A deficit of leaders ... Talk is all they're giving usOn the heels of Rep. Paul Ryan's bold "path to prosperity" proposal to dramatically slash the deficit and retire the national debt, there was House Speaker John Boehner, furiously horse-trading with the Democrats for spending cuts in the 2011 budget. >>>
The president treats our looming fiscal collapse with all the urgency of making a dinner reservation, scores cheap political points, goes blithely on spending and bitterly clings to his outmoded and unaffordable New Deal/Great Society view of government: more, bigger, faster.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, having survived a near-death electoral experience last fall, is a shrunken presence without his House sidekick, ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the negotiations with Boehner last week, Reid came away with a deal that pleased nobody, with the left accusing him of having caved to the GOP's "draconian" cuts.
But, upon closer examination, those cuts turned out to consist largely of accounting tricks. Which means that, across the aisle, things are even worse.
"Meaningful cuts" was, after all, the GOP mantra going into the talks -- but what they came away with was a handful of sand. The Congressional Budget Office reported yesterday that the deal ac tually trims just $352 million from this year's outlays instead of the advertised $38.5 billion.
Boehner, the perpetually tanned, rested and ready speaker, punted on the conservative base's hot-button issues, including defunding of Planned Parenthood and NPR, settling instead for an on-the-record vote about them down the road.
"We only hold one half of one-third of the federal government," he likes to say -- and while that might be realistic, it's also defeatist.
Collectively, Obama, Reid and Boehner aren't giving us leadership, but government by autopilot -- with the gravy train hurtling toward the cliff.
Did these guys not pay attention to the 2010 elections? Or are they too caught up in the ways of Washington to care? The voters spoke clearly that they wanted an end to business-as-usual inside the Beltway. They wanted a real two-party system, not a cozy racket that prizes "collegiality" above what's best for the country and relies on a fog of accounting tricks to convince the rubes that something is actually happening.
The voters who threw out the Democrats in near-record numbers wanted an end to ObamaCare and a hardheaded approach to reducing the size of government. They wanted a return to the principles of self-reliance and personal responsibility, and made it clear to the politicians that they were prepared to sacrifice for it.
They expected Boehner's Republicans to deliver -- not everything, and not all at once; politics still is the art of the possible. But they wanted to see combat, not watch a fixed fight.
If Boehner can't deliver anything but empty promises, look for a leadership revolution in his caucus before too long.
As for Obama and the Democrats -- well, next year's elections can't come soon enough.
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Amen. I hope voters remember this in the coming elections. This sort of "leadership" is best left for the "Titanic".