Contemporary Politics and Newton’s Three Laws Of Motion (Part 15)

In the Eye of the Storm

Current events obligate the conservative blogger to opine on what he or she thinks of the 2011 budget deal that was announced on April 8, 2011 (only 189 days late from the original due date of October 1, 2010.)

I shall organize my obligatory entry around documenting several conversations from this weekend.

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The first two conversations occurred while I was a parent spectator during a Saturday morning of U-13 Lacrosse competitions.

Conversation #1 was between yours truly and friend (well, his kid is my kid’s friend – which makes us friends the way that happens to parents). I know him to be a principled conservative. He asked me what I thought of the deal. I thought about it for a minute, and replied I’d be more disappointed if we weren’t about to get another bite at the apple with the debt ceiling fight coming up. He agreed with that sentiment, then offered his thought John Boehner is doing a good job in a very difficult job, which I agreed with. We got into whether shutting down the government would have been the right political call or not. We agreed it was a very difficult judgment call to make, politically – and we agreed on the reason why: how would clueless “compromise at any price” independents react?

At that point, I offered there was a poll a week or so ago showing it was basically a dead heat: which is why I was itching for the rhetorical fight of a shut down. He pointed out there were more recent polls showing a shift toward anti-shut-down-itis in the public, probably due to the Demo-Hack’s overheated rhetorical tactics; i.e. no more than 6% (six percent) of ANNUAL BUDGET DEFICIT REDUCTION is “extreme,” is “draconian,” and so on. That de-funding Planned Parenthood will somehow result in dead women’s bodies piling up in the streets (which I find to be an interesting argument, given that said funding goes toward dead fetuses piling up in Planned Parenthood garbage pails).

This guy pays attention, he’s forthright, and I have no reason to doubt him. I’m not going to waste my time looking for original references. Because this conversation just means I’m exactly where I was when I started this blog … when are you clueless “compromise at any price” Independents going to stop falling for the Left’s fear mongering?!

Conversation #2 on Saturday morning was with another parent, and federal employee. His entire take was a self-centered whine on the inconvenience a shutdown would represent to him. In the interest of public comity, I steered the conversation away from the subject. I did not verbalize what I was thinking – “Oh, just suck it up and enjoy the unplanned vacation, bureau weenie.” He’s not ready to process a shut down, believe me.

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Then came Sunday.

My across the street neighbor’s son, a Coast Guard officer fresh from serving on a Navy Destroyer near Japan, was home on leave. In the course of a front-yard chit chat, the earnest young man asked me what I thought of the budget deal.

Like all earnest young men will tend to be, he seemed disappointed by the obvious shortcoming in the deal – i.e. how serious can the deal be when it addresses a mere 2.7% of the annual budget deficit? I tried to explain how incredibly important it is that the TEA Party has changed the conversation in DC – from how much more taxpayer money to bulldoze into flaming pits, to how much taxpayer money is worth liberating from this fate. Not sure how successful I was.

Then, almost on cue, his “compromise at any price” independent mother threw the Trump/birther issue into the conversation, parroting the Leftie talking point that anybody who’s asking the common sense question “where’s the certificate?” is by definition a crazy wing nut. As if there’s an equivalence to the budget discussion, … or something. She’s not ready to process a shut down, believe me.

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So, that’s where we are. The Demo-Hack party operated the whole of the entire government last year in the most irresponsible fashion – failing even to perform its most basic duty to pass a budget. Speaker John Boehner and the TEA Party infused House GOP caucus is doing the best they can with what God gave them to work with – one half of one third of the government - to belatedly meet this responsibility. The Empty Suit Known as Barack Hussein Obama is racing as fast as he can to co-opt TEA Party language on spending cuts being a good thing. If the greatest deficit spender in human history pulls this off, the republic is surely finished.

David Plouffe – the Empty Head Behind the Empty Suit Known as Barack Hussein Obama – was dispatched yesterday to Chris Wallace’s show on the hated Fox Network. Setting aside Plouffe’s rookie mistake of insulting the largest Sunday Show audience in the nation, his primary purpose seemed to be announcing that the Empty One has been convinced by recent events to announce his second, revised, 2012 budget. Apparently he now agrees with LibertyAtStake that his first 2012 budget submission - failing to address deficit projections or their largest driver, entitlements – was an unserious and irresponsible act of governance.

He will deliver this speech to his usual form – it will be a vapid exercise in self-congratulation full of empty platitudes and devoid of any but the most trivial and meaningless specific proposals. LibertyAtStake will be there to document it with another in the “Quickie Analysis” series of posts. (side note: LibertyAtStake still does not have a satisfactory answer to his prime question from the last in this series – just who in the hell are the Libyan rebels, anyway, Barry?)

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We are in the eye of the storm. The 2012 budget will not be passed until after the November 2012 elections adjudicate the Demo-Hack spending addiction against the TEA Party movement for fiscal sanity.

Between now and then, we have a vote coming up to raise the debt ceiling, which many say is a necessity. If it is – it is solely due to the Demo-Hack spending addiction. Memo to GOP: The debt ceiling fight is a dress rehearsal for 2012. You need to show us, with Round 2, you have the rhetorical chops to continue to be our designated political party. Round 1 was a little ambiguous, to say the least. I, for example, expected you to use the riders as negotiating leverage to get the entire $61B in HR 1 cuts as a number. You fell short of the expectation. And we have the same decision coming up that we had in 2009 – stick with you guys or go it alone. You haven’t totally passed the interview yet.

And that is why this is Part 15.