Paul Revere is in his 20s, and is concerned about the impact of the growing national debt on his generation. Not much younger than when his namesake made his historic ride, he works in the wake of a tea party to challenge his fellow countrymen to find the courage to act now.
When I first began writing for ConservativeHome, I had hoped to do a fair amount of positive commentary about the national debt. I had hoped to write about the daring steps Paul Ryan was taking as Chair of the Budget Committee and the quick movement of an audit of the Federal Reserve through the House of Representatives. I had even hoped that I could brag about the strategy they used to convince Democrats vulnerable in 2012 to join with them— perhaps even including the President.
Unfortunately, the bad news just keeps coming. It’s coming due to Republican failures of leadership. It’s coming due to bad luck for the Republican leadership, such as having to put off dealing with spending because of the shooting in Arizona and Chris Lee’s travails. It’s coming because President Obama is not serious about spending reforms. To me, these bits of bad news all indicate that young Americans won’t see the reforms and spending cuts they (we) so desperately need. Take a look at the depressing news just this week:
1. Republicans tried to pass a bill that would have pulled $180 million from funding the United Nations, but failed by over two dozen votes. While only two Republicans opposed the bill, it failed because it was brought up under special rules to fast-track passage without allowing debate over amendments. Had they brought it up under normal rules, as they are likely to do in the near future, it would have passed.
2. The Republican Study Committee (RSC) had to fight, tooth and nail, for the leadership to promise $100 billion in spending cuts. While normally this would be a “ho-hum” statement, the fact is that the leadership promised this back in September 2010. Are they really going to start reneging on their word this early in the 112th Congress? I doubt the freshman Tea Party candidates are going to go along with that.
3. Instead of focusing on spending strategy, the Republican leadership had to spend time and valuable media resources scrambling to explain not one but two failed votes on provisions of the Patriot Act. They also had to deal with now-former Congressman Chris Lee’s (R-NY) Craiglist escapades.
4. Two Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee voted against the Committee’s support for Paul Ryan’s cuts. Unlike liberal Republicans, Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) voted against their leadership because the cuts were too small
5. President Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wrote a stunningly pitiful op-ed in the New York Times about how the $400 billion in non-defense discretionary spending the President will propose cutting in his upcoming 2012 budget are tough cuts. Instead of mentioning said cuts and moving onto entitlements and defense, Jacob Lew spent practically the entire op-ed acting as though $400 billion—less than 1% of our expected federal expenditures over the next decade— was where the tough cuts began and ended. He finally got around to mentioning defense spending offhandedly near the end, and dedicated one sentence to Social Security, but that’s it. As CATO’s Tad DaHaven put it, it looks like “the administration intends to continue fiddling while the government’s finances burn.
Obviously, few of these mishaps are devastating in and of themselves. However, we are at a critical juncture for our country and, in the short run, for Republicans. They can’t waste time playing political games and making strategic mistakes as the President ignores fiscal reality. This is especially true with the 2010 Continuing Resolution ending in less than three weeks and the debt ceiling expected to be breached less than three weeks after that. We need competent, brave leadership, and we need it now. If this week is any indication, 2012 cannot come soon enough— and not just to oust President Obama.
Sadly, there are still too many Republicans that are in leadership positions who are not true fiscal conservatives. Just more of them to weed out in 2012.
Posted by: Tim | 02/11/2011 at 10:00 PM