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GOP Rejects Debt Deal, Places Ideology over Compromise and Good Government

...oh wait: rejecting compromise and good government is their ideology.

Let me see if I have this right: President Barack Obama offers the Republicans even more budget cuts and debt reduction than they were asking for. In exchange, he asks the Republicans to accept some tax increases. Speaker John Boehner says no, we can't raise taxes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says no, we can't raise taxes. GOP freshman majorette Kristi Noem probably says no, despite vague assertions that she might support tax reform to close unspecified tax loopholes (good grief, Kristi, do you ever do any homework before your interviews?).

Yes, Dr. Blanchard, I recognize that our fiscal planet is about to explode. I recognize that preventing that explosion will require sacrifice by all citizens. I suggest that the sacrifice in cutting government programs will fall relatively more heavily on lower-income folks, who see their quality of life raised more proportionately by education, Medicaid, and other such social programs that the Republicans want to axe. I suggest that the sacrifice in raising taxes will fall relatively more heavily on higher-income folks, who arguably see less immediate benefit from social spending (although Kristi Noem keeps protecting their huge farm subsidies) and more from a shrinking bottom line on their 1040s.

So the Boehner budget balk seems to be all about focusing the burden of new debt reduction measures on the lower class without placing any additional burden on the upper class. Spending cuts slow down how much debt we're adding in future spending, but tax increases ask people to pony up and pay for the trillions we've already spent.

That's why Boehner/Ryan/Noemonomics make me so mad. I will grant that the Dems aren't doing a great job, either. President Obama's plan doesn't make the debt disappear any time soon. But at least he acknowledges that we've got to raise taxes to start paying for what we've bought. The Republicans refuse to grant that basic tenet of fiscal responsibility.

President Obama didn't offer compromise; he offered the Republicans more debt reduction and more spending cuts than they could ever hope to pass with their control of one half of one branch of the federal government. And the Republicans keep saying no. They reject compromise and practical governance and shared sacrifice in favor of their slogans and abstractions and rich friends.

The Republican intransigence on the national debt ceiling (synecdochized in the Republican rejection of Governor Dayton's compromise offers in Minnesota) reveals the fundamental difference between America's political parties. The Obama-Dayton Democrats are not left-wing ideologues; they are the practical center. They don't want more government; they just want good government. As President Obama has shown on health care reform, the Bush tax-cut extension, and the proposed debt-ceiling deal (all three things I think Joe Biden would call big f'ing deals), Democrats are willing to compromise to get good government. The Boehner-Noem Republicans are right-wing ideologues. They don't want good government; they want no government.

Related: I thought this article accusing Republicans of following the CIA playbook of sowing political and economic chaos to destabilize the current regime was a bit exaggerated. But the current game of debt-ceiling chicken makes me reconsider.

Update 20:19 CDT: See also the Displaced Plainsman's excellent round-up of adult criticism of the GOP's budget myopia. The hypersummary: the new conservatives are ill-read children.

30 Comments

  1. Michael Black 2011.07.10

    Michelle Bachmann has vowed not to vote for any debt ceiling increase...PERIOD.

    Bachmann is a serious candidate for president so her views are probably not out on the fringes as some of her supporters.

    Your last link might not be too far off: all of those wonderful politicians want to be re-elected. If they disappoint their base then they are out. A win for the country by be seen as a win for the other party.

  2. larry kurtz 2011.07.10

    Majorette Interview Loophole Freshman.

  3. Bob Ellis 2011.07.10

    Raising taxes--which are already so high they would make the founders faint in surprise that their descendents would quietly put up with such an outrage--would only put an even greater drag on an already hurting economy.

    Further, President Obama's pitiful offerings for cuts offer no real cuts. They are not on a scale that deals realistically with the fact that we are more than a TRILLION dollars in the hole with every year’s budget, that we are $14 TRILLION in the hole overall, and have somewhere between $60 and $100 TRILLION in unfunded mandates from the socialist entitlement party that we decided to throw a few decades ago.

    Extending the debt ceiling is beyond asinine, especially when such a move takes us in precisely the opposite direction we must be going.

    It takes every dime of revenue we bring in--plus $20 billion we don't have--just to pay for your unconstitutional socialist New Deal and Great Society. Not a penny is left over to pay for constitutional expenditures such as national defense, Commerce Department functions, paying the salaries of elected officials, etc. It's like we're a family that's spending its entire paycheck on cocaine and borrowing like there's no tomorrow to pay for our mortgage, groceries, light bill, etc. Insane.

    In other words, Marxism is (once again) proven to be unsustainable.

    The only realistic solution is to wean our great nation off the socialist entitlements that it is now glaringly obvious that we cannot afford, and return our nation to the freedom and free market model that made us the most free and prosperous nation in history. Anything less will see this great nation continue to careen toward the cliff of financial ruin.

    Sorry, in the real world, you can't simply give everyone a perfect and comfortable life with no one paying for it. And the last I checked, stealing from other people--even when government does it--is still immoral, not to mention the fact that it always drives the producers to move away from the takers (whether it be out of state from a confiscatory state government, or out of country from a confiscatory federal government).

    So in the end, no, your system of Marxist thievery still doesn't work. Best to go back to the American way of limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, hard work, private charity, and letting people deal with the consequences of their choices.

  4. Eve Fisher 2011.07.10

    Dear Bob. (1) check the chart on income taxes Cory provided. (2) please remember that most of those trillions of dollars came because of ten years of 2 wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) that were never put on the books by the Bush White House, and so the debt just racked up AND because of the Bush tax cuts that cut revenue for 10 years at the exact same time. (3) The New Deal - especially Social Security - was enacted in the first place because most people in America could not save enough money to retire on. They needed help. There's nothing unconstitutional about it. Nor about income taxes. (4) In the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus said, “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of he least of these, you did not do for me.’ He didn't make exceptions. You can call it Marxism, I call it Christianity.

  5. larry kurtz 2011.07.10

    How's that therapy for your redeemer complex coming, Bob? Last time i saw you you looked like Hell. Are you really gleaning any traffic trolling at Madville?

  6. troy jones 2011.07.10

    I would consider liberals a lot more genuine if the were willing to personally pay more in taxes instead of forcing others to pay for their agenda.

  7. LK 2011.07.10

    Troy,

    Let's start with a bit of perspective. For the first time in American history, we fought two, nearly decade long, off-the-books-wars without a tax increase to pay for them. Both were started by a conservative administration. Both need to be paid for.

    For the record, I opposed Iraq and oppose the current Pakistan, Somalia, Libya interventions. I appreciate your post on DWC about your changing convictions, but neither those changed convictions nor my opposition obviates the fact that these wars need to be paid for.

    The costs of those wars that Obama added to the budget account for $4 trillion of the $14.3 trillion debt that we're under.

    Second, social security should have a surplus. The only problem with social security is that administrations and congresses controlled by both parties raided those funds and are now scrambling to find ways to pay it back. I'm not sure why that is liberal vs. conservative issue. Both parties raided that trust fund; both parties should work to make it whole. If that means raising retirement age and taxing earnings over $100,000 like earnings under $100,000 until the situation is corrected, so be it. All I'd like is some rules to force politicians to keep their greedy hands off those funds. I feel the same way about the South Dakota Legislature and South Dakota Retirement System Funds.

    I don't like the idea that may paycheck will be smaller, but we survived and thrived in the 80s and 90s with tax increases. In fact, we ended the 90s with a budget surplus and better economic conditions than we have now.

    I haven't heard of a single reputable economist who says we can fix the current mess without a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Let's get it over with because the longer we delay the worse it's going to be.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.07.10

    Obama's pitiful offerings"—really? What a pernicious lie, Bob. Obama offered $4 trillion in reductions. Boehner and the Republicans are offering less. If I can take you at your word, you thus must think the House republicans are even more pitiful.

    But I think LK is right: you're just trying to be South Dakota's Colbert Report.

  9. Roger Beranek 2011.07.10

    I agree that it's time for the republicans to bend a little on actual tax loopholes. Particularly if they use that as a starting point for moving us towards a flat tax (or the fair tax!). As long as such tax increasing measures aren't counted towards reducing the deficit (they never do, just look at the historical record of Federal Revenues. Bush's tax cuts had little to no effect on revenue, it still stayed around 2 trillion)
    They should also show willingness to dig into military spending too.
    It would be very easy for the R party to keep this as a huge win, even with T party people, if they would just use it right.

  10. Roger Beranek 2011.07.10

    Eve: Social Security was enacted to lock in tens of thousands of votes for FDR (who also never wanted a crisis to go to waste) There is no constitutional support for it, so it doesn't matter what his reason was. Do you think constitutionality is created in a puff of fairy magic just because people are in need?? You have no clarity on this subject, and insult those of us who do.
    FDR was probably the wost violator of constitutional restrictions we have ever had in the presidency and is responsible for prolonging the depression, not mitigating it, and certainly not fixing it. If not for his great capability as a war-time commander-in-chief, he was the worst us president in history

  11. Stan Gibilisco 2011.07.10

    "The Obama-Dayton Democrats ... want good government ... The Boehner-Noem Republicans ... want no government."

    Aw, shucks.

    We, the American people, want the "government" to fill the vacuum of uncertainty so we can breathe again.

  12. Stan Gibilisco 2011.07.11

    By golly, I'm tired of all the finger-pointing.

    Barack Obama is the President of the United States. That means he presides over the affairs of government. He is our CEO. The responsibility for resolving this mess belongs to him.

  13. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.07.11

    Thank you for the willingness to compromise, Roger. But the Bush-Obama tax cuts have worsened the deficit. Syaing that revenue stayed steady for ten years is like saying income stayed steady: that means we're still going deeper in the hole as expenses increase.

  14. Michael Black 2011.07.11

    Take the blinders off! There is plenty of blame to go around for deficit spending. President Reagan cranked it up in the 80's and since then each and every administration and congress have spent way more money than we took in with the exception of one year in the Clinton presidency.

    We can argue back and forth here forever. It will not change one thing in Washington. We cannot affect their policy. We can only deal with the financial fallout when the default makes life more interesting. What is your plan b if your social security check stops coming? If you are like Cory, how will your potential job prospects change? If you are a business owner, will you invest more in your company now or wait to see if interest rates go up? Will you buy a car or house in the next month to get a better rate or wait to see if you still have a job in two months? What programs will we cut in next year's state budget to make up for the drop in federal funding? What do you do with your investments to minimize your losses?

    I am not confident in any agreement being reached. Minnesota politics have shown us what happens when our elected officials cannot get along. Minnesota government is losing millions every day and it doesn't make any difference to their negotiations.

  15. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.07.11

    Right. My blinders are off. We've spent money we didn't have. We now have to get that money. I can put my credit card on the shelf, but that doesn't pay down my balance. We need to pay more. Be responsible: raise taxes.

  16. DVR 2011.07.11

    @troy - I'm a liberal and have no problems paying higher taxes. My wife and I paid 8% of our income in federal income taxes last year, and we make decent money (between 75K and 100K). With deductions, personal exemptions, and the child tax credit, our contribution was significantly less than our top marginal rate.

  17. Brett Hoffman 2011.07.11

    It shouldn't come as any surprise that the Republican focus is solely on the tax cut side of this debate--preserving low marginal tax rates is really the only policy they consistently stand for. Lowering the debt/spending is a good electoral wedge issue for them, but not a core principle. It's not unlike the social issues that had been their bread and butter prior to the market crash that made economic issues of prime importance--they can use the debt to try to win elections, but they don't have to do anything about it.

    When Clinton passed his debt reduction package, Republicans were against it. During the Bush presidency, there was no talk of debt reduction, only tax cuts. During the fight to extend the Bush tax cuts, there was no consideration of debt reduction by Republicans--only a straight up extension of the tax cuts was allowable. And now here we are again. Republicans past behavior makes it absolutely clear that they care foremost about tax cuts, with debt reduction a distant second.

  18. Eve Fisher 2011.07.11

    I'm a liberal, and I've always paid my taxes cheerfully - I've never whined about it at all. And I've always been willing to pay more in taxes. As former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." Roads, bridges, defense, national parks, help for the needy, pensions for the elderly, and more: there's a long, long list, all of which are valuable to me.

    Re FDR and Social Security, you can believe anything you want about any president you want, but it helps to read real history, and not just the crap thrown around by Glenn Beck. Name calling does nothing and certainly doesn't address the issue of today, which, sweet and simply, is that millions of Americans have paid into Social Security for years; it is not an entitlement program, it is something they EARNED - and taking it away from them is the equivalent of taking away a person's hard-earned wages; nor is Social Security broke, and won't be until it's looted to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

  19. Roger Beranek 2011.07.13

    "As expenses increase" Cory, you make it sound like the increases are just a function of normal inflation and population growth and demographics. Spending did not go up 15% in the last decade it went up almost 200%. Even discounting any positive growth caused by tax cuts under Bush there is no possible way keeping the taxes as they were under Clinton could have remotely compensated for the increasing spending. My point is that monkeying with tax rates does not translate directly to increases in revenue (unlike spending which does). It never has, so focusing on the tax cuts for the wealthy, for or against them, ignores the problem. We wouldn't have avoided the current situation and we cant dig out of it by "revenue increases" that don't even materialize when the taxes are increased.
    I support making the small compromise on loopholes because I believe in simplifying the code and making it less progressive anyway, not because I think we can create federal revenue that way

    Eve: If you really believe it is something we have earned you should support giving full private ownership of social security to each American. Otherwise it's just dressed up welfare after all. The social security program is not broke, you are superficially correct in that. They are a federal entity that has 100% of its assets in Treasury Bonds however. Which means that every dollar that has been earned and then taken beyond the payments to grandma , has immediately been gobbled up into the general revenue fund and used to prop up excessive spending. So instead of going broke, very soon (like now I believe) the ss administration is selling off those saved up bonds and sucking money out of the general revenue. SS doesn't need to be broke to create a crisis.

  20. Curtis Loesch 2011.07.13

    two wars, social security drug benefit, tax cuts. add it up genius.

  21. Roger Beranek 2011.07.13

    Curtis: three wars, health care for all, increasingly progressive tax code... I think the problem is that we do continue to add it up. Time to subtract

  22. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.07.13

    Roger, we could cut all sorts of spending. We would still have 14 trillion in bills to pay on top of current and increasing operating costs. We have an obligation to pay the bill we've already rung up.

    [And nationally, we'd save money if we did real health care for all through full-tilt single-payer national health insurance. Less money spent on private premiums and overhead, more efficient health care, more dollars available for economy.]

  23. Curtis Loesch 2011.07.13

    i meant to add, all unfunded by increased revenue. i'm not a bean-counter or military genius, so if smart people like you can tell me why we have to spend such an ungodly (and i do mean, UNGODLIKE) amount on the defense and defense industry, where we can afford a well-paid 'volunteer' army (i'll bet a majority of whom earn more than they could if they were on the national economy) and mercenary support in such righteous conflicts, it would help ameliorate this sick feeling in my stomach i've had since reagen 'won' the cold war. by way, smart pants, i shopped with the enemy in berlin in 1983, well before the wall went down. our freedom won. you should learn that. yeah, we outspent those commie assholes, alright. take a clue,

  24. Roger Beranek 2011.07.14

    if we cut our spending below revenue, we could start paying that 14 trillion bill. If we even broke even we could establish international faith in the dollar far more powerfully than if we just increase the debt ceiling, which just inspires doubt and kicks the can down the road yet again. At some point even someone like you must admit higher taxes would never pay it off. At some point if not halted, the interest on the current debt will be too high for us to be able to manage. Better to fail now then another 20 years into this.

    ...and lets not get into single payer health care..I need sleep

  25. Roger Beranek 2011.07.14

    Curtis, we don't. I'm all for slashing military. Slash and burn. Just because its constitutional doesn't mean a blank check without restraint or sanity.
    Sorry, I can't answer the rest of your cold war rant as I couldn't understand what the point was supposed to be.

  26. Curtis Loesch 2011.07.14

    i physically shopped in the same shopping center, stood in the check-out line, with russian, east german, czech (my enemies), british, french, west german and american soldiers (my allies), in cold-war east berlin in 1983. what that taught me was ideology was trumped by consumerism. not capitalism and not communism. if there was a real war i would not have shopped and drank beer with my enemies. as i recall, the wall ('tear down this wall') speech was 1987 and i think the wall came down in 1989. my point being i don't trust an ideology that doesn't put the welfare of the majority of the citizens front and center. do you recall the 80's under reagen and the hole his administration and ideology put us in?
    you and i can argue until the next wall (mexico?) comes down, but i'll still think the richest should invest more skin into this debt reduction game in which the teapottyers and their ideology are holding the country captive.

  27. larry kurtz 2011.07.14

    MPR is reporting end in sight for Minnesota's shutdown.

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