“Government is like a baby, An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” Ronald Reagan
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” -From the movie: “Cool Hand Luke” 1967
This year marks the centennial of our 40th president’s birth and I am amazed to hear that some liberal media outlets are trying to paint the current President as the reincarnation of the great communicator Ronald Reagan. This is especially laughable to those old enough to know what Reagan stood for. This is especially ironic in the light of the recent court challenges to “Obamacare” as being unconstitutional and going into the video and audio achieves to listen to Reagan’s prophetic speech warning against socialized medicine in 1961.
The difference in the two can be summed up this way: Reagan thought of the growing federal government as a infant child who unknowingly thinks it is the center of the universe who has to be feed constantly and has no understanding or responsibility for its “wasteful processes” to put it nicely. President Obama thinks of the individual states and citizens as children who need to be parented, unable to make mature decisions about ourselves. There are many in the mainstream media as well as in the Republican Party including those who consider themselves conservative who think the president will pull a “Clinton” and move to the center. This segment of the right will undoubtedly want to compromisewith the president citing Obama’s willingness to sign last months extension of the Bush-Era tax cuts and the temporary 2% reduction in the payroll tax. This is the proof they say that he would rather be elected to a second term than pursue his past leftist agenda. In my opinion this either shows a naiveté among the Republican leadership or something more sinister. I suspect this is a ploy to blunt the call for hard choices by some of the newly elected Tea-Party house members to radically cut spending (I.E. Rep. Rand Paul’s proposal to trim 1 ½ trillion dollars in ten years).
The big test will be the upcoming vote to increase the debt ceiling over the current 14.2 trillion dollars. If Senate Minority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Boehner pushes for some vague compromise to raise the limit based on future promises to cut spending the members of the Tea Party Congressional Caucus should revolt and leave the Republican Party. They should instead demand to vote on substantial budget cuts prior to any vote on the debt ceiling should be substantial cuts in spending.
The administration has done an end run on congressional authority by implementing by stealth its cap and trade policy it couldn’t get passed by congress because of public protest. The administration has given the green light to the EPA to overstep its authority by instituting regulation of CO2 emissions . This type of administrative power-grab has been a hallmark of this administration.
The newly elected Tea Party representatives should hold the Republican Parties feet to the fire by demanding the de-funding of Obamacare as well as the EPA enforcement of Its new carbon emission regulations. Also a introduction of a balanced budget amendment with real teeth that would require a balanced budget within 5 years of passage that will also require a two-thirds majority in raising of taxation. This and only this along with other measures should be the price of any increase in the debt limit even if it means a shut down of the federal government. It appears both parties did not understand the historic results of the midterm elections.The president in his January state of the union speech offered to freeze spending at current levels after he and the past Democratic congress has run up the debt and increased spending for than 3 fold in the last 2 years. As in the movie ‘Cool Hand Luke” when the prison warden played by the actor Strother Martin said to the inmate Paul Newman who had been beaten for not following orders “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”.The Republican Tea Party members ought to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough.