WASHINGTON — We are engaged in a long war — actually two long
wars. The first and most commonly accepted of our wars is the long
war against Islamofascists. It is not a war against vast armies.
Comparatively speaking, it is just a war against a handful of
thugs, but they want to strike at our heart, wherever we are
ill-prepared, and if they can they will cause incalculable
destruction. This we discovered on September 11, 2001. We are on
the hem of wiping al Qaeda out, but there are other thugs waiting.
We must be vigilant against them. It will be a long war.
The second long war is at home on budgetary matters. That both
the left and the right have been in a fury about an early battle in
that war, the debtceiling battle, suggests just how long that war
will be. We have little consensus on this war. Yet a war it is, and
a very long war I fear it will be. It is a war to balance the
budget, putting the economy on a sustainable course, and ensuring
growth and jobs. It is a war to get the country back to a federal
budget that accounts for 20 percent of GDP rather than the 25
percent of GDP that President Barack has snatched from us while we
were not looking.
Today the left is grumbling that the Congress agreed to budget
cuts of nearly $900 billion over the next ten years but with no new
taxes or as they delicately put it, no new “revenue enhancements.”
As Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from New York, exclaimed,
“It’s a surrender to Republican extortion.” He elaborated, “It’s
one thing to say ‘we want this. We don’t want that as part of
negotiations.’ It’s another to say ‘we will destroy the country and
the economy if you don’t do what we want.’” My response is, just
get government spending back to where it was before the Obama
revels. Tax increases kill job growth, are unfair to those whom the
left targets to pay them, and give us a false sense that we can
continue on this perilous path to ever-larger government.
The federal budget has accounted for roughly 20 percent of GDP
in recent years. When President Obama came to power he increased
that to just shy of 25 percent of GDP, a peacetime record. In other
words, he increased government’s size in our economy to 25 percent
of GDP and he wants to keep it there at that historic level
forever, or until he can grow it larger. It will mean slower
economic growth, but he rather likes that too. The answer to Obama
and the grumbling left is “give us the 5 percent of the economy
that you took form us.” I think that is reasonable. That is what we
want.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party is unhappy. It is the most
successful political development in decades. It removed “revenue
enhancements” from the recent Washington agenda, at least
temporarily. As recently as July 28 President Obama was insisting
that tax increases had to be part of the debt-ceiling deal. He
lost. The Tea Partiers focused the agreement on spending cuts but
many do not think they got enough cuts.
To be sure, they did not get enough cuts in the debt-ceiling
battle, but they are in a strong position to get them in the
battles ahead. They must not be distracted. They must not pack it
in and go home. A Tea Partier by the name of Ellen Gilmore told the
Wall Street Journal, “People are saying, ‘These tea
partiers, aren’t they wonderful, they are changing the
conversation.’ Well, we got absolutely squat—except for the
conversation.” Actually, the Tea Party is leading us toward a
tipping point, as Sean Hannity and Jeffrey Lord recently pointed
out. And the tipping is to the right and it can stay there for
years to come if the Tea Party and conservatives play their cards
right.
We now are heading for the small battles to ensure that the
debit-ceiling agreement is carried out properly. Then there is the
great battle of the 2012 elections and the retirement of Barack
Obama. Finally there will be other battles after 2012. The Tea
Party is essential to winning these battles. It must not give up.
It must stay the course. We are in a long war, but with the Tea
Party’s assistance it is winnable. The fight has just begun.
