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Townhall...
GOP Fear That History
Will Repeat Helps Ensure It Will
By David Limbaugh
Why is it that despite the Republicans’ resounding electoral victory in
2010 based on their promises for real change, many of us have a queasy
feeling they’re not quite measuring up to the task, even in the climate
of Democratic infighting and President Obama’s weaknesses?
The Hill reports that there is developing dissension between Obama and
Senate Democrats, whose respective “political fortunes ... are moving
in opposite directions, complicating their efforts to win a titanic
battle against Republicans over federal spending.”
Obama is trying to stay above the fray and letting Democratic
legislators twist in the wind of conflict with GOP congressmen over a
possible government shutdown. His plan is to ride in just in time to
take credit for the ultimate resolution and be seen as “a bipartisan
problem solver.”
Meanwhile, many Senate Democrats believed to be vulnerable in 2012
defected from their party’s proposal to cut spending. But hardly any
Democrats, including the defectors, can be regarded as serious in their
approach to the debt crisis now plaguing this country.
Yet are congressional Republicans capitalizing on this Democratic
disunity and incompetence? To be sure, there are positive signs, such
as the diligent efforts of Rep. Paul Ryan to help craft a comprehensive
plan to severely reduce discretionary spending and substantively tackle
entitlement reform. And Ryan isn’t alone. Other conservative
representatives and senators are standing strong.
But when we shift our gaze to the Republican leadership in the Senate
and House and even to some of the House freshmen for whom we’ve had
high expectations, we see cause for concern. The first real
confrontation with Obama, whose party had been trounced the month
before, came in December and resulted in a compromise that I believe
yielded Democrats a slight victory, notwithstanding the temporary
extension of the Bush tax cuts.
Next came the House GOP’s disappointing failure to make much headway in
defunding Obamacare, which it blamed on insurmountable legislative
rules. Then Republicans scrambled like scared rabbits to avert a
government shutdown and acceded to a continuing resolution until March
4 -- and then through March 18 -- which contained cuts but also allowed
Democrats to kick the ball down the road another month or so. Vice
President Joe Biden, who was to be instrumental in negotiating with
Republicans, used the extension as an opportunity to take off on an
international trip, apparently without even a superficial nod toward
resolving the issues.
Through all of this, we get the idea that it is Democrats, not
Republicans, who have the upper hand in these negotiations, even though
the public is not on their side and the nation is in ever-deeper
trouble mostly because of Democratic policies. We also get this uneasy
feeling that to some in the leadership, the battle with Democrats is as
much about positioning and reaching some kind of deal as it is about
advancing the underlying causes. It’s a sense that we often get from
those who have been inside the Beltway too long.
House Republicans did pass a bill containing $61 billion in spending
cuts, but most conservatives and tea party activists believe it wasn’t
enough. The Virginia tea partyers are particularly displeased with
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who opposed an amendment for even
deeper cuts (5.5 percent across the board for non-security
discretionary spending).
Now we’re coming up on another deadline, and congressional Republicans
are presenting yet another continuing resolution, which contains $6
billion in spending cuts but doesn’t, any more than the previous CR,
include so-called “policy riders” that would address important issues,
such as defunding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
The maddening irony is that Republicans seem to be ensuring that
history repeats itself precisely because they are behaving as if they
fear that history will repeat itself. We can only assume that they’re
looking back in horror at Bill Clinton’s deceptive PR triumph over Newt
Gingrich in effectively pinning the government shutdown on
congressional Republicans. Utterly paranoid of being scapegoated by
Obama for a current-day impasse leading to a shutdown, they are
acquiescing to ongoing temporary Band-Aid budgets that, despite the
budgetary cuts they contain, are improving the Democrats’ long-term
negotiating position and thus -- and more importantly -- imperiling
their efforts to slash the actual budget.
I believe that Republicans are severely miscalculating the public mood.
We are no longer in the ‘90s; we face a nation-threatening debt crisis,
and Republicans’ primary opponent is a weak president who is doing more
to exacerbate our problems than he is to solve them. A government
shutdown would not be the end of the world, but the GOP’s failure to
act emphatically on spending could be -- so to speak.
One unfortunate constant is the Republicans’ incapacity to handle their
electoral prosperity. They need to take a lesson from Obama’s playbook
and start behaving as if they understand that “we won.” They must get
over their irrational fear of a government shutdown and negotiate as if
they have the superior hand -- the will of the people -- because they
do.
Read it at Townhall
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