse to look things up.

    We need to get revenue up again and that means tax increases. However it’s done doesn’t matter, but it must be done.

    Or we can pass another tax cut, create another trillion dollars of debt, pass the debt to the next generation and then blame Democrats for what we did.

  • aesthete

    McConnell pulled a Clinton on this one — he’s getting no praise from me for saving his own political scalp, and realizing the negative ads he was gifting to his potential primary opponents.

  • Sirithil

    In 2000, Clinton’s last year in office, total federal revenue was $2.025T, 20.6% of a GDP of $9.821T.

    In 2008, Bush’s last year in office, total federal revenue was $2.524T, 17.5% of a GDP of $14.394T.

    For the record, 2.524T is a bigger number than 2.025T. This is commonly referred to as ‘a rising tide lifting all boats’. See how supply-side works now?

    But thanks for coming out.

    Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/

  • gpclaw

    if it weren’t for the financial crisis. In 2006 and 2007, receipts were 18.2% and 18.5% of GDP. There were some slow years under Bush, because of the recession that Bush inherited from Clinton. Funny how W never whined about it though.

  • Common_Cents

    not argue about class warfare and who is getting tax raises.

    He said rolling back Bush tax cuts on the ‘rich’ (over 250k) would only bring in 30 billion. And that is assuming people will work the same and would not look at more ways to minimize tax burden. A very poor assumption.

    Boortz went on saying we must be focusing on growing the economy w/ a 5% GDP growth could net 130 billion.

    We have to focus on our economic engine, small and medium size business. They are literally on the ropes. They cannot get credit and many are dialing back because of uncertainty. Its freakin basic stuff Obama and the lefties know nothing about and despise.

  • JSobieski

    I got into an argument last night with someone who is convinced not only that the Bush tax cuts resulted in trillions of dollars to the very rich, but that the Reagan tax cuts did as well.

    Apparently the person made the logical leap that a projected surplus under Clinton meant that ALL of the debt originated from George W. After all, Clinton handed Bush a surplus! LOL

    Totally agree about the need to focus on growth though. If we go 100% green eyeshades, we will lose.