Redstate...
It’s All Too
Odd
Posted by Erick Erickson
Wednesday, July 27th
Consider
that John Boehner and Harry
Reid named their different legislation to raise the debt ceiling by the
identical name.
Consider
also that John Boehner and
Harry Reid’s legislation are virtually mirror images to each other — a
fact
that the rhetoric has obscured, but is in reality accurate.
Consider,
in fact, that Boehner and
Reid use the same language in various portions of their legislation.
Consider
that John Boehner told Sean
Hannity tax hikes could come out of his deficit commission despite
earlier
denials.
Consider
also that in one of the key
differing portions, John Boehner uses Mitch McConnell’s gimmick of
letting the
President raise the debt ceiling on his own with merely a congressional
vote of
“disapproval” that the President can then veto. This is a gimmick
embraced by
Harry Reid.
Consider
that John Boehner claimed
actual cuts to the federal budget for 2012 would be just over $6
billion — that
is for an entire year. The federal government spends $10 billion a day.
Consider
that the Congressional Budget
Office determined late last evening that the actual amount of cuts for
2012
would only be $1 billion for the whole year, or about 2.5 hours of
federal
government spending.
And
then consider that the White
House, after the Congressional Budget Office’s determination, defended
John
Boehner on the White House website even after White House officials
said they
would recommend the President veto Boehner’s plan — actually a
different
statement from the past. In the past, the White House said definitively
that
the President would veto the GOP’s idea. Now, they are just saying
it’ll be
recommended to the President.
Consider
all these things and it seems
the White House and Harry Reid are perfectly willing to let John
Boehner pass
his plan if he can get it out of the House. Their very hostility is
designed to
reassure Republicans. They’ll sign it into law. Then they will blame
the GOP
when our credit rating is downgraded — something sure to happen with
John
Boehner’s plan.
Finally,
consider this — we are all
being played. The conservatives are up front with what they want. The
House,
Senate, and White House seem to be working at cross purposes, but
hiding some
of their cards. The only group up front with what it wants — real
spending cuts
— is the Tea Party movement being portrayed even by the Wall Street
Journal as
fringe.
I’m
left with the only inescapable
conclusion one can derive from all of this. Republicans are being
played for
fools, will wind up with all of the blame and very few cuts and the
size and
scope of the federal government will continue to grow all thanks to
John
Boehner who is on his third plan continuing to compromise not with the
Democrats, but with the Republicans.
Read
it at Redstate
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