Most mainstream conservatives, including many Tea Party leaders are, as Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Levitz of the Wall Street Journal put it when writing about the latter group “generally giving House Speaker John Boehner high marks for his leadership in the spending showdown, even though the agreement eventually reached Friday night fell short of the cuts the tea party once demanded.”
Given the circumstances, leading only one-half of one-third of the federal government, Boehner accomplished a good deal. No, the cuts weren’t deep enough, but this wasn’t yet the big battle, just a skirmish in anticipation of a bigger fight to come. As John Hinderaker put it:
The fight over FY 2011 spending was really an afterthought, driven by the fact that the Democrats never got around to passing a budget last year. The real battles will come this summer, first over legislation to raise the debt ceiling, which can’t be avoided; then, perhaps, over the FY 2012 budget, although the Democrats might try to dodge that fight by, once again, refusing to adopt a budget at all.
And while we conservatives wish we had seen bigger cuts, this budget deal, in the words of Politico, “leaves liberals disheartened“. They feel the cuts are too great and believe that we shouldn’t cut spending while the economy remains “fragile.”
If they’re angry, they should point the finger at their own party, not just its leaders who agreed to the deal this week, but its legislators who failed to pass a budget last year. Perhaps, they’re upset because the deal — and the negotiations leading up to it show just how much the debate as changed. As John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman write in Politico:
In a larger sense, Boehner has achieved more than just a short-term budget victory — in his first three months as speaker, he’s helped turn the entire Washington dialogue into a debate about the size and scope of government. He started the year by getting rid of earmarks, he’s pushing through some of the deepest spending cuts in American history, and he’ll now try to get most of the GOP Conference on board with Rep. Paul Ryan’s fiscal 2012 budget — one of the most audacious long-term spending plans in recent memory.
Emphasis added. “Spending cuts,” Michael Barone writes, “are hot in the political marketplace“. And Speaker Boehner, as his colleague Susan Ferrechio writes, “scores a historic win in [a] test of [his] leadership“.
I’m not all that impressed that the budget was shaved by about nine days worth of debt; and Planned Parenthood is still being generously rewarded for its efforts to promote statutory rape. But at least the Republicans restored the DC scholarship program that president… whom some have praised an education reformer who’s not beholden to the Teacher Unions at all, no sirree Bob… had eliminated as one of his first acts as president.
Even if Republicans were to wrongly bear the brunt of the blame, it wouldn’t matter for long. The paradigm has shifted in Washington. The Republicans need to own it…. then go out and explain what needs to be done next. They finally have the ear of the American people.
I’d be cautious to call anything DEBATE-related a “victory.” Realistically we are discussing CHANGES in a direction toward ACTION that can effect an eventual victory.
I am also disappointed that deeper budget cuts were not able to be accomplished. But the ball is now rolling in the proper direction IMO.
One thing the Dems are aware of. is that deeper cuts will adversely affect their 2012 political races by potentially curtailing any economical recovery. Unemployment will be key to what happens in 2012 and they know it.
The cuts should have been deeper, yes.
That said, once the world doesn’t end with the cuts, the cries of draconian and harsh will ring even more hollow.
Dan, I didn’t understand this point:
That’s not a goal in itself. Are you saying the Left has been softened up for the next battle? But perhaps they’ve been toughened up, as in WI.
Anyway, “what will be, will be”. The GOP and the Tea Party have stopped – for the moment – the Democrats’ reckless expansion of government, and have put in a very, very small down payment on reversing the Democrats’ enormous damage to the budget and the economy. And, perhaps have also changed the terms of the debate. Events will drive the next fight and the next set of changes, whatever they are going to be.
An irony of this situation is that the more government is cut now, the better the economy will be in 18 months when Obama must face re-election. Conversely, the less government is cut now, the more the economy will continue to stagnate. By fighting cuts, Democrats are doing the exact wrong thing, apparently counting on a combination of academia (Keynesian economists), the media, and human greed (“rent-seeking”, people’s desire to live off of government) to cover for them. But then, they always have.
I don’t agree entirely. Yes, there will be some job losses: As you cut the government budget, you cut the number of people living off of government. But what are those people going to do, vote Republican? No loss of Democrat votes there. Meanwhile, the cuts in government will enable the rest of the economy to shake off its stupor and start creating jobs again.
You may mean that the short-run losses (of government-, and other handout-related jobs) will make the economic headlines gloomier, for a period before the real economy is able to wake up and create new jobs in significant numbers. That is probably true. There is a time lag involved, or a timing issue for the Democrats.
ILC, thanks for catching that missing word!