Forgive Me for Not Joining the Party: A Debbie Downer Blog Post

I’m afraid I don’t share the general exultation of the right side of the blogosphere today over the debt ceiling deal that will undoubtedly become law today. Hooray, says my friend Jeff: The Republicans scored a political win that slowed down the runaway spending locomotive! Hooray, says my friend Pete: Republicans like Allen West and Renee Elmers didn’t come to a bad decision, they’re just “consolidating the ground” they won! Boo and hiss, says Ezra Klein: This talking point I have that says I must use the word “austerity” in nearly every sentence I write causes me great pain…and austerity!

I suppose there’s room for a little joy that the conservative point of view wasn’t utterly discarded. It’s probably good to be happy that the Tea Parties weren’t utterly slandered by everyone in Congress, including the people who owe their seats to us. There is something to the point that any budget agreement that causes the Wonderhack Twins Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias to become simultaneously verklempt is probably a good thing.

On the other hand, this is real.

See the blue line? That’s the spending that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have set on autopilot for us for the next ten years. The red line is the spending we’ll do thanks to the debt ceiling deal.

Does that look good to you? Does that look like a reason to celebrate? Does that look like we’ve “changed the terms of the debate” or have “shifted the conversation” or any of the other happy phrases some folks on the right have tossed out there to paper over the very real fact that the deal will slow down spending as well as a pill bug in the middle of a superhighway will slow down a tractor trailer? Should we find satisfaction in a bill that gives President Obama, who is a political animal to the very marrow of his bones, the authority to borrow $2.4 trillion more dollars with only token limits?

What Republicans do not seem to understand is that the conversation has already changed. Look at the poll numbers in this post. Consider that almost two-thirds of the country want the basics of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan for which the GOP refused to fight in the Senate. America is ready for a real defense of real spending cuts — cuts that at least flatten those Matterhorn-steep increases. What rankles me is that this deal should have been better for the country, but it wasn’t because the Republican leadership lacked the courage and vision to make it so. I’m convinced that the only reason John Boehner and Mitch McConnell didn’t get a worse deal is because Barack Obama and Harry Reid are two of the worst negotiators on the planet.

We Tea Party types don’t need more numbers as much as we need more leaders who can plainly and relentlessly fight for smaller, better government. We need to replace the people who say “well, at least we won something, so yippee” with people who say “I hate that we couldn’t defend our principles well enough and that we sucked down this crap sandwich as a result”. I don’t honestly care if Republicans win the White House in 2012 if we can fill the House and Senate with more people who refuse to accept that our spending must always increase.

I am not happy with this debt deal and less happy with my conservative friends who are. This is not a deal to celebrate. It is a failure of vision we can use as fuel to do far, far better when the real budget fight comes around in October.

Other Posts of Interest:

• You Keep Using the Word “Austerity”. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.
• Ezra Klein Has A Magic Solution to the Debt Ceiling “Crisis”, but the Politics Make Him Sad.
• Ezra Klein’s “Let It Ride” Plan is A Quick Trip to Cloud Cuckoo Land

Tags: 2012 Election, Economics, Elections

Category: The Economy and Your Money