Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on KTBB AM & FM, Friday, July 15, 2011.
In a speech to the Senate Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking of negotiations to reduce federal spending and to increase the federal borrowing limit by August 2, said,
“After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable.”
Senator McConnell is absolutely correct.
It is now clear that while President Obama can live with the consequences of failing to raise the debt limit, however dire those consequences turn out to be, he cannot live with anything that might reflect well on Republicans.
While the very future of the nation hangs in the balance, the president engages in the most staggeringly cynical political gamesmanship imaginable.
With everything on the line, President Obama is using the country’s severely deteriorating financial situation as a giant campaign ad.
Every press conference, every speech, every public statement that the president makes regarding debt, deficits, spending or the debt limit contains the same phrases. We hear them daily – “millionaires and billionaires,” “the wealthiest Americans,” “corporate jet owners,” “tax breaks for the rich.”
These phrases have obviously been focus group–tested and are believed to properly evoke the president’s voting base.
Which would be fine if the president were campaigning. But the debate on the debt ceiling and deficit reduction is not a campaign event. It’s real-world governing.
Under our republican form of government (republican with a small “r”), times like these are the very reason the office of president exists.
The president knows, and you can go to any of dozens of websites (example here) that collate IRS data and discover for yourself, that taxing “the wealthiest Americans” at 100 percent of income will not amount to the rounding error in our nation’s $1.6 trillion deficit. The wealthiest Americans, and those evil “millionaires and billionaires,” while constituting fewer than five percent of the population, are paying nearly 60 percent of federal income taxes. It’s not a revenue problem. It’s a spending problem.
The president knows this but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he knows that vilifying the “rich” (read: the most successful Americans) is effective in motivating his far-left base.
Winning reelection is what the president cares about and to do that, he needs his far-left base. He knows, given high unemployment, opposition to Obamacare, anemic growth, a double-dip in home prices and the country’s staggering debt, that independents won’t break for him the way they did in 2008.
So it’s demagoguery over leadership. Pure and simple.
Not every politician is so staggeringly cynical.
It is highly likely that Richard Nixon actually won the 1960 election against John F. Kennedy. His advisors urged him to contest malodorous results from Illinois, Texas and other states. He refused, saying that doing so would trigger a constitutional crisis that would be bad for the country.
Think about this. No recent president has been so thoroughly reviled as Richard Nixon. Yet he conceded an election that he had good reason to believe that he had won, purely for the good of the country.
So there you have it. Even Richard Nixon’s brand of statesmanship exceeds the grasp of this president.
Looking out for the good of the country is what we hire presidents to do. Which is why we need to fire this one.
Mitch McConnell got it so right.
 
whatever his faults, any thing former PRESIDENT R M Nixon would do is much more beneficial to the AMERICAN people than anything obama has done or will EVER do
Thank goodness someone in Congress has the courage to tell the TRUTH about barack. If only we could hear this level of fearless conviction from the Republican leadership instead of them stating the obvious as they continue to negotiate with a Marxist. Their “sound bites” to the contrary don’t impress me. Please see the following video from a Chicago Representative.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/13/rep-walsh-tells-obama-quit-lying-about-debt-ceiling/
Paul, I love your dedication to Conservative participles but why would Mitch McConnell propose to entertain ANY additional deficit spending by barack (to the tune of $2.5 trillion)? Is it because Mitch is afraid that barack could cause even MORE DAMAGE (out of anger) to this country if we don’t let the spoiled brat have an additional $2.5 trillion to squander? In other words, does Mitch think he should try to limit the unavoidable future damage that barack is destined to wreck on this country until we get a new President?
Even barack is on record to vote against a debt ceiling increase when he was a Senator and Bush was President. Why can’t Mitch be just as resolved?
You do an excellent job at framing the current event, but somewhat “beat around the bush” in identifying the root cause to our political problems. Its the uneducated voting base, the vast majority who go to the polls to advance their ill-advised agendas. Most of these folks are simply unable and/or unwilling to believe that their quality of life will deteriorate if the wealthier minority continue to get hammered. Its happening right now. Corporate America, the wealthier upper class and most small business owners are less willing to invest in an economy that is becoming increasingly controlled by these unqualified policy-makers .. the ones voted and kept in office by the uneducated voting masses. We need a strategy to address the root cause.
I am one of the few that has held kind memories of Nixon mainly because of the fact that Nixon DID love this Country, there was no question of that. He did put country above self and his political career, he did step down rather than put this country through the rigor of an impeachment trial. Unlike another president we will not mention. It is clear that obama cares nothing about this Country, it was clear from the beginning but people refused to see what was right in front of them. We are now paying the price of this failure to look beyond the window dressing. The problem is with this cry baby president not taking responsibility for his actions. It has been HIS actions, HIS policies that have brought us to this point. The republicans need to explain to this cry baby that he has exceeded his allowance. If he wants more spending money, he is going to have to WORK for it, then be more responsible in HOW he spends his allowance. Evidently, his mother or grandmother never explained to little barry about living within his means. Raising the debt ceiling is NOT going to solve anything, it will only make matter WORSE. The only solution to the problem is to recognize there is a HUGE SPENDING problem in Washington that needs addressing. obama is NOT doing that. obama is acting like a spoiled child not getting his way. The republicans need to act adult about this and not cave to the tantrums of this cry baby president. SOMEONE has to be the responsible one here and it is clear that obama is NOT!
It is now clear to me why Mitch McConnell has proposed his ridiculous plan to give barack $2.5 trillion in additional deficit spending to the end of his term under certain conditions. Today, I listened to the justification of the McConnell plan as a last resort to avoid default by Sen. John McCain who reflected the view of the “moderate” Republicans in the Senate.
It is clear some of the Senate Republicans FEAR barack pinning the blame of a government shutdown on the Republicans more than they FEAR national bankruptcy as barack continues his Marxist destruction of our economy. These Republicans base their fear on the 1995 government shut down for a short period as Clinton (along with the media) tried to blame the Republicans.
I am disgusted that there are ANY Republicans that are still intimidated by this “fear of blame” tactic. Don’t they know that by advertising their FEAR that they are giving barack the winning hand? Don’t they realize that “blame” is the ONLY weapon left for the Democrat Socialists?
If these Republicans are that easily pushed into allowing national bankruptcy under barack’s watch, then they are worthless as leaders and need to be replaced in the next election. It is now time to call barack’s bluff and deal with the aftermath as statesmen while continuing to educate the American people in spite of the Socialist media.
I feel like I’m watching the final death throes of our beloved country after a long illness that has gone untreated for 45 years due to unrelenting, creeping Socialism.
We are witnessing an epic battle between the Marxist forces of economic doom and the Constitutional Conservative forces that are trying to save us from bankruptcy. As Paul has said, “It’s demagoguery over leadership”. BHO doesn’t care what havoc is wrecked upon the nation as he doggedly pursues his goal to transform this country into a Socialist utopia. Debt ceiling be damned. He will use every strength of the lying Socialist media and every weakness of the Republican leadership via “divide and conquer” to win his cause at all costs.
This unrelenting Marxist force takes no prisoners. We are facing a Socialist economic and political coup to overthrow the Constitution by Executive Powers and BIG government regulation. We should all be frightened if BHO is not stopped, NOW. If it wasn’t for the TEA Party influence in the last election, it would be all over and there would be no hope left to rescue our country. It is up to the House Republicans to bring BHO to his knees, if they have the courage!