The Budget Deal: Compromise or sell-out?

Socialism - 1

Free Market - 0

Over the Christmas holiday, our family was discussing the "compromise" budget deal as negotiated by Rep. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan - the deal that Tea Party Patriots - and veterans - are outraged about. One member of our family had watched Rep. Murray making the talk show rounds and was favorably impressed by Murray, who was touting the value of compromise. The Washington Times reported one of those TV interviews: 

Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday the budget dealshe struck with Rep. Paul Ryan “wasn’t easy,” but it had to be done to rebuild trust in Washington and clear the way for work on tax and entitlement reform.

Mrs. Murray, Washington Democrat, said she knew both sides of the political spectrum would not be pleased with everything that went into the deal, but that’s the price of compromise.

“In order to deal with the long-term challenges that our country faces … we have to have the trust of the American people, we have to have the trust of each other in Congress — in a divided Congress — to do that,” she told CNN’s “New Day.”

Compromise rebuilds trust, so compromise is a good thing. Or is it? 

Here is another way to look at these "compromise" pieces of legislation. Imagine the United States is the football, and Congress represents the competing teams. The blue end-zone represents the Free Market, supposedly the goal of the conservative team (supposedly comprised of Republicans). The red end-zone represents socialism, the goal of the Democrats/Socialists/Progressives. One could make the case that the United States is already about 2/3 of the way down the field toward the Socialism goal line.

The "compromise" budget means that instead of Socialist/Progressive getting, say, a one yard advance, they got only an inch this time. But it is another inch in the wrong direction. These much-touted "compromises" (including tax hikes and elimination of sequestration budget restraints) end up being compromises for only one side: those who champion the free market. For Rep. Murray and her team, "the price of compromise" was pretty much zero.

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Nervous Nellie legislators

Speaker John "If I Only Had the Nerve" Boehner

Amidst all the recent attacks on Tea Party Patriots by Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, or American Crossroads architect Karl Rove, here’s an excerpt from an article entitled "Harvard Prof: Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely To Win," an analysis posted yesterday at Breitbart’s Big Government:

"At the grassroots, volunteer activists formed hundreds of local Tea Parties, meeting regularly to plot public protests against the Obama Administration and place steady pressure on GOP organizations and candidates at all levels," they found. "At least half of all GOP voters sympathize with this Tea Party upsurge."

Though Skokpol and Williamson have their typical biases and describe the Tea Party movement as a "radical" one that may not like minorities--without any evidence of that assertion--they acknowledge that "even though there is no one center of Tea Party authority—indeed, in some ways because there is no one organized center—the entire gaggle of grassroots" and outside groups that support the movement "wields money and primary votes to exert powerful pressure on Republican officeholders and candidates."

Skocpol observes that the "Tea Party clout has grown in Washington and state capitals" because "Americans are also losing ever more faith in the federal government." In addition, "most legislators and candidates are Nervous Nellies," and they have seen the Tea Party defeat establishment Republicans like Charlie Crist in Florida in 2010 and David Dewhurst in Texas in 2012 in addition to knocking off incumbent Republican Sens. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). 

"That grabs legislators’ attention and results in either enthusiastic support for, or acquiescence to, obstructive tactics," Skocpol writes. 

So in 2014, let’s keep grabbing the attention of all those Nervous Nellie legislators!

Speaker Boehner and the GOP elite: stuck on stupid

On Christmas Day, The Wall Street Journal reported on the GOP Establishment's all-out attack on its conservative base:

Republican leaders and their corporate allies have launched an array of efforts aimed at diminishing the clout of the party's most conservative activists and promoting legislation instead of confrontation next year.

GOP House leaders are taking steps to impose discipline on wavering committee chairmen and tea-party factions. Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, are preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates for Congress in 2014's midterm elections.

"Promoting legislation instead of confrontation"? "More centrist" candidates? Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer the repeal of Progressive legislation and unconstitutional Executive Orders - even if that means confrontation with the socialist Progressives in both parties. Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer candidates who will put Tea Party principles before party. 

The WSJ reporter identifies several GOP-proposed measures that will do nothing to stop the downward spiral caused by runaway spending, regulations that strangle free enterprise, and job-killing legislation. Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker pounced on the report with some blistering criticism of Speaker Boehner's ham-fisted "leadership" - based on intimidation and marginalization of any members of the House who dare to vote against Boehner's party line, even when it means breaking campaign promises and breaking faith with constituents: 

This is a recipe for suicide. We saw in November 2012 how well it works when a party pushes a presidential candidate who alienates the base. The GOP turnout was far too low because Romney did not inspire the base. Does anyone think John Boehner does? Does anyone care how turnout will go in November next year?

The GOP Establishment lives and breathes the Beltway, where the combined weight of the media, government bureaucrats, and all those lobbyists leads them astray. They have no idea how their arrogance plays to their natural constituency.

The midterm elections should be a slam-dunk. But the Beltway Republicans, traumatized by the media campaign against the shutdown, are fighting the last war, completely unaware that the base doesn't want another shutdown, it wants repeal of Obamacare and sees it in sight with victory on 2014 and then 2016. If only the Establishment can stop attacking them while it sucks up corporate money.

It does look like Tea Party Patriots have to challenge a GOP party run by establishment and Progressive “elites” AND a Democrat party controlled by establishment and Progressive “elites”. And Speaker Boehner thinks the best strategy heading into 2014 is to alienate the conservative base. He is Stuck on Stupid. 

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Merry Christmas from Cleveland Tea Party Patriots

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

President Obama's "Christmas" card

The BookwormRoom has a perceptive take on President Obama's family Christmas card:

There’s been a fair amount written about the Obama Christmas card. It’s a pop-up card, which has an expensive look that’s unseemly as millions lose their insurance and millions more have joined the ranks of the perpetually unemployed.  It’s colors are cool, not warm, which seems to refute the warmth that Christmas brings to people in the dark of winter.  It shows a vacant building, which seems symbolic when one considers that Obama invariable answer to all the scandalsrevealed in the past year is to disclaim knowledge or responsibility.  And lastly, despite going out at Christmas time and despite Obama’s claims to be a Christian, the card makes no mention of Christmas.  Keep in mind with this last point that the card ostensibly comes not from “the government” but from a man and his family.  George and Laura Bush were not ashamed that they celebrated Christmas and always sent out cards that included Biblical verses.

Amidst all the buzz about the Obama Christmas card, there’s one thing I haven’t seen.  No one is talking about the card’s peculiar message:  “As we gather around this season, may the warmth and joy of the holidays fill your home.”

Am I being a pedant, or is it bizarre to “gather around” a “season”? People gather around hearth fires and Christmas trees, and infant cradles and birthday cakes, and classic paintings in museums and street buskers making beautiful music.  That is, people gather around tangible objects.  People do not gather around something as abstract as a season.  It’s the same as saying “As we gather around this air” or “As we gather around this ambiance.”  Yes, those are nouns, but they’re not the type of nouns one “gathers around.”  In trying to create a card that is all things to all people (never mind that it coincidentally goes out at Christmas), the White House has managed to create nothingness. 

(To be charitable, it is possible to read the opening phrase as a muddy version of "As we gather around [tangible objects during] this season." Whatever.) Read the rest here. 

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John Boehner's Betrayal

Below is an Op-Ed by Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder of Tea Party Patriots, addressing Speaker Boehner's latest attacks on the groups that allowed him to become Speaker by default. 

It should also be noted -- these are the same groups that will take Boehner's gavel!

From The New York Times --

WOODSTOCK, Ga. — THERE’S a political axiom that says if nobody is upset with what you’re doing, you’re not doing your job. We’ve seen this proved time and again in the liberal attacks on conservatives like Sarah Palin and Dr. Benjamin Carson, who provide principled examples to women and minorities and are savaged by the left for doing that job so well.

But cheap-shot politics isn’t relegated to Democrats. Last week the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, attacked conservative groups who criticized the budget deal, hashed out by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, for failing to reduce spending and for raising taxes.

“They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” he said, calling the opposition “ridiculous.”

In one way, Mr. Boehner is correct. The goals of groups like ours are those that congressional Republicans once espoused: smaller government, less spending and lower taxes. Alas, those who demand such things today from their elected officials face unfounded attacks.

Make no mistake: The deal is a betrayal of the conservatives who fueled the Republicans’ 2010 midterm shellacking of Democrats.

It raises discretionary spending above $1 trillion for 2014 and 2015. It reneges on $63 billion of sequester cuts. Its $28 billion in deficit reduction over the next decade is a pittance compared with the $680 billion deficit piled up in 2013 alone. And it raises taxes, particularly on airplane passengers through new travel fees.

Perhaps most troubling is that the deal locks in spending for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the worst parts of Obamacare will continue unfolding to the shock of increasing numbers of Americans.

But the budget plan is about more than taxes and spending. It was a slick means by which Senate Republicans could appear to oppose the deal while in fact allowing it to sail through the chamber.

Take Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the minority leader, who opposed efforts to defund Obamacare earlier this year while claiming to do everything possible to stop it.

After attacking conservative groups for their efforts to prevent the funding of Obamacare, Mr. McConnell, who is facing a primary challenge in his 2014 re-election race, is now seeking to portray himself as a conservative darling, championing fiscal austerity by voicing opposition to the budget proposal. (My organization has not endorsed a candidate in that race.) Doing so gives him some nifty talking points that align with most conservative groups, but it is little more than parliamentary sleight of hand.

Consider how he handled the vote on the bill. To defeat a filibuster, its supporters needed 60 senators to win cloture and move to a final vote. Instead of rallying his troops against the vote, Mr. McConnell allowed a handful of Republicans in battleground states — who needed to be seen as supporting the bill — to vote for cloture, while he and the rest railed against it, casting themselves in the role of budget hawks.

With cloture accomplished, a dozen Republicans were then free to vote against final passage if they need wiggle room when they’re confronted on the campaign trail next fall by voters demanding action on government spending. Mr. McConnell and many Senate Republicans used the vote to manipulate the system, allowing them to cast themselves as deal makers or principled conservatives, depending on their audience.

This is not principled policy making; what we’re seeing is simple gamesmanship that raises legitimate questions about which values Republicans truly hold and which are merely interchangeable with those of Democrats.

The job of Tea Party groups and other conservatives is pretty simple: to inform Americans about the need for restraint in spending, tax relief, pro-growth economic policies and individual liberty — and to support the men and women who pledge to promote these positions. To the extent that the speaker of the House and Senate Republicans are attacking such groups, it looks as if we’re doing our job.

But after this budget vote, our job expands to include informing Americans about who keeps their word in Congress and who does not.

When establishment Republicans call spending increases spending cuts, deny that raising taxes is a hike, and champion deficit reduction that doesn’t scratch the surface of our nation’s debt, it suggests a detachment from the facts. But when those who voted for them criticize their elected officials for not keeping their promises, and are then attacked for doing so, it suggests that Kurt Vonnegut was right in observing, “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”

Jenny Beth Martin is a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

Protect 501(c)(4) organizations’ freedom of speech

Photo credit: planet.infowars.com

Protect 501(c)(4) organizations’ freedom of speech

Tea Party Patriots and most liberty groups are classified as 501(c)(4) by the IRS. The NumbersUSA outfit (whose sole mission is to educate voters on any legislative action that impacts immigration) sent out an alert concerning a new IRS regulation that will muzzle all 501(c)(4)’s — in the days leading up to an election. There’s a new website called Protect C4 Free Speech http://www.protectc4freespeech.com/ and here is the home page information:

Tell the IRS to Protect Free Speech!

The Internal Revenue Service has quietly announced a new rule that strictly limits the ability of 501(c)(4), tax-exempt organizations from working on their core missions in the months leading up to federal, state, and local elections. The proposed regulations would prohibit these organizations from engaging in candidate-related political activity, which, by the proposed rule's definition, includes any mention of a candidate's name or political party even if presented in a non-political context. Further, organizations would have to ensure that any references to candidates in past communications are not publicly available, including online, during the pre-election window. These regulations would, in effect, prohibit organizations from providing the public with candidate comparisons and voting records, engaging in get-out-the-vote activities, or encouraging informed civic participation, among other activities. They would severely limit both the organizations' First Amendment free speech and the public's ability to hold elected officials accountable for their actions.

“Under the proposed definition, any public communication that is made within 60 days before a general election or 30 days before a primary election and that clearly identifies a candidate for public office (or, in the case of a general election, refers to a political party represented in that election) would be considered candidate-related political activity.”

Without your input, these proposed regulations will take effect and the rights of all Americans will be curtailed. It is our duty as Americans to make our voices heard and insist that our rights are protected. Please take a look at the sample comments and then submit yours directly to the federal government. The deadline for all comments is February 27, 2014, so act now!

Among the organizations participating with NumbersUSA are The Sierra Club, the pro-Amnesty National Council of La Raza (strange bedfellows!), and The National Rifle Assoc. If you go to C4 the website, you will find sample letters to the IRS (or members of Congress) to raise your objections to this latest regulation to chill free speech. 

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