Goldilocks Realignment

All political activists must wear bifocals so they can keep an eye on the present battle and also focus on the long run.

The agreement today between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress to allow an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion in return for reductions in Obama’s planned spending by $2.417 trillion over the next decade, and no tax increases, is a victory for Reagan Republicans in the present struggle, but an even more important victory over the long run.

Obama wanted a debt ceiling increase without conditions. He got a boatload of conditions.

Obama wanted tax increases (a phrase his handlers never allow him to say out loud; they prefer “revenues” as if they fell from the sky) and the deal has no tax increases at all. The deal does create a bipartisan congressional committee that will look at ways to further decrease our debt. Although it is possible that the committee’s 12 members — six Republicans and six Democrats — will recommend a tax hike, it would require a vote by both the House and the Senate to become law, just like any legislation. There is, however, zero chance the Republican House would pass a tax hike in an election year. Remember, 234 Republican members of the House of Representatives have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

Speaker Boehner explained slowly and patiently for six months that any debt ceiling hike of $2.5 trillion would be required to have at least $2.5 trillion in spending reductions in the same bill. There is more spending restraint than debt ceiling increase.

Obama also wanted one vote on raising the debt ceiling between now and the coincidentally chosen date of November 2011. Instead, we will revisit the debt ceiling/budget cut debate in a few months, with the threat of a “default” removed and replaced by the “threat” of across-the-board spending cuts if the committee cannot find cuts that Congress wishes to enact.

All well and good for limited-government conservatives in the present and short run.

But the power of the agreement is in the precedents it sets.

First, never again will we have to listen to all the smart people in the permanent Washington establishment tell us that any “budget deal” has to have both tax hikes and spending restraint. The ghosts of 1982 and 1990 are finally laid to rest. The 1982 and 1990 tax hike and spending cut deals delivered very real and very permanent tax hikes and no spending reduction. Spending actually increased over the baseline after each “agreement.” Why? Because once the Democrats saw the Republicans were stupid enough to put tax hikes on the table, the spending cuts once on the table began to melt away to nothingness.

Second, there is a new rule in town. The Boehner Rule: Any increase in the debt ceiling will require a reduction in federal spending by the same amount of the debt ceiling increase. This new rule will apply to a President Romney or Perry as well as to President Obama. We now have a new tool to keep spending down. One with teeth.

Third, the power of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge signed by 234 GOP congressmen and 40 GOP senators and more generally the Republican brand as the party that will not raise taxes has been tested under real battle conditions and survived and thrived.

Not a bad day’s work.

Not only does the Tea Party not want any credit for this disaster, we do not want to be a part of it. This plan does nothing to cut spending this year. It does nothing but fund the easy, endless expansion of government. It takes our debt to record crushing levels and it opens the door, through the use of a commission to crushing new taxes.

This is a complete surrender and by early next year, Obama will have his dream of transforming America from a low tax, free market economy, to a high tax, welfare state, socialist economy. And the whole time, the GOP is aiding and abetting the Obama, Pelosi, Reid axis of fiscal evil and committing political suicide at the same time.

We must act.

President Barack Obama and Republicans sealed a deal Sunday to avoid the nation's first financial default and raise the debt limit while slashing more than $2 trillion from federal spending over a decade. Obama said that, if enacted, the agreement would mean "the lowest level of domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president" more than half a century ago.

While the details of the spending cuts to states remain unclear, lawmakers from both parties have discussed the need to cut or impose caps on so-called discretionary spending over the next decade.

That could mean wide-ranging cuts in federal aid to states, affecting everything from the Head Start school readiness program, Meals on Wheels and worker training initiatives to funding for transit agencies and education grants that serve disabled children...

States already have closed nearly $480 billion in budget gaps since the beginning of the recession, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Connecticut, for example, officials have struggled to cover a $3.3 billion deficit, accounting for more than 16 percent of the state's main budget account.

About 19 percent of the state's non-transportation revenue comes from the federal government.

"The timing is lousy in every respect," said Benjamin Barnes, secretary of the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management. "It will certainly have a recessionary impact on the overall national economy, and that's the last thing we want right now."