Time to Cut a Deal
This hard-line tea party sympathizer is, reluctantly, on board with Speaker Boehner. Duane Oyen's comment of yesterday pushed me over the edge, but Thomas Sowell, writing at NRO, has me well and truly convinced.
Is the Boehner legislation the best legislation possible? Of course not! You don’t get your heart’s desire when you control only one house of Congress and face a presidential veto.
The most basic fact of life is that we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available. It is not idealism to ignore the limits of one’s power. Nor is it selling out one’s principles to recognize those limits at a given time and place, and get the best deal possible under those conditions.
That still leaves the option of working toward getting a better deal later, when the odds are more in your favor.
There would not be a United States of America today if George Washington’s army had not retreated and retreated and retreated, in the face of an overwhelmingly more powerful British military force bent on annihilating Washington’s troops.
- Comment (50)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (4)
Comments:
Dec '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
I'd made up my mind yesterday to support the bill. Thomas Sowell's words today cemented it for me too.
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Retreat, bide your time, then strike back. In politics--and, come to think of it, in life--very good advice.
God bless Tom Sowell.
May '11
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
George, as a hard-line sympathizer of the tea party who has agreed with your comments on multiple threads, I also think Boehner's plan is the best option left but I think it is too late. We are watching the beginning of the end. There is no legislative solution to this.
Jan '11
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
I would hope that anyone in the House who may vote for this will be able to convince their constituents of this over the recess.
Edited on July 29, 2011 at 2:27amJul '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
As a Tea Party member, if we want to have more influence than we have wielded in this debate so far, we need to challenge in every race where we can win and the member is not already on board. And we need to stop expecting the opposition and our sunshine allies to see the wisdom of our position and redouble our efforts to make vivid the crisis to the American voter.
Obama opened by selling the voters that spending qua spending means jobs. That farcical nonsense has been consigned to the ash heap of history. Again.
Boehner at this hour is going from member to member trying to get his plan passed. An education for the parties of Washington.
Oct '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Hopefully the Tea Party Freshman are burning up the phone lines to their constituents and Boehner will get enough votes. Harry Reid says the bill is DOA in the Senate. He is probably right.
Edited on July 29, 2011 at 2:51amRe: Time to Cut a Deal
But,....but what do we council the House Republicans to do if the Senate takes the Boehner plan and alters it by, say, cutting ties between future debt limit increases and spending cuts, or marries it with the McConnell idea in some fashion so that the President gets to raise the debt limit all on his lonesome, and sends it back to the House, calling it a compromise and putting the ball back in Boehner's court? Do the conservatives in the House get their arms twisted again? Seems to me that the people who should be feeling the heat are the people who have yet to come up with any plan. Just wondering...
Nov '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
I can only hope that the passing of Boehner's legislation would calm the markets and allow investors a small window to re-group.
Edited on July 29, 2011 at 3:09amRe: Time to Cut a Deal
Dave, if Reid carves it up then I would just send it back to him--even recess the House if necessary. At that point, it looks pretty evident that Republicans bent over backwards to avoid the looming government shutdown. The solution after that? More conservatives in the Senate.
Dec '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Thank you, Dave.
I don't remember ever disagreeing with Dr. Sowell before, but I'm pretty sure that there also wouldn't be an America today if George Washington hadn't seized opportunities in the face of devastating risk.
The Tea Party moment may be a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. We should think very, very carefully before we yield ground to the Ruling Class.
Dec '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Charles Krauthammer has weighed in as well. He's also for the Boehner bill. It's hard to argue with the two apart from having a theophany standing next to you.
Jan '11
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
At the moment, I'm inclined to go along with Boehner, for three reasons.
It's true that "argument from authority" (i.e., trusting Ryan's judgement) is a logical fallacy, but sometimes logic doesn't help with guessing.
Jan '11
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Vince Lombardi taught that "fatigue makes cowards of us all." Your opponents get fatigued when you keep applying pressure.
They'll break. All we need to do is apply pressure.
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
George, I agree that sending it right back to the Senate is what they should do,..but I don't know that they will. The ball, after all, will be back in our court, and we will be cast in the usual diabolical terms if we don't yield. Since Reid declares the House bill DOA, I'd be tempted to re-send Cut, Cap and Balance, and leave the ball in Reid's court. I understand the imperative that is driving Boehner's actions, but I'm uncomfortable with our side yielding and yielding while the opposition merely gives a thumbs down, sending us back to the drawing board. We've already passed some great proposals.
Dec '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
If the tea-party movement will ultimately be squashed by the institutionally more powerful establishment squishes, then why not pull the plug now? Light off the financial meltdown now while our historic first Islamic apostate president and his congressional conquistadors are still around.
The damaged would be less now than the same meltdown event in a year or two and nothing, absolutely nothing else would shut down the redistributive transformation of our way of life more effectively and immediately—a shot heard ‘round the world.
Then, we rebuild America in the image of its founding.
Dec '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
George will said “We ought to pocket these gains and prepare for the next fight – and to understand, nothing fundamentally will be changed until we change the president who is determined to veto fundamental change,” Sowel, Ryan, Coulter, Krauthammer, Robinson, and even Allan West say pass the Boehner bill. How can you argue with a lineup like that. But still .....
When the economy continues its downward slide, no matter what happens, even as the democtrats do everything they can to bring it down more rapidly, you know that the Tea Party will take the blame. It must be how Washington felt after the British drove him from New York. Perhaps there will be a Christmas in Trenton. Perhaps.
May '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
I inclined toward favoring it until, Dr. Savage, I read an earlier post of yours that went down like a Jeeves' special applied to a hangover.
Having since listened to Mark Levin and read Jeffrey Lord's comparison to Reykjavik, I'm definitely back in the "leaning against" column.
My reasons for opposing are that the deal doesn't really begin to solve our problems, though it pretends too. In other words, to that extent, it's a collaboration with the lying rhetoric that got us into this mess. Also, it's complicated. It calls for a level of trust in the leadership to remain committed to core principles while they maneuver. But their claim on our trust was squandered by the fraudulent Continuing Resolution, not to mention their decades-long complicity in the disastrous status quo. Further, it splits the Republican coalition at the very moment when our unity is most urgent. The leaders are busy trying to concoct something the Democratic-led senate will support and the President will sign, when they should be busy (it seems to me) proposing real solutions and laying out the case for them, in a way that will win the public.
Edited on July 29, 2011 at 4:30amNov '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Dave Carter
I understand the imperative that is driving Boehner's actions, but I'm uncomfortable with our side yielding and yielding while the opposition merely gives a thumbs down, sending us back to the drawing board. We've already passed some great proposals. · Jul 28 at 7:06pm
Right you are, Dave. George Washington retreated a few times, but he never surrendered.
Nov '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
I tried to eliminate the double post, but this is still left. Sorry, I didn’t do anything to cause it.
Edited on July 29, 2011 at 5:18amNov '10
Re: Time to Cut a Deal
Dave Carter
I understand the imperative that is driving Boehner's actions, but I'm uncomfortable with our side yielding and yielding while the opposition merely gives a thumbs down, sending us back to the drawing board. We've already passed some great proposals. · Jul 28 at 7:06pm
Right you are, Dave. George Washington retreated a few times, but he never surrendered.