Fiscal Conservatives Kicked Obama's Ass

By Tom Rhodes, 1/30/2013

Amazing the Tea Party Conservatives have won a major battle and most people don't even know it; the left claimed victory but in reality lost. I loathe John Boehner, but he is good, he kicked Obama's ass without the left even knowing it. Let's look at the facts. The debt ceiling fight was kicked out until May, but... that doesn't include the sequester fight. Boehner successfully separated borrowing from spending into two distinct issues, and to get massive spending cuts all the house has to do is . . . . NOTHING.

Boehner managed to engineer making the Bush Tax cuts permanent for all but about 1% of the people; and they have the ability to hide income and avoid the increase in taxes anyway, always have always will. In the WSJ he said, "Who would have ever guessed that we could make 99% of the Bush tax cuts permanent? When we had a Republican House and Senate and a Republican in the White House, we couldn't get that. And so, not bad." You just gotta love the left claiming victory, for a 3.6% increase on people making double what Obama campaigned.

The new law is set up to only allow new borrowing only to meet obligations "outstanding on May 19, 2013." Because of how government spending and budgets work this effectively put a freeze on new spending. So debt limit and spending are now separated, and new spending is frozen, and automatic spending cuts are about to go into effect. This is a BIG win for fiscal conservatism, regardless of Obama demanding ever more spending.

The New York Times reported that Democrat Senator Charles E. Schumer said, "The president stared down the Republicans. They blinked," while failing to even notice that the fiscal conservatives won the spending cut battle without a fight. The automatic spending sequester trigger that trims all discretionary programs-defense and domestic, is still in place. because it included deep defense cuts President Obama was sure Republicans would call for ending the sequester; they ignored it. Spending cuts are automatic and will happen if the GOP has the guts to do nothing, and it looks like they aren't bluffing.

The defense cuts that will happen are significant, but don't even reduce the size of the DOD to 2007 levels, hardly an inadequate budget, and not nearly the size or scope of previous postwar drawdowns. This once again put's the Tea Party in Boehner's camp, as it looks like he is acting with integrity as a genuine conservative serious about reducing spending. He claims to have significant Republican support, even from GOP defense hawks, for letting the sequester "do its work."

I hate to say it but objectively looking at what's happening, Boehner maximized the House Republican majority to force the Democrat controlled senate and President, into making real spending cuts without them even knowing it. It's hard to believe but we may see our government controlled by a Democrat President, with a Democrat Senate be the first since before the Korean War to actually reduce government spending. Hat's off to John Boehner, engineer of a fiscal conservative coup while in a minority.

If only they don't cave. Without the 100 Tea Party members of the House there can't be a law passed to stop the automatic spending cuts. Now it's time for you to put pressure on your Tea Party Republican to allow the automatic spending cuts to happen.