“The fault Dear Brutus is not within our stars, but within ourselves that we are underlings.”
I’m going to take a contrarian position today, both from one which my fellow conservatives are taking, and from the position that I myself would usually take. Here is my position, we should go for the Ryan/Murray deal, and we should go for it quietly. I know that most of you reading this will blast me for my heresy, and let me state for the record, I agree in advance with most of what you’re going to say. I only ask in advance, that you consider my arguments at least a little before passing your judgement.
First off, our current predicament is entirely due to the fact that we have not won sufficient elections recently to establish our will, nor even to adequately represent our wishes upon the national scene. That is a fact of life. Elections have consequences, and what we have happening in Washington right now is just the brutal reminder of the beautiful truth behind that statement. There is a second part to this however. Until we start winning elections, and winning them in bulk, we will never again get our way, no matter how passionately we state our well reasoned arguments. While I agree that we are far too often duped by some pretender or traitor, there are also some good people from our side who have stood up for their principles and done what was promised, and those people deserve our support.
The next point I’d like to make is that while this deal sucks, the current spending level can only be described as insane, and we are well into the period of time when according to the last deal, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that, promised that the future cuts would be taking place, we both know that this was where we were going to end up anyhow. No matter how fiercely our brave House Members fought, and no matter how tight a budget they passed and sent to the Senate, it would be DOA. The Senate would reject it, Harry Reid would strip up the version sent over, the Senate Democrats would have passed an amended version that would have been this monstrosity or worse, and the GOP in the House would have caved like cheap suits. After a long protracted fight in which this bill or worse would have been signed into law, we would have all been left feeling violated once again, and wondered what in the world they even bothered for anyhow.
Another thing that I’d like to mention is this. The entire process is nothing more right now than one giant squirrel, as in the variety that I warned about yesterday. Barack Obama is bleeding, and any budget fight right now would represent a fierce distraction from his bleeding carcass, and one by the way that would almost guarantee his regaining popularity, at least amongst his base. Winning elections should be our top priority. Obamacare is the gift that will do that for us, or at least be a major help. By November of next year, the employer mandate will up the number of previously insured but no longer able to afford it Americans to about 150 Million pissed off people. All of the above will be searching for their pitch forks and torches. We can spend the next year helping to keep them focused on the one single issue that will help us rid our Universe of the Marxists for at least a generation, or we can allow ourselves and our fellow citizens to become distracted, throwing away the gift that reality and Team Obama have so thoughtfully given. Paul Ryan’s budget was a political maneuver, and while many of us do not like those, losing the tactical war has been part of our downfall for a very long time. Frankly, I’m happy to see that at least one member of the GOP finally gets that, and has done something about it.
Like it or not, this is the price to be paid for those protest votes, purity tests, staying home on election day because you didn’t like that your guy lost and the other guy’s candidate won in the primaries. As Jimmy Johnson told his Dolphin Team during a playoff game in which they got beat by over 50 points, “if you don’t like it, do something about it.” There is only one something that can be done about it. Yes, our guys got slammed tactically when they controlled the Senate, House, and the White House, and they let us down by continuing to act like Democrats. Since then however, there have been 80 or so worthy Tea Party House Members elected and a few in the Senate. The answer is not to stop supporting them, the answer is to get more of their kind elected, so that they can make a difference.
Ryan’s punt may seem like a purposeful throwing of the game, but it is not. He is a policy wonk, and is playing chess, while others are playing checkers. What he is trying to avoid, and succeeding at avoiding by the way, is 8 weeks of headlines in which the GOP is blamed for throwing grandma off of the cliff, starving puppy dogs, while the Obamacare disaster takes to the back pages, all for the grand prize of having an even worse deal passed in the end anyhow. He has punted with the wind at his back, and has decided to let his defense try to force the fumble, and right now, their offense has shown that they are prone to fumbling the ball. The best and only path to having your way right now is the exact path that Paul Ryan has chosen to take. We need to have our guys win in both 2014 and 2016. Without that, cutting spending will be nothing more than a pipe dream, no matter how loudly we all proclaim to want that.
For the record, here’s what the Heritage Foundation had to say about it.
