Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
The legislation that is due to pass here shortly includes a "supercommittee" that will propose ways to reduce the deficit. Three Senate sources have told The Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes that Senators who oppose the legislation will be ineligible to serve on it. A spokesman for Sen. Mitch McConnell has denied the charge.
It makes sense, on the one hand, to punish members for failing to support your plan but wow if that isn't a horrible idea. The Republicans opposing the plan are some of the most fiscally conservative members there. They include Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Ron Johnson, Pat Toomey, Jeff Sessions and Marco Rubio. In other words, precisely the guys you want advocating for spending cuts. And that's only the half of it:
There’s the problem. If, say, a dozen of the strongest fiscal conservatives vote against the deal, the pool of Republicans that can be expected to hold the line on taxes shrinks very quickly. And if a key Republican objective for the committee is to block tax increases, the exclusion of these strong fiscal conservatives makes meeting that goal more difficult.
Mitch McConnell, who will make the selections, isn’t worried. He told Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto yesterday that the likelihood of tax hikes coming out of the committee is “pretty low.”
"Pretty low" isn't going to cut it, is it? If Republicans don't want their backsides handed to them again in the next election cycle, they should be doing everything in their power to respond to the growing consensus among Americans that our government is bloated and in need of some massive change.
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Aug '10
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Can you just smell Orrin Hatch , Richard Lugar, and Susan Collins somewhere ?
Feb '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Don't care. Supercommittee is a sham; do we actually think this will produce anything worthy and relevant? Will actual spending cuts ever materialize?
Yeah, and I'm counting on Social Security and the sale of my share in the Brooklyn Bridge to supplement my retirement too.
May '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Since someone who votes on a matter is bound to the result, you cannot rationally deny that person access to whatever is produced by the vote. The vote's results are binary and summary, producing a single class of result-bound persons; having voted against a successful measure confers no special ability to resist the outcome.
May '10
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
John Bolton's thoughts on this committee:
Why should Democrats agree to their favored domestic spending bearing more than 50 percent of the cuts when they know the sequestration mechanism will give them a better deal? Conversely, why should Republicans agree to more than 50 percent of the cuts being taken in defense, when they know precisely the same thing on their side?
Thus, the logic of the negotiating dynamic will mean that both sides of the Joint Committee will not concede more than they would otherwise get under the sequestration formula. That, in turn, brings us back to $500 billion in defense cuts.
Sep '10
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
When you hear establishment Republicans say, “It is the best we can do when the GOP only controls one house, wait until after the 2012 election when we will control all both houses and the WH,” what they are saying is, “after the election we will come up with a new excuse for not reducing the size of government.” This is evidence of it. The solution is to get rid of establishment Republicans. Who would you want on the committee, Mitch or Rand Paul. To me that’s a no brainer and that tells me a lot about Mitch.
May '10
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
I have wondered about that, too. Suppose we take the presidency but not both Houses in the coming elections. Will Republicans then tell us that we must act moderately until 2014?
Jul '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Whenever this commission happens, it will actually be a wise idea to throw throw items (whatever they say about the wealthy tax breaks etc)the dems are complaining about on the table first and publicly....in exchange for real tens of trillions in cut. The media war has this as class warfare and if that mantra is allowed to continue in to the next election I have grave doubts about our chances of winning it.
All the libs coming in to my office say the same bullet points about the wealthy getting breaks from the GOP out of this deal. It seems the sheep are eating the MSM slop. This needs countering fast.
Apr '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Is the GOP suicidal?
Not only do they not dance with the ones that brought them, they take out a restraining order?
This better be invented nonsense cooked up by people trying to drive a wedge between the tea parties and the GOP--that's going to be Job One of the MSM/Left going forward. Because if this is real, the GOP leadership are a gaggle of fools.
Prager's formulation (the dangerous party versus the stupid party) becomes more true with each passing day.
I hope this turns out to be untrue. I'm cheesed off enough at all the other Pledge betrayals.
Feb '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
As much as I hate to say it, barring people such as Sen. Paul, or Rep. Paul for that matter, may be absolutely necessary. I think they'll place one or two Tea Party types like Allen West that went along with the deal on the committee, but that's it. If a Tea Partier sided with the Democrats becasue the consenus conservative posistion did not do enough then the House and Senate Republicans would be forced to reject the proposal, and we'd get nothing out the the commission. I'd bet this is pretty close to what McConell and Boehner are thinking right now.
Dec '10
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Orrin Hatch voted against the deal.
The tax increases are already baked into the language of the deal, as it was scored by the CBO, based upon the expiration of the "Bush Tax Cuts". In order to only come up with the dollar amount of cuts they are charged with, they have to accept a dramatic rise in tax rates. Otherwise, they have to come up with 100s of Bs of $s in additional cuts.
It doesn't matter, anyway, as the committee will accomplish absolutely nothing and that will kick in the "sequestration" portion of the plan, vast cuts to defense and payments to doctors that accept Medicare. No conservative should bother serving on this useless committee.
Apr '11
Re: Will Fiscal Conservatives Be Barred From Supercommittee?
Pessimistic take:
The magnitude of this is slowly sinking in. Automatic cuts in medicare provider payments and defense if, best case scenario, there's gridlock in the uber-committee-whatchamajig--no way the current Dem leadership is going to let a blue dog in (assuming there are any left). Party leadership anoints the panelists. No way GOP doesn't anoint a squish.
Optimistic take:
Paul Ryan is our only hope. From the planet Accountant, hurling thunderbolts for responsible and sustainable government! To fiscal sanity, and BEYOND!