Cut, Cap & Balance the Budget

In his July 17 newsletter Steve Pearce, a New Mexico Congressman, mentioned his participation in the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity. He wrote:

"On Thursday, I played in the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity, an annual tradition reaching back to 1909. We raised over $150,000 for local charities. During this difficult economic time, I am happy to spend my time helping charities who are struggling with limited resources. My hit in the 6th inning ended the Democrat teams' no-hitter, and I was named the team's MVP."

That's not the extent of Steve's MVP status. Monty Newman, Chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, expressed his gratitude to Steve for "supporting the Cut, Cap and Balance legislation that passed the US House this week."

In the House, Pearce voted for Cut, Cap & Balance Act; other New Mexican Congressmen, Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich, voted against it. In the Senate 46 Republican Senators voted for the Cut, Cap & Balance Act. Fifty-one Democrat Senators voted against it---including Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, both New Mexico Senators.

Bingaman asserted the bill "did not achieve shared sacrifice." Lujan declared that the act "would cut the deficit on the backs of New Mexico's seniors and working families." Heinrich stated something about "breaks for the ultrarich, while making dangerous cuts to Social Security and Medicare."

To be blunt, such remarks are dishonest. The bill, HR 2560, states: Exempt From Direct Spending Limits - Direct spending for the following functions is exempt from the limits specified in subsection (c):`(1) Social Security, function 650.`(2) Medicare, function 570.`(3) Veterans Benefits and Services, function 700.`(4) Net Interest, function 900.`(c) Limits on Other Direct Spending

The entire bill can be read at Politisite.com.

Evidently, Democrats did not read the bill. Harry Reid deemed it "the single worst piece of legislation to hit the Senate floor." http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20110724/OPINION02/107240315 That was good enough for Democrat Senators.

Politisite writes: "They actually didn't even get a chance to vote on the actual bill. Reid used a parliamentary maneuver to force a vote on whether to allow the bill to come to the Senate floor to be debated. That motion to "table" a "motion to proceed" is what passed 51-46. Once again, rather than debate the actual bill, so everyday Americans could "see what's in it," to borrow Nancy Pelosi's famous words, Democrats didn't even want to talk about it." [ibid]

It has been made clear---particularly during last week---that Democrats are not trying to solve the debt problem. Yet they characterize Republican proposals as either (a) ridiculous, á la Obama, or (b) disastrous, á la Harry Reid, or (c) does not achieve "shared sacrifice" á la Bingaman.

An Op-Ed in the July 23 Albuquerque Journal offered an explanation for this curious behavior, although that was not the author's actual theme.
Carl P. Leubsdorf, former Washington Bureau Chief of The Dallas Morning News compared the difference in attitude toward problem solving among politicians of the past and present day.

He wrote that problem-solving on a large, national scale is not the motive of most politicians these days. Instead, their approach to politics is partisan. Today, politicians are wedded to their political party. They seek to maintain party unity rather than solve a given problem besetting the nation.

But partisan politics is neither productive or predictable. Mr. Leubsdorf pointed out that "Barack Obama's disdain for Republicans in 2009, when he told them pointedly he could call the shots because he "won" in 2008, backfired when the GOP won House control in 2010."

Partisan politics boils down to "my gang is bigger than your gang; so, you have to do what I say." This is the hallmark of the gangster, the dictator, the totalitarian---call it what you will. It is an attitude that does not approach problems with a solution but with an edict.

This has been the attitude of Obama and his supporters during the debt talks. They have refused to cut the 70+ programs the Republicans proposed, which would save $2.4 trillion. They chorus one melody: "Tax the rich. Raise the debt ceiling." That's not a solution. It's an extension of the same problem of reckless, wanton spending, without thought, without plan, without concern for tomorrow.

Obama and his supporters continue to claim they need money for "seniors and the poor and the unemployed and the sick and the disabled and the maimed and the blind, for oppressed Haitians and Samolian's, for Afghan and Iraq politicians, for Libyan and Syrian and Egyptian rebels, and for anyone else they can dream up.

But not for the American earners who produce the values that pay for it all. If you're tired of politicians stampeding into your pocketbook with their pretended concern for everyone except the American producer, we need not wait for 2012. We need to start calling and writing the Democrats now and simply say, "No more money. Pass Cut, Cap and Balance the Budget."

And if they should say, as some do, "Leave me alone! You're not my constituent." Simply respond, "Thank goodness for that. I plan to convince those who are, not to return you to office."