First, Veronique de Rugy on the Republicans:
I am not holding my breath that Republicans will do the right thing since, with a few exceptions, they stopped being the party of smaller government a long time ago. I have said it before, but I’ll say it again: We are in this mess today because for years Republicans in Congress, along with the pundits and the policy people who support them, have agreed to significant compromises of their principles in the name of practicality or politics. (Think about Medicare Part D, or the Bush tax cuts in conjunction with massive spending increases.) But look what we got in exchange for practicality and politics, the government we have today: It is big and it will get bigger; it is overreaching; it is inefficient; it is wasteful; it corrupts the private sector and gets corrupted in return.
Second, Victor Davis Hanson on Republicans and President Obama:
The Republican leadership does not fully comprehend the Obama modus operandi of waging a vicious ad hominem class war, only to step back at opportune moments and lament the growing acrimony and incivility. They better wake up in the next two years to the fact that they are dealing with a Nixonian mind with a folksy Reaganesque veneer.
I find the last sentence particularly insightful. However, the piece it comes from is perhaps a bit too severe on Obama overall - at least given what I’ve recently been reading in Bob Woodward’s The Price of Politics.
BTW, two cheers for Republicans Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Richard Shelby, and Chuck Grassley.
And this is a pretty funny characterization of the US Senate – a body that while performing an important service in our Constitutional system certainly deserves some knocks as well – and its fiscal cliff bill:
Retiring Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio asked House Republicans why the House would “heed the votes of sleep deprived octogenarians,” according to a source in the meeting.
Count me among those at a loss to explain how the current political operating model and idea of the proper role of government changes now that we have averted the ‘fiscal cliff’; I am simply not creative enough to imagine how that happens. The data and the math are simple:
* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Did the President and Democrats really believe these numbers will change for the positive by raising income taxes on the top 2% of earners, and other payroll taxes on everyone else? Is there some super brilliant political game afoot here to establish that Republicans are now supportive of an overall policy approach of tax and spend, setting the stage for a massive tax increase to cover the budget gap? Are there economists that argue this is the best way to eliminate deficits? Or is the argument now that deficits are of no consequence and can be ignored?
Absent a true crisis, i.e.; the collapse of our system of paying for government and thus the handouts included, I don’t see how anything changes. There are not enough Rand Pauls and Marco Rubios to make the change, and when they do speak up they are ignored or, worse, dismissed as kooks.