All of the attention these days is on Speaker of the House John Boehner.
But the burden on the fiscal cliff NEVER should have been on Boehner—or the House Republicans for that matter. The GOP House passed a bill extending all of the tax rates and was sent over to the Senate, where Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid promptly sat on it. He sits on it still. So the GOP has taken action and already passed a bill. The Democrat Senate refuses to take it up. And the Democrat president insists on higher taxes for the top earners while refusing to compromise on real spending cuts and/or entitlement reform.
The burden ALWAYS should have been on Obama and Reid to propose a real deal. Since they control the White House and the Senate, the burden always should have been on the Democrats. Instead, they have repeatedly lied about being interested in deficit reduction while moving relentlessly toward ever-greater wealth redistribution. And while dodging any real responsibility for their refusal to deal in good faith or reality thanks to a corrupt media that protects them every day.
So while Boehner has played his hand very, very badly, the President and Harry Reid are literally getting away with bloody murder as they push us—-deliberately—off the cliff.
Remember: Obama WANTS to go over the cliff. He WANTS everybody’s tax rates to go up, because he knows that if taxes go up solely on the top 1 or 2%, it will fund the government for about 11 days. (And as I said, forget about deficit reduction. Higher taxes have NOTHING to do with cutting the deficit.) Obama knows that he’s got to get to where the REAL money is: the MIDDLE CLASS. He needs their tax rates to go up to get the real money he needs to feed his ever-growing ravenous beast of government.
Plus, he wants the defense sequester to go through (another $500 billion in cuts to defense, which, as his own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, has said would destroy our ability to defend ourselves and our interests). Remember that the ONLY thing Obama is willing to cut is our national defense.
So: Boehner is inept, but when your main negotiating partner wants to go over the cliff, you’re going over the cliff. And since the Republicans are going to get blamed no matter what, they’d might as well stand for their principles.
Regardless of what happens, all of this last-minute drama carried out by our so-called leaders is shameful. This is no way to run a superpower.
It IS, however, the way to become a FORMER superpower.
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