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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Not Playing the Fool

There are a lot of Republicans tonight willing to play the fool for the GOP in this debt ceiling plan. They say, for example, that there will be no tax increases from this super committee. Never mind that the Democrats are saying otherwise.

I can prove to you right now that there will be tax increases.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the Bush tax cuts to expire. So all the commission has to do is two things: extend middle class Bush tax cuts and enact a permanent alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch. Those two together would look like an increase to the deficit in CBO scoring. So then the commission can start out of the gate with the ability to create several trillion dollars in new tax hikes to equal out to the cuts — cuts that will happen even without the commission most likely. And where will those cuts come from? Those making $250,000.00 or more, of course. And probably the Gang of 6′s ideas to eliminate most deductions to income taxes without revenue neutral rate reductions and the Gang of 6′s pièce de résistance — raising capital gains taxes from 15% to 28%.

Have people not been paying attention? In every single address the President has given on the debt ceiling, he has insisted on new tax revenue. John Boehner even put $800 billion on the table, so it is already there.

The House and Senate GOP leadership may have convinced themselves that they have snookered the Democrats, but even little ole me, a non-budget genius, can drive a truck through their argument. And their best response probably comes from Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform. That counter argument is best summed up as but . . . but . . . but . . . the House Leadership says so. And if puppies were unicorns, we’d all live in a fantasy land.

Apparently, young lefty Ezra Klein who thinks no one pays attention to the constitution because, dude, it’s so old, is brighter than Ryan Ellis at ATR. Klein writes, “Boehner is misleading his members to make them think taxes are impossible under this deal. The Joint Committee could close loopholes and cap tax expenditures. It could impose a value-added tax, or even a tax on carbon.”

There will be tax increases. The Deficit Commission will have at least one weak kneed Republican and the commission will only be as strong as its weakest link. The Bush tax cuts will also absolutely expire and not be renewed.

The alternative for the GOP would be seeing massive defense cuts and being blamed for senior citizens seeing their medicare cut. “But,” House Republican leaders exclaim, “the cuts would not be to beneficiaries.”

True, the cuts would be punishing doctors who will respond by denying access to medicare patients.

The Democrats are happy to force through taxes in the committee and then, when the GOP opposes them, claim the GOP would rather hurt our soldiers and seniors than raise taxes on “fat cat millionaires.”

And if we’ve learned nothing else these past few weeks, the GOP fears more than anything else what the Democrats say about them. Don’t believe me on taxes, then ask GOP leadership why they haven’t put in a clear statement prohibiting them or, even better, why there is no prohibition on decoupling the middle class Bush tax cuts from the upper income Bush taxes cuts.Last week in the Washington Post, the GOP Leadership in Congress planted a hit job about me. How do I know they planted it? If not obvious from the story itself, it was from the conversation between the reporter and those she talked to.

One of the “attacks” on me was that I was too predictable. Yes, it is true. I am predictable conservative and am not willing to sell out my conservatism for the team. I hate to break it to you.

I was sorely tempted to do so now with this deal as our guys are running scared and are convinced the August 2nd deadline is real. But the GOP is in denial, excited by left wing hyperbole against the deal, and unable to see what is on the horizon.

There are stories in the press that (A) the White House and Treasury Department won’t give the GOP information about how much money the U.S. has on hand and (B) that both Democrat and Republican leaders are mad as hell that the markets haven’t crashed so they could scare conservatives into taking a deal.

It is true — Republican and Democrat leaders are upset the market has not crashed.

Now, having run out the clock and admitted that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell wrote John Boehner’s plan (that was in the Washington Post), they now want to go back to a grand compromise that yet again includes a super committee of Congress that can pass tax increases with no way to block the committee.

And if they do somehow stop the committee or kill its idea, then our soldiers in the field would see punitive cuts to the defense budget, even more so than seniors who will see cuts to medicare. In other words, cuts so painful to right and left that both will have to take the committee recommendation.

“But it’s okay,” they tell us. “The committee is structured in such a way that they can’t get tax increases.” Having considered the matter carefully — this is utter bullcrap.

So here’s what will happen. The people who are predictably willing to fold to save face with the GOP will ridicule you, me, and the tea party. And in November, when the chickens come home to roost and what I predict comes true yet again, they’ll pretend yet again that they were with us the whole time.

But taxes will go up and the Democrats will have won, left wing hysteria notwithstanding.

COMMENTS

  • tex41lb

    I wrote Mckeon 4 hours ago and re-requested he vote no this morning. Not likely he will change his vote for Boehnor, but he has made me aware I must do more.

    I become a registered republican this week and will read all the material cold warrior has published.

    Onward, we are a strong nation still asleep.

  • bigredone

    Kentucky’s Second District ‘fraidy cat’ is a vote for the latest crap sandwich. I am afraid I can do no more to dissuade his support for the latest giveaway.

    However, we are searching now for a primary opponent. Wish us luck.

    Remember TARP? Remember the sky falling? Is any of this familiar?

  • mikeymike143

    with this article.

    i just don’t think the republicans understand how truly mad their base is over this whole fiasco. i predict that we are going to see an amazing amount of GOP congressmen primaried by conservatives/tea partiers next year.

  • http://www.AmericanThinker.com Hammer2008

    Except next year the fight will STILL be over our national debt compared to ’68′s fight over ending involvement in LBJ’s Vietnam.

    It is going to take one heckuva unifying presidential candidate (and their Veep choice) to keep this GOP from going off the rails for sure.

  • bk

    given that we were going to sign off by August 1st no matter what and the other side was willing to ride it out however long it took to get 90% of what they wanted.

    And the GOP continues to fall for the play acting. Nancy Pelosi and others on the left are acting like no progressive (i.e. 90% of the Dem caucus) could support this massive giveaway to the rich, so Boehner will “need” to work hard to get Democratic “help” in doing his job and passing this bill.

    Oh please! The Dems are gleeful that this bill means they won’t have to cast any votes of consequence in an election year. It locks in the $3.5T of 2011 and 2012 year end Bush tax cut expirations – the Senate is guaranteed not to consider any extensions, because it will violate this agreement. Then during the campaign we’ll hear “We didn’t vote for tax hikes. We just voted to keep the agreement the greatest President of all time negotiated to save us from the Armageddon the GOP was pushing us toward.”

    And the BBA vote is another joke. All the all these people like McCaskill, Tester, Manchin, the Nelsons, Casey, etc. who are in danger can vote for it and say, “Don’t blame me voters. I voted for it. It’s those liberal Senators’ fault – not me the centrist.” Again, they get the best of both worlds.

    So we’ve taken major campaign issues off the table for 2012 in exchange for some token fake cuts – except maybe to defense.

  • bk

    Senate Ds: Kerry, Sanders, Gillibrand
    or Harkin, Whitehouse, Sh. Brown

    Senate Rs: Lugar, Collins, Sc. Brown
    or Grassley, Snowe, Murkowski

    House Ds: G. Miller, S. Jackson Lee, J. Nadler
    or J. Conyers, L. Sanchez, K. Ellison

    House Rs: W. Jones, J. Gerlach, M. Bono
    or C. Smith, I. Ros-Lehtinen, T. Johnson

    The balance probably won’t be that far off from the above. Wouldn’t want any of those hard-line right-wing members since we know they are not open-minded.

  • popster

    a cave in to me. Too many if ands and buts, with nothing mandatory for future politicians to adhere to. A no vote is the best route for this so called deal.

  • raginpatriot

    As I said last evening in a different post, ultimately all federal expenditures are paid with tax dollars, they are reciprocal, so right off the bat the GOP in agreeing to this multi-trillion dollar increase in the debt ceiling has signed-on to a multi-trillion dollar tax increase. Period.

  • standingonthewall

    acts like a fool, sounds like a fool, maybe it’s a duck?

    It is hard to believe we fell for it again. Borrow and spend, tax and spend, again and again, never ends! Surely POTUS and the Congress is counting on (and already spending) the pot of gold they are going to find at the end of the rainbow. I submit that finding that pot of gold is more likely than the real long-shot, meaningful and actual spending cuts.

  • melissatx

    I hated the heck out of Friday’s deal, but even it was better than this.
    I do firmly believe with Crap Sandwich, The Sequel, the following will happen:
    1. Tea Party members and freshman who follow the 2010 mandate will NOT vote for this. They should not. Neither should anyone else with any amount of common sense.
    2. The GOP has ensured it will split into two parties.
    3. A Split Right will ensure a Dem victory in 2012 as there is no way to stand on principle and vote for this debacle. No way.

    GOP leaders will be to blame either way. And if we lose in 2012 we will NOT get it back, not for a long, long time. The Empire will take over, the deathstar will be engaged and us little band of rebel scum will be relegated to outter rim. Nice going, Boehner.

  • anjinconsulting

    You have got to stop usint the langauge of defeatism Erik. These guys know what thy’re doing. They are educated, calculating, self-perpetuating wanna-be oligarchs; they are anything but fools.

    We will never win if we continue to fight their fight; call a spade a spade and let everyone know that we see them as they truly are.

  • jimmyneutron

    Throughout this process I have been afraid, yet certain, that just this type of garbage would be the final outcome. We do so desparately need leaders who know how to fight and who aren’t afraid to face down the progressive statists when they begin making their threats and predicting the end of the world for any reasonable action.

    What is even more frustrating is watching so many of our so called ‘conservative’ pundits and leaders fall for this garbage time and time again!. When the D’s were supposedly marching off a cliff by ramming health care through on a strictly party line vote no one on their side was advising them to go slower or hold up or that they could not or should not be so agressive. I have read so much here and on other ‘conservative’ sites about how we just couldnt’ get a better deal, that we don’t control enough of the government, that we will get blamed when the sky falls, etc. Talk about deja vou. Watch now how we get blamed anyway for all the bad that occurs.

    The stakes are so high and the survival of our way of life is on the line and so few are willing to fight.

  • typicalwhiteguy

    This entire charade is nothing more than a high states kubuki dance played out by some of the most vile, greedy, power hungry criminals ever known to man. They went through the usual thrust and parry routine based on a manufatured “crisis” by the Kenyan and his top financial gangster, Little Timmy only to reach the predetermined result of a GOP cave.
    Primarying will have little effect as the next bunch will, as the current tea partiers have done, sell out to achieve power and millionare status.
    By extending borrowing authority through 2012, they gave the Kenyan his most desired crown jewel and, with the field of weak, timid and ohterwise flawed GOP challengers, quite probably assured his reelection and the whats left of our Republic,
    Wouldn’t trust any of them any further than I could throw them…the cancer within the Beltway is completely uncurable.
    Bernie Madoff probably wakes up every morning in prison wondering why he didn’t play it smart and commit his crimes under the protection of elected office.

  • udtiger

    …was removing over 10 million people from the income tax rolls. That’s over 10 million people that no longer care what the tax rates are and are not politically guided by that issue.

    While I don’t want any of the Bush tax cuts to expire (have you SEEN the GDP numbers? [and I think it is even money that 2Q GDP will be revised downward to a negative number]), if they do, they ALL should expire.

    As Obama says, everyone should have “skin in the game.”

  • kenc

    Is it really time to throw in the towel? I thought the House Members, if they stand together, could still stop this deal. It is my understanding that the Constitution does not require the House to fold if it disagrees with this latest plan. There are three branches of government. Yes they have to agree with each other to make law. But there is nothing saying they have to fold, EXCEPT the fear of losing the next election. If the public, on 24-hour-news steroids, can’t take the pressure and anguish of political bickering, then we are in a sorry state. If it really is the “will of the people” that Republicans give in, then perhaps they should.

    The whole thing can be described like this: An unruly child at a movie theatre finds a box of matches and wants to start a fire in the theatre. His parents take the matches away from him. The child cries and carries on (theatre rules don’t allow the parents to leave the theatre in this scene) and the parents try to reason with it. Evenually the audience, fed up, blames, not the child, blame the parents and demand that the parents give him the matches. They cave in, give him the matches and he burns down the theatre. Everyone dies.

    In this case, the Republican House gives in and America spends its way into oblivian.

    Great story, don’t you think?

    KenC

  • bk

    Boehner is telling the GOP members they’re getting almost everything they wanted, so he and most of the Republicans will vote for it. Pelosi and company are making all sorts of noise about it. The farthest of the far left Dems will vote against it but plenty enough will vote for it to let it pass easily.

    The best hope would be the 43 Senators who signed the letter to Reid the other day, but it was all a setup and enough of them will cave to let it pass easily in the Senate.

  • rayhinkle

    Well, as Reagan would say, here we are. I am not sure that we would ever get a clean deal with anyone. This is a false vision. One must approach, hopefully, that the dialog has changed and at least there can be an approach in increasing the number of tax payers. It does seem to me that the camouflage has come off the ultimate aims of the socialist President. And more importantly, a potential “balanced budget amendment” will provide future solutions to this issue.

  • runner12

    member who ran on changing Washington in 2010 can vote for it without looking like a total hypocrite and liar.

    I will contact my Rep., although I doubt he will listen. His arms are hurting from carrying Boehner’s water for him.

  • vamoose

    At the end of the White House “fact sheet” issued Sunday night I found this statement:

    “The Enforcement Mechanism Complements the Forcing Event Already In Law ? the Expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts ? To Create Pressure for a Balanced Deal: The Bush tax cuts expire as of 1/1/2013, the same date that the spending sequester would go into effect. These two events together will force balanced deficit reduction. Absent a balanced deal, it would enable the President to use his veto pen to ensure nearly $1 trillion in additional deficit reduction by not extending the high-income tax cuts.”

    IOW, if the commission doesn’t provide a “balanced deal” (tax increases) the president will prevent the Bush tax cuts from being extended. The $1 trillion tax hike would actually be larger since Obama can’t use a line item veto to strike only “high-income tax cuts” as is implied in the statement above.

    The GOP needs to present a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts to March 1, 2013 so that the next president gets to decide whether to saddle the economy with higher taxes.

  • nepanyrush

    Once it became a bipartisan super commission with great power — because how can the Congress allow defense cuts and cuts to medicare providers — then the Dems had all the cards. Conservatives, and Americans, were sold down the river.

    This is what you get when you use fear to sell last-minute legislation to the public. Most of the public does not know what is going on, just that the world as they know it is supposed to end on Tuesday, when the media countdown reaches.

  • eddiethegeek

    It appears that Boehner is prepared to lose 60-90 votes on the right. That would mean that he is forging ahead with a deal that he knows is anathema TO THE VERY PEOPLE WHO PUT HIM IN POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE. He must be listening to John McCain. This is a serious miscalculation by the entrenched House leadership. It’s time to CLEAN HOUSE.

    It seems to me that any acceptable Republican candidate must pledge that Boehner must be replaced – I will not vote for my incumbent (or work for her, or donate to her) if she plans to re-elect Boehner as Speaker (assuming, of course, that the GOP retains the House, which is a significant uncertainty after this debacle). Unfortunately, after making promises promises promises (like killing Obamacare, for instance), she has become a reliable rubber stamp for the leadership, so I’m not very hopeful that she’ll all-of-a-sudden grow a backbone.

    If the GOP won the House and nothing changes, did the GOP really win anything?

  • bigredone

    Please, who are your hard-liners?

  • bigredone

    I missed the sarcasm. I am too upset about this sellout deal, and I typed before I read for understanding.

    (sigh)

  • kenc

    Please help us change this deal, even a little. It would be better to go down in flames now than to give up on your prime beliefs and on We the People.

    If you do change the deal, it will have to go back to the Senate. If they change it, it will have to come back to you, etc. Time has not run out.

    KenC

  • Ausonius

    And obviously he is no fool: he is in Congress, and we are not!

    Also obvious, however: he believes that his constituency and the rest of us are fools.

    When the Ship of America sinks through the Dems class-warfare iceberging of the future, we can only hope that there are enough of us in life-rafts to restart the country.

  • ragstoriches

    go write my Republican representatives and remind them that every penny confiscated from tax increases comes straight out of the considerable donations they receive from me.

    Which means by the time the commission finishes stripping deductions, letting the cuts expire, and probably adding on some success penalty tax for good measure, the RNC is going to owe me money.

  • Fla Mom

    If not, see http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2011/08/01/you-want-good-food-but-they-keep-serving-you-a-crap-sandwich-what-to-do/

    ColdWarrior is right; join the fight!

    Fla Mom

  • Fla Mom

    If not, see http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2011/08/01/you-want-good-food-but-they-keep-serving-you-a-crap-sandwich-what-to-do/

    You are right, “We will never win if we continue to fight their fight….” And “[n]o man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.” So go, follow ColdWarrior’s excellent advice: let’s *be* the Republican Party!

    Fla Mom

  • Fla Mom

    If not, see http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2011/08/01/you-want-good-food-but-they-keep-serving-you-a-crap-sandwich-what-to-do/

    Be one who is willing to fight.

    Fla Mom

  • Fla Mom

    The RNC is part of the problem, and you should tell them that every time they call you. Donate through the Senate Conservatives Fund or to individual candidates you know to be truly conservative (we know of 22 in the House right now). The RNC will stab conservatives in the back every time.

    Fla Mom

  • kenc

    I’m not ready yet for the House Republicans to throw in the towel.

    The government is composed of co-equal parts. No single part has to ever give up what is believes.

    Basically it boils down to this. The branch of government with the biggest balls wins. If you know you are right and they are wrong, you simply don’t yield. Period.

    If the House can hold on for some additional demands, it MUST win. The downside will be if voters in a particular district don’t think their representative did the right thing, they will vote against him.

    Please, House Republicans, hold out for a few, or even one, meaningful concrete concession. It could make a difference for you and the country.

    KenC

  • gunslingr45

    May I suggest a list of who votes YES for comprise and keep that list handy in 2012?

    So many RINOs so little time.
    And yes anyone who votes for this needs to be outed BIG TIME in 2012! Because they are no tea party member!

  • johnt

    the whole giant con is exposed, Too much to ask for.
    Reuters was going overboard on the fear and panic thing, lots of quotes, not one that matched the rhetoric. Indeed.

  • carolina

    Obviously the dems want to raise taxes. When was this ever a winning position?

  • bk

    It’s becoming clear that the Dems are playing the GOP even more than I realized. The pressure is on Boehner to get it passed, so he needs to get as many of the Republicans to pass it as possible. He’ll get a few defections from last week’s yeas, so a couple of Dems will vote yes to allow it to pass by the barest of margins. The rest will build up their liberal bona fides by saying they voted against it because it wasn’t “balanced” enough.

    So as usual, the Democrats end up getting the best of both worlds: In the Senate virtually all the Dems will vote for it, saying the Republicans who vote nay want us to default, while in the House virtually all of them will vote against it, saying it gives away the farm, which is why the GOP is voting for it.

  • bk

    That’s the whole idea of this from the Dem viewpoint – get taxes hiked without really having to vote on a tax hike. The death tax cut expiration is locked in and won’t come up for a vote. The Bush tax cut expiration is locked in and won’t come up for a vote. If the ‘commission’ offers a package with tax hikes, it will be called ‘tax reform as part of a balanced approach to saving us from default’.

    So they get exactly what they wanted: tax hikes with protection from being hit in the campaign with having voted for tax hikes.

  • audax

    http://www.redstate.com/audax/2011/01/04/be-a-precinct-delegate-how-i-did-it-in-mi-tx-and-co/

    Help take control of the GOP!

  • audax

    Take Controlof the GOP

    http://www.redstate.com/audax/2011/01/04/be-a-precinct-delegate-how-i-did-it-in-mi-tx-and-co/

  • mspector

    I originally thought he was standing strong on this issue, but as it played out I realized that he talks the talk but will not walk the walk. He is a beltway insider and very enmeshed in the AV Republican mainstream. He has too much invested in the way things are to want to do anything to change it in any meaningful way and figures that he can ride his military credentials all the way to a safe and secure retirement.

  • williamjameson

    can be manipulated via electoral as well as protest methods.

    New taxes = the end of your career

    I see room for defense spending cuts so long as military pay for enlisted men are left alone and so long as no real reduction in defense is measured. There’s also room for cuts in non combat areas and in the cost of equipment and even armaments. They’ll never find 50% cuts in defense, trust me, they won’t even look that deep, republicans are conservative, not fools nor European. Even some dems aren’t that stupid.

  • d_lamar

    With all the power that has been granted to the House of Representatives by the US Constitution with respect to spending, it’s frustrating that no program, agency, department, subsidy or benefit has been defunded.

    There are so many useless, harmful, and wasteful programs out there that the only explanation for not cutting something is that Boehner does not want to reduce or eliminate any of these programs.

    I hope that somehow, someway, he can be replaced, but I’m not holding my breath. Rinos seem firmly in control.

  • sccrenny

    I have read a lot of discussion asking “Where has the Tea Party gone?” No marches, no signs, a smattering of people in Washington this week.

    We have gone underground and are infiltrating the Republican Party. We are running for School Board, County Council, City Council. We are looking for candidates to support, fiscally and politically. We are too busy to trundle off to Washington every few months.

    My state of SC and my county have already begun transforming. Look at the SC Congressional Delegation! Even “Goober” Graham has felt the heat, and showing signs he has seen the light. (He’ll still be primaried in 2014!)

    The ground we are gaining is astounding if you take a second (too busy for more than that) to see the changes.

    Like you, I went to our precinct restructuring meeting this year, became a precinct committeeman, attended the county convention.

    I was approached today about running for state office (I can’t until I retire in a couple of years),

    Jump in with both feet and make things happen!