Read Their Lips
Further to Rob's post about entitlement cuts, here's an article worth reading from National Review by Jim Capretta.
Those of us who are old enough to recall how the entire Beltway establishment enticed George H.W. Bush to do the "responsible thing" and go back on his tax pledge -- and then blasted him for doing it -- this is bracing reading:
[F]or Republicans, there are reasons to worry that this showdown could be headed toward a political and fiscal debacle if they are not very careful.
It wouldn’t be the first time Democrats got the better of Republicans in a budget fight. In 1990, Richard Darman, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget, wanted to strike a budget deal to bring projected budget deficits down by $500 billion over five years. As a precondition for entering the talks, however, Democratic Senate majority leader George Mitchell demanded that Pres. George H. W. Bush renege, in writing, on his “no new taxes” pledge. The president did so at Darman’s urging, and from that moment on, the president’s standing and leverage plummeted. At crucial moments in the ensuing process, the tax increases kept getting larger and more onerous, and the spending cuts and entitlement reforms kept getting more ephemeral. In the end, it was just a question of how bad the political fallout would be for the president, which of course turned out to be very bad indeed.
In the current fight, it’s quite clear what President Obama and his allies are trying to accomplish. First, they want a package upon which the president can campaign in 2012. Something on the order of a “$3 trillion deficit-cutting program” (no matter how phony) — or even $2 trillion — would help the president downplay the big-spending, liberal image that most independent voters now have of him.
Second, the president wants to raise taxes without getting blamed for it....
Third, and most important, Democrats want a deal that doesn’t give an inch on what really matters to their voting base — which is the entitlement status quo.
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Read Their Lips
I remember so many Democrat traps and double-crosses that it's amazing the GOP establishment still gets suckered. Obama can never be trusted. A deal may be cut, but not unless it rests on a solid foundation of disaffected Dems. Boehner's already been burned. There will be hell to pay if he's suckered again.
Re: Read Their Lips
Bill, I would add only that if people are interested in understanding our national finances, including and especially the sorry state of entitlements, they should read everything by Jim Capretta. He is a walking one-man policy shop. (And, I might add, frequent National Affairs contributor.) And just a super-nice guy.