From Tuesday night’s Fox News All-Stars.
On the political impact of the debt ceiling debate and agreement:
One of the great achievements here is that the debt ceiling is no longer a nullity. The Democrats are arguing, ‘Well why are we doing this? We’ve raised it 78 times since 1960 without anything happening.’ Yes, that’s the point. That’s why we are in the trouble that we are today. We went 40 years ignoring what really was happening every time we raised the debt ceiling.
Well now, because of the Boehner rule — which he invented on his own out of whole cloth in that speech he gave at the New York Economic Club a few months ago in which he said a dollar of debt ceiling increase has to be matched by a dollar of spending cuts (which, Jay Carney is right, there’s no logical connection, but now there is a political indelible connection) — every time the debt ceiling will come up, there’s going to be a debate in the country. This is a real success.
On President Obama’s proposed job-creation initiatives:
An index of how spent he is intellectually on the issue of jobs is the campaign speech he gave today – the fourth in ten days in which he pivoted and he announced five initiatives. Listen to them:
- Payroll tax extension — we already had that.
- Unemployment insurance extension — already had that.
- Trade deals — he’s had it for two and a half years and done nothing.
- Spending, more infrastructure, a perennial, you know — more dams, more bridges and roads.
- And the last one, I love that — here’s the real new one that will get us out of our doldrums: patent process reform!
He’s out of bullets. He’s out of arrows. He’s looking for stones on the seashore. … There’s nothing left in the cupboard. He did a huge Keynesian gamble, and it failed.
If there's no connection between a measure to raise the debt ceiling and a measure to try to slow our mad dash to the fiscal cliff, it's routine in Washington to tie something the majority hates to legislation affecting something else that's near and dear to the majority's heart. Only when that practice works *against* the interests of the Left, apparently, does it constitute political terrorism.
I was thinking of all the one-way rules the Left and the mainstream media have conjured this year, in response to the Right's successes in the 2010 elections. Here's a partial list:
* From the Indiana public employee union battle we got the rule that a newly elected Governor cannot pursue legislation unless the intent to do so was announced repeatedly during the campaign. Just to state that intention honestly, whenever anyone bothers to ask, is not enough.
* Also from Indiana we got the rule that the minority party can legitimately frustrate the will of a duly elected majority by going into hiding, including by leaving the state. (If Fareed Zakaria, et al., were condemning this blatant usurpation of democratic processes while it was underway, I missed it.)
* From the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords we got the rule that the prevention of political assassinations requires right-leaning politicians not to use martial metaphors, or even heated rhetoric, regardless of the fact that any unbalanced individuals who might be moved to violence didn't actually hear the forbidden speech.
* From the debt ceiling fight we got the rule that, when the Left contends that raising taxes is so essential to any program of fiscal discipline that it is justified to push the world economy to the brink, that's OK, but when the Right disagrees, it's terrorism.
* As a corollary, 95 Democratic Representatives -- one half the Democratic caucus -- can vote "no" on a measure to increase the debt ceiling, less than two days before the clock runs out, and they get a pass from the MSM and from everyone else who was so quick to condemn the Republicans for merely threatening to do so.
These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Are there any more?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor your second bullet, replace "Indiana" with "Wisconsin."
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse" more dams"
We don't build dams anymore, we just tear them down. Apparently, fish don't like them (or so I'm told).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat do we call those people who keep doing the same things over and over again but expect different results?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseliberals?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSerious conservatives are disappointed that we haven't significantly changed the trajectory of the country's economic collapse in the discussions of the last few weeks. But CK makes an excellent point that the debt and debt ceiling now have political substance. I've been dismayed over the years as the ceiling has been routinely raised as though it is some trivial accounting formality. Conservatives will do well to keep it in the public discussion. They would do well to repeat Dave Ramsey's analogy: a family that makes $58K, spends $75K and has $326K in credit card debt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe's already told us he's bluffing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere are the full youtube clips:
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