Could 2013 see the first GOP tea partier ambulatory duck House of Representatives, and if so, how should it deal with a Lame Obama Duck President?
Whew. Who knew that the Republican tea partier class of the 2010 landslide, after 23 months of impotence at the hands of their establishment “leadership” posing as Bob Dole-like tax collectors for the welfare state, were brewing for a Boehner-bruising as their last hurrah?
The Reagan-Newt-Dubya Republican No New Taxes brand remains intact:
[Speaker John Boehner and his fellow] House Republican leaders abruptly canceled a vote on [a] bill [to extend current tax rates only on those earning less than $1 million/year] after they failed to rally enough votes for passage in an emergency meeting about 8 p.m…The stunning turn of events in the House left the status of negotiations to head off a combination of automatic tax increases and significant federal spending cuts in disarray with little time before the start of the new year.
Americans can still read tea partier conservative lips as non-fiction, if not those of a Benghazi flu and concussion-afflicted Obama Administration’s, flapping fast and furious.
This tea partier conservative columnist bears no ill will towards the good and earnest man currently serving as Speaker of the House. We respect the desire and attempt to prevent yet another Obama Democrat attack on the poor, lower and middle-income earners, small businesses and the armed forces of the United States scheduled for New Years Day 2013. But we bemoan his apparent blindness to the motives and likely behavior of the re-elected Chief Executive and U.S. Senate in the face of a so-called fiscal cliff package of sunset laws they insisted upon during the 2011 Debt Ceiling negotiations that reflect their decades-long Democratic policy preferences, i.e. tax hikes and defense cuts.
Isn’t it time for John Boehner to resign the part of Charlie Brown to Barack Obama’s Lucy and admit that the football won’t get kicked until an honorable holder is substituted? Obviously. President Obama, especially in the wake of the electorate’s ratification of his class warfare agenda, will not (and never was going to) sign compromise legislation when by doing nothing he gets extra Christmas gifts, seven days after Christmas.
We hope the silent legislative nights between now and the return of Congress before New Years Eve results in reflection on the reality of what is and is not possible over the next 10 days and 104 weeks with a President pursuing goals diametrically opposed to economic growth policies and whose own goals are advanced by financial crises and budgetary chaos.
I don’t pretend to know how, or if, Barack Obama could be manipulated into being a responsible chief executive even if Republicans held both houses of the legislative branch of government, much less only the people’s house, but the least the GOP can do is recognize that symbolic votes ought to convey a message to future voters that they are on the side Americans suffering from a “recovery” worse than any recession we’ve had since the 1930s.
If it were possible to obtain meaningful spending cuts, including significant entitlement reform, even this tea partier would entertain a compromise on tax rates. But that IS NOT POSSIBLE. Even the supposedly draconian Paul Ryan budget would be too puny to justify such a compromise, much less any proposal that could possibly issue from Harry Reid or the President.
Therefore, what should elected House Republicans do? Establish a legislative record, by passing one issue bills, that spell out the stark contrast between their policy choices for economic growth and recession relief, and those of the Democrats and their cult figure leader, as follows (and as previously proposed, in large part, in this column):
- Reduce income and FICA payroll tax rates for lower and middle-income, if not all earners (or maintain tax rates for all earners whose rates are not lowered), and make the rates permanent;
- Adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax;
- Repeal Obamacare taxes;
- Make Medicare “doc fix” permanent;
- Send the bills to the senate; and
- Go home as the Champions of the poor, middle class and small businesses.
By enacting the above agenda, they will be much better positioned to combat the Demagogue-in-Chief after the liberal high tax and defense-gutting agenda becomes law on January 1.
Republicans must face the reality that Democrats will not allow policies that could possibly revive the economy to become law for the next two years, if not the next four. The campaigns for 2014 and 2016 have begun and the GOP writ large needs to be the clear conservative alternative before the next elections.
The recent election results, and exit polls seeming to assign blame for the last four disastrous economic years to a President Bush as Bogeyman Hoover II, that didn’t sign Obamacare, are disheartening. President Obama seems intent upon duplicating the long Depression, including a 2013 Double Dip mirroring 1937′s, presided over by Hoover I’s successor, but without the fireside chats at home nor absolute victories over enemies abroad. If the electorate of American people continues to be dominated by the economically ignorant desiring a bigger government, we are doomed in the short and medium run. But conservatives can’t fix a broken America by devolving into Democrat-lite status. GOP victories in that mode would only change the names of those issuing the checks to more and more unemployed.
But it’s just possible that the constitutional prohibition of a third term for The One and four more years of economic hardship that many more years distant from BushHoover, will result in a more rational electorate that refuses to reward Democratic Party failure a second time. That is our only hope.
Mike DeVine
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Editor – Hillbilly Politics
Co-Founder and Editor – Political Daily
Atlanta Law & Politics columnist – Examiner.com
Authored By gamecock's blog
