The Congressional Spectator
Open for Business
But avoiding a government shutdown is only one step toward outdoing Newt Gingrich.
John Boehner is not Newt Gingrich. At the 11th hour, the speaker of the House offered President Obama a deal that would fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year and avert a government shutdown. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took Boehner’s final offer. The deadline was met just 90 minutes before parts of the government were to be shuttered.
Both sides claimed victory as considerable segments of their bases felt defeated. “This is historic, what we’ve done,” crowed Reid. His Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, concurred: “We had an opportunity tonight to decide whether we wanted to repeat history or make history.” Obama lauded the bipartisan cooperation that made possible “the biggest annual spending cut in history” and proclaimed, “Today we acted on behalf of our children.”
Many of the activists who helped elect Obama felt differently. “Now we’re going to see what $40 billion in cuts feels like,” one posted on the social networking site Twitter. “The substance of this deal is bad,” complained the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. “But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse.” Paul Krugman agreed, accusing Democrats of “celebrating defeat.”
Not all Tea Party conservatives are enamored of the deal either. “[W]e’ve been asked to settle for $39 billion in cuts, even as we continue to fund Planned Parenthood and the implementation of ObamaCare,” lamented Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in a statement explaining her vote against the continuing resolution. She accused many of her colleagues of “missing the mandate given us by the voters last November.”
The lady has a point, said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “As I have said before, there is not much of a difference between a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $1.6 trillion deficit — both will lead us to a debt crisis that we may not recover from.” Paul is another Republican no vote.
Under this deal, the deficit will actually be closer to $1.56 trillion and the cuts will amount to roughly $38.5 billion. During the lame-duck session’s debate over extending the Bush tax cuts, liberals assured us that tax increases of at least $70 billion a year — an estimated price tag on letting the cuts lapse for upper-income earners — would have no impact on a fragile economy. Now these same liberals are warning us of the dire consequences of an additional $5.5 billion in spending cuts in the context of a $3.8 trillion budget and $15 trillion economy.
In truth, this deal will not by itself right the nation’s fiscal course. And while the Republicans got their final number, $38.5 billion is a lot closer to the Democrats’ starting bid of $33 billion than the GOP’s $61 billion. (To say nothing of $100 billion.) The question is what comes next.
Democrats were prepared to lambaste Republicans for shutting down the government over social issues, relying on the mainstream media to portray Planned Parenthood as a totally harmless public health organization with little connection to abortion. Howard Dean told a panel assembled by National Journal that he would be rooting for a shutdown if he was still chairman of the Democratic National Committee, so confident was he that Republicans would be doomed by their own overreach in a replay of the 1995 confrontation with Bill Clinton.
Social conservatives will instead have to settle for a doomed stand-alone vote on Planned Parenthood funding in Harry Reid’s Senate. There will be no government shutdown. John Boehner’s House Republicans get to re-fight the battles of 1995-96 without the political misstep that cost them the momentum on spending sixteen years ago. Without the shutdown, it is possible the GOP would have never embraced earmarks, crony capitalism, and compassionate conservatism.
Yet for all its faults, the Gingrich Congress had real accomplishments even after the shutdown. Among them were welfare reform, a capital gains tax cut that helped ignite the biggest economic boom since Ronald Reagan was in office, and a balanced budget that their compassionate conservative heirs subsequently flitted away. The big question is whether this budget deal is the high watermark of the new Congress’s fiscal conservatism, the absolute most that can ever be extracted from Obama and Reid, or something that sets the table for future reform.
Paul Ryan’s budget presents the GOP with a golden opportunity to start a needed debate: Do we want to maintain our tax burden at its historic levels? Or do we want to maintain our current spending commitments, even as demographic changes make those commitments unaffordable at our present tax burden? It is a question both Presidents Bush and Obama chose to punt on, setting us on a path of unsustainable debt levels that will sink our economy. What will it be?
We now know that Boehner is no Gingrich. We have yet to discover whether that’s entirely a good thing or not.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
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drudge ette obama| 4.11.11 @ 6:40AM
Boehner is very likeable, a characteristic Newt lacked and lacks. Boehner has the air of honesty about him. He keeps plugging along, setting the stage for Ryan and the Ryan budget.
Be patient and persistent. Whining and braying Obama will wear himself down because, in his own word, "I just miss - I miss being anonymous," and something about squeezing fruit, which he could do again easily if he joins Rahm in Chi-town. Please take Valerie Jarrett with you...
Chef Schnauzer| 4.11.11 @ 6:54AM
The Sniveler has no spine, no integrity. Hey, he got his photo-op what a good little sniveler.
Benny | 4.11.11 @ 7:06AM
The House must vote against this deal and depose Boehner. It funds Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and agres to a $1.5 Trillion budget.
The House passed a budget months ago. If the Senate doesn't like it, let them shut down the govt.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.11.11 @ 7:31AM
Yes, it would be quite the hoot to seal this deal go down.
I don't think it will but it would be quite the hoot.
In the offing, the cuts were not really cuts. Here is a list. It should be featured on Comedy Central since the cuts were really not cuts, and amount to 10 days of interest payments on the national debt.
It doesn't make me feel secure.
The real deal will be the debt ceiling. If it's raised the public will see it for what is and reject in the next election cycle. The Congress is like an out of control frat house, party today and worry about the consequences tomorrow. Or not at all.
Here is that list. Don't fall down laughing. You may not be able to get back up:
The information was delivered in a blog post on the White House website, which also pushed the administration's message that the spending compromises made by all sides would add up to a victory for all involved.
"This deal cuts spending by $78.5 billion from the President’s FY 2011 Budget request -- the largest annual spending cut in our history," Dan Pfieffer, the president's communications director, wrote. "These are real cuts that will save taxpayers money and have a real impact. Many will be painful, and are to programs that we support, but the fiscal situation is such that we have to act."
The blog post then detailed some of the spending cuts:
$13 billion from funding for programs at the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services
over $1 billion in a cut across non-defense agencies
reductions to housing assistance programs and some health care programs
$8 billion in cuts to our budget for State and Foreign Operations
$630 million in earmarked transportation projects
at least $2.5 billion in transportation funding that is ready to be earmarked
$35 million by ending the Crop Insurance Good Performance Rebate
$30 million for a job training program that was narrowly targeted at certain student loan processors
$18 billion in cuts deemed unnecessary by the Pentagon
The White House then identified funding for programs it had "protected" in the budget deal:
current levels of Head Start enrollment, funding Race to the Top
maintain the Pell Grant maximum award
robust investment to efficiently and effectively run Medicare and to implement the Affordable Care Act
strong investments in National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation and the Office of Science.
Carol| 4.11.11 @ 7:33AM
Boehner caved because he is afraid of Obama and Dinghy Harry.
As for the media - they will never, ever side with the GOP. Why do I know this and not the GOP? Because I listen and read what the Obama bootlickers are saying themselves daily.
A government shutdown would have sent a message to the Communists Barack Obama and the rest them in the Senate and Congress that our country is more important than those nuts yelling about women dying from not getting their free abortions.
And note to all active military members: YOU WOULD BE PAID EVENTUALLY.
We The People thank you for your sacrifices but remember Obama is using you as a pawn when at the same time he could give a crap less about you.
Boehner has already disappointed. I just don't think he is fit for the job of Speaker of the House at the most crucial time in our nation's history.
God Is Truth| 4.11.11 @ 7:33AM
"Social conservatives will instead have to settle for a doomed stand alone vote on Planned Parenthood funding in Harry Reid's Senate." Wrong James Antle. Every life snuffed out by abortion on demand will receive justice, God's justice in His court one day. And government officials over the years since 1973 who've stood on the sidelines & done NOTHING while abortion on demand has been funded with taxpayer dollars will have to answer for the funding of the millions of murders of God's children at the hands of Planned Infanticide with taxpayer dollars to The Almighty God who created all of us. Life is a precious gift from God & only God has the right to give life or take it away. The fact that these bastards, Democrat & Republican are sending taxpayer dollars to murderers without batting an eye instills in myself a rage only God's coming justice will quench. I will settle for nothing but God's justice in His time Mr. Antle.
Ryan| 4.11.11 @ 8:20AM
This is a start. It's not a great start, but we are out of the blocks. This is NOT a fight that we will win this year. It's a 5-10 year fight to reduce spending...and then a fight to keep it limited.
Long term.
Long term.
Long term.
We must keep up the pressure, and see this as a START.
Louis Tully| 4.11.11 @ 8:52AM
Put me down in the Bachmann/Paul camp. The deal is no "Win," unless you mean the Charlie Sheen sense of the word.
btw, this
"The deadline was met just 90 minutes before parts of the government were to be shuttered"
cannot be correct. Both sides had their "Winning" talking points and deal summaries into the hands of their respective press mouthpieces at the moment the Winning Deal was announced. The deed was done earlier in the week. The Last Minute Countdown, tm, was kabuki, again using the mouthpieces in the press to pump the sense of crisis that the Winning Deal was designed to alleviate.
Dixie Pixie| 4.11.11 @ 9:03AM
Harry Reid is insane not historic.
Provoking the Military by making the soldiers pay a political tool to bash Republicans is far more dangerous than realized.
The US Army is the one institution that can "Change" the government in a hour by simply putting the leadership up against the wall and shooting them.
southern_comment| 4.11.11 @ 10:42AM
This is all just a show so our political leaders can play rockstar in the limelight. This does nothing for the American people. We need major cuts to our bloated government and what we are getting is the same dangle of a carrot we've gotten from Obama for the last two and a half years. This has gotten past the point of ridiculous. We've handed the power to the GOP and they are playing silly little games.
cicero| 4.11.11 @ 10:53AM
The "essential" government workers are those whom the chief executive deems to be essential. If he decided that our troops were essential, they would have been paid. That was all political show. It always amazes me how our elected officials just presume that were are dumb enough to be so easily duped - and then I discover that they are right. The founders knew that a fuctioning democracy required an educated populace. As we dumb down the populace, we lose the ability to govern ourselves.
Allan| 4.11.11 @ 11:03AM
I can sense it, that "We the people" have our hands on the pull chain. Flush, bye bye Fed in its entirety. Before we pull let's get our Soldiers home.
Bill Diebold| 4.11.11 @ 11:08AM
...Deal???... $34B cut?...Cut?,... In a ruling class elitist country club that pisses away $4B / day or .04% of a deficit of $14T?
With a Fed shut down of 8.5 days we could have achieved the same savings and not have to listen to all the self aggrandizement of these hogs slopping at the trough.
Good old boy Harryjohn Boehnereid is just a pathetic political whore...and if she wasn't as crazy as a shit house rat, I'd include npelosi...why bother?.. the botox has seeped into her liberal brains or is liberal and brains in a sentance qualify as an oxymoron?
Peppermint Tea| 4.11.11 @ 11:26AM
Congrats to the our great leaders: BRock, Harriet, and Boner! They just carved 38 billion out of a 3456 billion budget! A little more than a penny on the dollar! Boner is going to save this freaking nation with his cutting ability! Thank you so much for the side-show!
And the MSM did so well with taking the issue of absurb US borrowing and money printing and instead broadcasting a penny ante poker game! Wow! Am I proud to be an American!
Nunya| 4.11.11 @ 11:59AM
I agree with most on this subject. Our "Ruling Class" elitist SOB's in Congress have made this dog-and-pony show for the sheeple to make them think something positive is happening, while in reality doing absolutely nothing about the economc collapse that is coming. Like Peppermint Tea stated: "They just carved 38 billion out of a 3456 billion budget! ... Thank you so much for the side-show!"
Boehner sold us out, and showed the hand of the current Republican majority--they will do nothing to stop this. They'll raise the debt limit as sure as I'm writing this, all the while blathering on about "Spending cuts" and how they're going to right the ship--while it continues to sink under its own weight. They don't care, because they are not the ones that will end up suffering.
Seek| 4.11.11 @ 12:06PM
In all fairness, you take what you can get. A moderate victory is preferable to pursuing a highly unlikely major victory. Radical budget-cutting is still a minority position.
A bird in the hand...
Wayne | 4.11.11 @ 12:15PM
In all this what rights have we, the people regained? How are our freedoms enhanced? How have we moved away from the nanny state? What crony businesses or crony unions have been affected? We have won NOTHING.
Datsun Mark| 4.11.11 @ 12:18PM
To face some reality...there is no way the House is going to get 500Billion in cuts. Never have and never will. However...there maybe another way..? Instead of asking the *out of control teenager* to stop his spending binge why don't we reduce the kids allowance? The Federal Reserve is funding this binge by buying bonds with money they create out of thin air (inflation). The House should subpeona the Fed to Audit and watch what happens. The corruption and deals will be exposed and the Fed will not be buying bonds (at least for awhile). The Chinese may still buy bonds but only so many and with *real* money based on an exchange rate (non-inflationary). Maybe that will but these people on a diet?
Conserdude| 4.11.11 @ 12:32PM
Relax you people who don't like the budget deal. This is the first of what will be many budget battles ahead, the biggest one being the 2012 election when we must elect a GOP majority in the Senate and oust Obama. Until then, it's foolish to attack Boehner and raise expectations. The deal is a good first step and so far we are not getting a repeat of Gingrich's immature, disasterous tenure as Speaker, which disqualifies him for President.
Oldefarte| 4.11.11 @ 12:40PM
With all due respect, some of you do not apparently get it! Boehner and these R's are doing a good job. They did not get the last drop of needed expense reductions possible since it's called politics, and there is another side called radical liberal Democrats [including a president within that group] who control the Senate and the White House. What was obtained is passible/doable/accompolished. A government shutdown would have been a needless disaster, since the upcoming 2012 budget and the debt ceiling issues still have to be negotiated [and will represent the crutial, most important battles to be faught, not this current short term budget one]. In poker and politics, you have to know ehen to hold 'em and when to fold 'em! The 2012 budget is for an entire year term [unlike this current five month one just negotiated] and will be where the blood should be lost. R's should now be able to use their expense reductions chips as leverage in the question of the debt ceiling matter. If D's are smart enough to realize the extreme damage of allowing this country's bonds etc to default due to the debt ceiling issue, they will be more willing to capitulate to R's demands for expense reductions. A government shutdown over this current short term budget issue would have been stupid and ludicrous, and the true political leverage should be to use the 2012 budget war in connection to the debt ceiling matter. Boehner and the R's should be applauded for their skillful political maneuvering of D's toward this upcoming 2012 budget fight!!!
Drunken Sailor| 4.11.11 @ 12:57PM
Oldefart,
Your wasting your breath. I agree with you 100% but it seems we have a large contingent that just doesn't understand that right now, we only control just over 50% of 1/3 of the goverment. Not to mention these cuts are historic and this only covers the next 6 months. Yes, we are in a deep hole that took us many years to get here. Guess what, it is going to take us more than one damn budget battle to get back out! You pessimisst out there are pissed because we didn't cut the original 100 billion. My guess is, even if we had gotten that you would have been pissed it wasn't 500 billion. This was a VERY good beginning considering how little has been cut in this goverment EVER! If after the 2012 budget more pork isn't trimmed then you can rightfully complain. If you don't like the speed at which things are happening, get off your butts and out from in front of the computer and do something about it! This is like losing weight, you didn't get fat overnight and you are not going to get thin overnight and keep the weight off. Let's push for cuts, be happy for what we get, and then push for more. One battle does not win the war.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 4.11.11 @ 1:12PM
Let me try a parable here.
A patient comes into the ER and is seen by two Doctors. This patient has an advance case of gangrene in both legs and is in dire straits. The Republican Doctor sees this and recommends that both legs be amputated in order to save the patient’s life. The Democrat doctor tells the patient that he is all right and that the terrible smell coming from his legs is probably just some dog poop he stepped in.
The family just wants the doctors to get along and agree so the two doctors agree on a compromise. They give the patient two aspirins and tell him to go home. Both doctors declare a victory.
The patient dies.
Drunken Sailor| 4.11.11 @ 1:54PM
Taxpayer,
Considering the incubation period of gangrene is 24 hours and we spent years getting in this mess, that is a pretty sad parable. Nobody is saying we do not need dire fixes in place. But just like a patient in serious condition the Dr. can't just waive a magic wand or give a magic pill. Cures do not happen overnight.
e cowan| 4.11.11 @ 1:57PM
"His Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, concurred: "We had an opportunity tonight to decide whether we wanted to repeat history or make history." Obama lauded the bipartisan cooperation......"
Boehner and McConnel are pusillanimous wimps who will give in to the Dems any and every time they feel threatened by liberal hyperbole!
Get rid of both of them - asap!
vtwin| 4.11.11 @ 2:04PM
How do Americans view Obama vs. Boehner on the negotiations to avert a potential government shutdown?
Obama: 54% approve 45% disapprove
Boehner: 41% approve 44% disapprove
http://www.politico.com/news/s.....52927.html
Looks like four more years?
mames| 4.11.11 @ 2:07PM
Boehner and McConnel are pusillanimous wimps who will give in to the Dems any and every time they feel threatened by liberal hyperbole!
Get rid of both of them - asap!
Absolutely right. We must remove them in the primary process. We lost an opportunity once and for all to take away their threat and show the american public that a govt shutdown is not a real shut down at all. BUT NOOOOO these pansy asses caved again. God forbid they should not be reelected and have to go back and earn a living. And Boehner on the tube this morning with his faux support of the TEA party was infuriating.
cicero| 4.11.11 @ 3:14PM
One battle at a time, folks. This is going to be a long war. We have seen $60 billion cut so far in the last two skirmishes, and we are approaching the picket lines now on the debt ceiling battle. We are not going to win if we keep looking for a major killing match.
Truth is King| 4.11.11 @ 3:49PM
Oldefarte, Drunken Sailor & cicero:
Sirs, you all make too much sense. Thank you for your realistic and truthful comments.
The Libertarians and Paleos won't ever be satisfied. Their forte is Republican bashing no matter what they do. They'd rather see Ron Paul elected (he's a Libertarian that changed to a Republican in order to get elected) President than any Republican win, anyway.
God bless Speaker Boehner and co. Well done.
vtwin| 4.11.11 @ 3:51PM
“The "essential" government workers are those whom the chief executive deems to be essential. If he decided that our troops were essential, they would have been paid.” --cicero
Wrong! The troops ARE considered essential and eventually they would have been paid. It’s the folks that process government employee payrolls including the troops payroll that are not deemed essential.
Oldefarte| 4.11.11 @ 4:06PM
Tired Taxpayer: Your example may be a bit extreme. In medicine, there is something called A SECOND [OR MORE] OPINION. Maybe the ER doctor is too radical/hurried, and if a cancer oncologist/specialist was consulted, he'd recommend not amputation of both legs, but instead a steady system of radiation and high potentency drugs that would gradually lessen the cancerous threat, without the need to immediately server both legs. If successful, the patient could thereafter lead a relatively healthy life [with only possibly amputation of one leg a futuristic necessity]. Boehner and these R's are beginning to resemble this type of concer-oncologist/specialist needed for the most advantage medical prognosis for the truly sick American patient, so let's all give them a chance to work their political magic, okay????????
LiveFreeOrDie| 4.11.11 @ 4:28PM
"...so let's all give them a chance to work their political magic, okay????????"
Isn't that what we just did?
LiveFreeOrDie| 4.11.11 @ 4:29PM
"...so let's all give them a chance to work their political magic, okay????????"
Isn't that what just did before that? And before that?
LiveFreeOrDie| 4.11.11 @ 4:30PM
"...so let's all give them a chance to work their political magic, okay????????"
Isn't that what just did before that? And before that? And before that? And before that? And before that? And before that?
Mark Shepler| 4.11.11 @ 4:53PM
Well, it may have started out about budgets, cuts and Republican promises but in the end it was about resolve. And I think the Reps failed the test...again.
You can read my full take here at my new blog:
http://www.rightwingmuse.com/
Sorry, I know it's bad form to plug a blog this way but I've posted here for years and really don't want to repeat myself. Too many here probably think I've done that enough already. :)
Negro X| 4.11.11 @ 6:43PM
Boehner is a pathetic RINO.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_.....ding_spree
vtwin| 4.11.11 @ 7:01PM
Boehner in compromising preserved what Gingrich with his ideological hissy fit didn’t, the dignity of The Speaker of The House.
Dee See| 4.11.11 @ 10:03PM
AS a presiding figure during the height of our
Globalist front RED China TREASON during the
90's, and a prime pusher of micro-chipping and
so many other EUGENICS iniatives, let's hope,
let's pray Boehner is, in fact, NOT Newt Gingrich.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:29PM
is good