As President Barack Obama lectured us with foolish notions -- such as attempting to reduce America's $14.4 trillion deficit by focusing carefully poll-tested, repetitive threats -- it is clear that, as the debt ceiling issue reaches a stage of urgency, the positions staked out by Republicans and Democrats are on different planets.
Just as six presidential candidates, 12 U.S. senators, 26 House members and more than 100,000 citizens have signed onto a pledge requiring a debt-ceiling-increase limitation to be tied to serious budgetary cuts and a balanced budget constitutional amendment, it appears that the Republican leadership is working to undermine the proposal.
The MSM and bloggers are reporting that certain members of the Republican establishment are not willing to do the heavy lifting demanded by movement the conservative movement which is responsible for their reclaiming of the House majority. Article after article has been written, with gentle nudging by unnamed Republican operatives, that this is just another meaningless promise and Americans have so-called "pledge fatigue."
And while it is true that pledges are often used by politicians as a way to avoid going to war against liberal Democrats, the proposals put forward in the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge are so fiscally conservative, they would have been considered impossible in any previous Congress.
Instead of "pledge fatigue," fellow patriots and I have "backroom deal fatigue." Republicans have shown themselves too quick to take aim at small, controversial budgetary matters while settling for a few billion dollars of cuts and caving to President Obama. This is unacceptable.
As the Congressional Budget Office conservatively reports, America's debt will steadily increase to a prosperity-killing 100 percent of GDP by 2021. This number underestimates the seriousness of the deficit, as the CBO does not use standard accounting rules involving future liabilities, cannot calculate the true economic cost of Obamacare, nor can it account for the negative effects that additional debt would have on the economy.
Therefore, the first and most important part of the pledge involves drastic but necessary cuts in spending, which will reduce the deficit today and into the future.
Then, the pledge requires signers to incorporate serious, unbreakable spending caps into the budget, which will put America on a path to a balanced budget.
Finally, as my co-author Ken Klukowski and I discuss in our new book, Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism can Save America, the Balanced Budget Amendment must have the type of guidelines set forth by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Not only will it require expenditures to equal revenues, spending would be capped at an approximately historical 18 percent of GDP, and all future tax increases would require a two-thirds super-majority vote for approval.
This is no time for punch lines such as "eliminate waste, fraud and abuse." Politicians of both parties have shown themselves to be untrustworthy with your money, and to get results, we need clear, unbreakable covenants with a concrete, objective goal.
Polling data show that such a proposal has overwhelming, bipartisan support, and the American people are generally concerned about enslaving future generations with insurmountable obligations. But it is the Tea Party that can provide the necessary pressure legislators need to feel to pass the amendment and send it to the states for ratification. Tea Party members should take a copy of the pledge, from CutCapBalancePledge.com, and distribute a copy to every county party meeting and town hall event, making sure every candidate for Congress and every gubernatorial candidate is on board.
Investment capital always follows the path of least resistance and greatest opportunity. And after decades of ballooning deficits, only if America sets itself on a corrective course for responsible governance will risk-averse entrepreneurs again use their talents to create jobs and generate prosperity.
It has been almost 800 days since the Democrat-controlled Senate has passed a budget. Since politics is once again forcing discussions to the 11th hour, conservatives and Republicans need to be unified behind the Cut, Cap and Balance proposal before sitting down at the negotiating table.
Ken Blackwell is chairman of Pass the Balanced Budget and the best selling author of Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, coauthored with Ken Klukowski and published by Simon and Schuster.
Robert Reich: Why Mitch McConnell Will Win the Day
Just in time: A debt ceiling game changer
'Cut, cap, balance' pledge complicates debt-limit calculus
Romney supports 'cut, cap, balance' pledge
Cut cap balance to save economy
McConnell's Debt Ceiling Proposal Draws Fire From Conservatives
Gov. Perry signs national 'cut, cap and balance' pledge
Rep. Ron Paul Slams Debt Ceiling with Grassroots Campaign
Can Conservatives' 'Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge' Cure Spending Problem?
"Finally, as my co-author Ken Klukowski and I discuss in our new book, Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism can Save America"
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/09/ken_blackwells_lies.php
http://progressiveerupts.blogspot.com/2010/02/ken-blackwell-spreads-incendiary-lies.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2098503/posts
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-blackwell/times-orwellian-story-on-_b_889318.html
Under Reagan the deb/gdp ratio went from 32% to 53%
Under Clinton the ratio went from 66% to 56%
Under BusIh II the ratio went from 56% to 84%
Reaganomics and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy account for 10 trillion of our debt.
Currently obama has presided over an additional 1.65 trillion in debt.
Ken, I suggest that you advocate for the Clinton plan. Raise taxes on the wealthy. Keep middle class tax cuts in place. Reduce military spending. Invest in job creation programs to deal with our crumbling infrastructure and to beef up our law enforcement.
GOP controlled house and senate. Clinton all by himself did not create a balanced budget.
Yes Clinton did increase taxes and increased spending with a Democrat controlled house and senate. Then in the mid-terms Clinton lost both the house and the senate. He found religion and the middle after that.
We are still waiting for Obama to find religion and the middle.
Obama is already right of center. Your idea of middle must be just to the right of the John Birch Society.
Oh, and as far history ? Every democrat beginning with FDR lowered the debt/gdp ratio during his term in office. Only one republican has-- DDE.
In terms of religion ? I believe it was the Gingrich gang that fell to their knees after losing in the 1996 elections.
It was.
The Bush tax cuts took the country from a thriving economy and a fairly balanced Clinton time - at 18.5% of GNP to 14% of GNP, two wars and a huge deficit. All to raise the top 1%'s share of income from 7% to more than 23%.
This is a "crisis" that was manufactured by the greed of the rich and corporate executives. Enabled by the donation receiving GOP operative.
It was a mistake.
Undo the mistake.
Establish more income equity in the United States.
Find ways to encourage corporations to pay employees more - and hire.
Create demand.
Cutting isn't working. It cannot.
Tax cuts do not create jobs (Bush proved that)
Spending cuts do not create jobs( they lose jobs)
Consumer demand creates jobs.
We need a massive jobs program and we need it now !
What do you want to cut?
..... spending?
I'm so over this.
Taxes are at their lowest rates since 1950. Tax cuts are largely responsible for our economic woes - including the Bush Tax Cuts that have contributed a significant amount to the deficit. Yet, you think more tax cuts are in order.
Take a serious look at what has happened - in reality - due to the tax cuts. There are no jobs being created. No jobs will be created by giving the already wealthy more and more money. They don't drive demand. Demand is the only way a job is created. You can have all the supply you want - and it will sit in warehouses gathering dust while the middle class and poor are left out of the prosperity growth.
Top income levels have rose almost 300% over the past 30 years - and average worker pay has increased a measly 4% - even as the cost of living rose at a much greater rate. What cost a dollar in 1970, costs five dollars and sixty four cents in 2010. For every dollar earned in 1970, the average worker now makes $1.40 - the average CEO - $2.96
What this means is that consumers - people who have to work for a living - do not have the resources left to drive the economy. Its all been leeched out of their hands and into the savings accounts (stocks, boats, houses, etc) of the wealthy.
Until this inequity is corrected, its just simple economics -
The more you feed it, the hungrier it gets. Starve it and it's still hungry. Pretty soon we won't be able to feed the beast which is what this fight is all about!
How could "risk-averse entrepreneurs again use their talents to create jobs (in the USA) and generate prosperity" if they do not outsource their jobs to foreign countries because they are hamstrung with more expensive labor costs, more expensive electrical energy costs, health care payroll tax costs, unemployment payroll tax costs, social security and medical care payroll tax costs, environmental manufacturing costs, fringe (holiday and vacation) benefit payroll costs, OSHA compliance payroll costs, union labor work rules, anti-business laws, and general anti-business attitudes that make manufacturing products in the USA many many times more costly than manufacturing the same product in almost any other foreign country?
What color do you like your water, and what flavor do you like your air?
Business cannot be trusted to behave, the lust for money will always outweigh being a good citizen.
I have visited Asia several times in the last century, and I do not want the USA to degenerate to where US cotizens live like the people in those countries lived before they industrialized.
If the USA continues with the de-industrialization of the USA, then that will be our future!
Yes, I do say the same things over and over to try to convince more US citizens to help to change the direction that the US government is heading, because that direction will destroy the US economy and our way of life as we know it.
You're getting what you wanted, why don't you like it?