{"id":6082,"date":"2011-07-09T15:59:53","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T06:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haakondahl.com\/blog\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2011-07-09T15:59:53","modified_gmt":"2011-07-09T06:59:53","slug":"midnight-crossroads-boehner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/midnight-crossroads-boehner\/","title":{"rendered":"Reagan. Reykjavik. Boehner."},"content":{"rendered":"

[Update: So far, so good. \u00a0Keep it up! \u00a0Speaker Boehner, if we make it to August 2nd without a deal, for what it’s worth I will be back on the GOP bandwagon, and I will encourage everybody I know to come along. \u00a0Good show so far; KEEP IT UP. \u00a0Thank you!]<\/em><\/p>\n

Short and simple: Speaker Boehner has an opportunity to regain some trust from the Tea Party which put him in his chair.<\/p>\n

The opportunity here is the same as that presented to President Reagan at Reykjavik. Like Reagan, he has been presented a choice between rapid defeat and slow defeat. \u00a0Reagan refused to play by the rules set forth in places like the defeatist, accommodationist New York Times. \u00a0 He walked away, and far from being empty-handed, he won. \u00a0Rather than squander what power he had and accept a deal to meekly oversee the decline of the West, he told the Soviets that their terms were not acceptable, retained the initiative, and came back to crush them without firing a shot.<\/p>\n

Reagan did accept a deal offered by the Democrats, however. \u00a0It was a three-for-one spending cuts-to-taxes “opportunity”. \u00a0The Democrats promised to but three dollars in spending for every dollar Reagan raised taxes. \u00a0Sound familiar? \u00a0The problem is that, as always, the spending cuts disappeared in a bunch of doubletalk, while the taxes were most certainly assessed. \u00a0It grew government, and Reagan never fell for one of their bad deals again. \u00a0Reagan was honest, the Democrats lied, and at great expense, the point was made.<\/p>\n

[pullquote]Boehner should tell the Democrats that we are still waiting for them to honor the deal Ronald Reagan made with them.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

The problem with Boehner accepting a deal, no matter how constructed, which increases the debt limit by one penny, is that it violates the mandate issued by the 2010 election to roll back spending. The miserable democrat 111th Congress wrote a lot of checks, and we will pay the bill, but we need not simply countersign their next loan as well. \u00a0Boehner should tell the Democrats that we are still waiting for them to honor the deal Ronald Reagan made with them. \u00a0When that is fulfilled, then we can start talking about this one. \u00a0The right thing to do is to call the bluff of those trying to stampede us into action with lurid threats of default. Note that we do not even technically default if we present a good plan for paying debts while juggling other nonsensical spending as necessary. Far from a risk to our credit, the resistance of the Tea Party to any spending or debt increases may be the only thing maintaining our good credit. Call their bluff, accept no increase, and watch the world not end on August second.<\/p>\n

[pullquote]Deficit reduction is not the goal; that is a result of achieving our goal. \u00a0Spending cuts are the goal.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

Deficit reduction is not the goal; that is a result of achieving our goal. \u00a0Spending cuts are the goal. \u00a0It will profit us literally nothing to reduce the deficit without reducing spending. \u00a0Far from it; such a deal will remove our ability to pressure for reduced spending. \u00a0Such a deal will constitute acceptance of the status quo by the Republican Party, which will seal its doom. \u00a0I and millions more just like me will see to it.<\/p>\n

Speaker Boehner has an opportunity to win big. \u00a0He\u00a0also has an opportunity to secure the destruction of the Republican Party–just take the deal. \u00a0That is all it will take. \u00a0 He has no opportunity, however, to escape this without taking a side.<\/p>\n

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[Update: So far, so good. \u00a0Keep it up! \u00a0Speaker Boehner, if we make it to August 2nd without a deal, for what it’s worth I will be back on the GOP bandwagon, and I will encourage everybody I know to come along. \u00a0Good show so far; KEEP IT UP. \u00a0Thank you!]<\/em><\/p>\n

Short and simple: Speaker Boehner has an opportunity to regain some trust from the Tea Party which put him in his chair.<\/p>\n

The opportunity here is the same as that presented to President Reagan at Reykjavik. Like Reagan, he has been presented a choice between rapid defeat and slow defeat. \u00a0Reagan refused to play by the rules set forth in places like the defeatist, accommodationist New York Times. \u00a0 He walked away, and far from being empty-handed, … Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[234,240,244],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-politics","category-conservative","category-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}