The Obama Administration, Congressional Progressives and Democrats, and the mainstream media have done a fantastic job of controlling the narrative in the debt ceiling/budget debate. They have hammered home, in an almost Goebbels-esque manner, the false notion that Republicans have not “compromised on their partisan ideals”; that the GOP is, to use their talking point, “intransigent.” This is nothing short of exactly the opposite from the truth.
The fact of the matter is that House Speaker John Boehner, and a majority of the House and Senate Republican contingents, have compromised, and have done so on a major issue: raising the debt ceiling.
Looking back on the 2010 Mid-Term Election, those concerned about the fiscal irresponsibility executed by our elected class stated loud and clear, in the only poll that matters – the poll at the ballot box, that we wanted the federal government to employ fiscal restraint. In many cases, those whose names were on the ballot, indicated that they finally – finally – got the message. Even Harry Reid (D-NV), ran on a platform that included support for a balanced budget amendment. They said time and time again, at rallies and fundraisers that they understood that the American people were demanding dramatically reduced spending, an honest effort to reduce debt and an abdication of status quo partisan politics, at least until the country’s fiscal health was on the mend.
Fast-Forward to today.
The elected class on the Left side of the aisle, but for a very few, have once again exhibited the status quo Janus face of political skullduggery.
They have abandoned the stance of fiscal responsibility only to embrace their neo-traditional role of Progressive partisan. They feign an advocacy for reducing expenditures when in fact they are actually advancing increased expenditures in a reduced manner from what they would prefer. Over a dozen Democrats who actually ran on a platform supporting a balanced budget amendment – including Senate Majority Leader Reid – abandoned their promises to their constituents in voting down ‘Cut, Cap and Balance,’ a bill Mr. Reid called, “the stupidest constitutional amendment I’ve ever seen.”
Conversely – and most importantly as we move forward – Republicans who ran on fiscal responsibility, who insisted that they heard the American voter in the 2010 election, have taken their seats at the negotiating table in good faith, in contrast to their counterparts. In the spirit of ingenuous compromise, Republicans acquiesced to raising the debt ceiling, an action their constituents firmly stated, via the ballot box, they did not want them to do; Republicans compromised on their principles by entertaining the notion of raising the debt ceiling. What they asked for in return – what they wanted in compromise from Democrats, Progressives and Mr. Obama – was a commitment to honor the fiscal responsibility mandated by the American people: reduced spending with caps, entitlement reforms and a mechanism to make sure the federal government, both of the present and in the future, follows through on these promises: a balanced budget amendment that could be debated at the State level.
As we stand at the precipice of a historical moment in time, we have one party – the Republican Party – that has advanced no less than four debt ceiling/budget reduction plans and offered a true compromise in allowing for a raise in the federal debt limit, and another party – the Progressive Democrat Party and Barack Obama – who have proven unconditional in their insistence of reserving the right to spend and amass debt; who execute an audacity that brands compromising Republicans as “intransigent” even as they execute that very short-coming.
When the facts are examined, it is, in fact, Democrats, Progressives and, especially, President Obama, who have proved to be stubbornly intransigent, not Republicans. Republicans compromised on raising the debt ceiling. Democrats and Mr. Obama have compromised on nothing.
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