The “Supercommittee” is due to report their plan to the Congress next week. Judging from watching the weekly talkers on Sunday morning, the hunt for the guilty has already started. Everyone has a plan: “Rivlen-Dominici”, “Gang of Six”, “Toomy”, etc, etc, etc. Suddenly there’s a need to split budget cutting from tax reform. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I flip between the morning shows on weekdays and the members of that supercommittee are on those channels every day. You know things are bad when the Congressmen start talking about Congress like it’s a place they’re not really sure where it is. It’s funnier than hell to watch John Kerry or Ron Paul say “I don’t know what Congress is thinking/doing”. Really? Haven’t you been there for the last 30 years? I will not miss this oportunity to point out that the City has deftly handled this problem without playing any games. (A claim neither our state our national gov’t can make.)
Here’s what’s going to happen: there will be one big final push to segregate budget cutting from tax reform. That will either fail or the cuts will be so minimal as to amount to zero. The supercommittee will subsequently fail with both sides blaming the other. You won’t be able to watch the news without seeing one of those grinning idiots. There will be a debt downgrade and turmoil in the markets. Guys like me that own small businesses will stop spending money on anything that isn’t absolutely necessary (and maybe not even that). The economy will stall to near zero. Politicians, along with their cohorts in the media, will openly lament, that corporate America is sitting on all their cash and pretend not to understand why.
On the political front, after the committee fails, you will see both sides rise in righteous indignation about how irresponsible the automatic budget cuts (sequestration is what they’re calling it) are. How could any right-thinking American possibly stand by while the defense budget is cut by 25% (or whatever it is) and domestic spending by the same amount. The messaging will make it appear as though nobody in Congress is quite sure where this “sequestration” idea came from. The law will be changed and the budget won’t be cut. There will be various recriminations and some cuts may come through but, in the end, America will experience a debt crisis. Not quite a Greek-style debt crisis but the part that will hurt the American psyche the most is when the Chinese come to town and demand that Americans either get the fiscal house in order or they’ll stop lending us money. That will be humiliating but there’s nothing we can do about it – cuts will be made at that time but we won’t have much leeway or control over what those cuts will be. If that’s not enough, none of the people running for President is capable of providing the leadership necessary to get us out of this.
At that point, I’ll join the Tea party, (I don’t know how wild my friends in the Tea party will be about this…:) and run for Congress. I don’t know how applicable the Tea party agenda is in Manassas but it would appear to be exactly what we need in Washington. It’s clear that the established parties are far more concerned with their own well-being than in the health of our collective union. What is required is a fundamental recalibration of America’s goals and aspirations and we need new blood to do that.
November 21, 2011 at 12:11 am
Well, if you are going over to the TEA Party, at least take a look at their budget for a ten-year plan to fix things:
http://blogs.freedomworks.org/files/TeaPartyBudget.pdf
November 21, 2011 at 12:20 am
Also, if the trigger is pulled and the cuts come, yeah you are right about Defense. Not only a major cut there, but when looking at the $1Trillion-plus, about half of it is Defense bucks. A lot of folks are talking about it, praising a “Peace Dividend”, but what is not being spoken to that in that $51billion or so in the Defense bucks is also Veterans Administration. If the cuts come, the V.A. Health System will be in for a major cluck-up since they will only be focusing on those with about 80% disability ratings and higher (basically the V.A. Priority for Cares of Levels 1 to 3). All the other Veterans (Priority of Care Levels 5 to 8) are considered “discretionary” so a lot of the V.A. Clinics such as the new one at Fort Belvoir may find itself shutting doors.
As for the “Peace Dividend”, those of us serving during the Vietnam Era knows what that means when 1975 came around – no money to do jack-squat. I recall in the late 70s even not having money for annual rifle qualification – no funds for even just 120 rounds of M-16 ammo. Plus, this junk of a “Peace Dividend” by the Committee calculating on the savings for not spending funds to continue operations in Iraq is just monkey money – we did not have the money in reality to start with and just kept spending. Love though how they try to calculate the monkey money as if it was a real dollar savings.
November 21, 2011 at 12:21 am
Hmmm….somehow a smiley face appeared in that line that says Priority of Care Levels 5 to 8. Must be when I typed an 8 and a parenthese, you get smiley. Cool.
November 21, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Not having the budget to provide annual rifle qualifications is an absolute shame. Not having the budget for multi billion dollar weapons systems is less so. The late 70s and early 80s was also when, until forced to make changes (driven by both leaked defense dept. data and congressional investigation) the general officers seemed happy to promote and pay for the rolling coffin that was the Bradley fighting vehicle. I don’t even want to mention the B1. When targeting the waste, inefficiencies, and redundancies of government spending, the military cannot have a pass.
Monkey money; never heard that one before, but it certainly seems to be the common currency in DC. At least Newt recognizes it. At least the city doesn’;t use it.
November 24, 2011 at 1:28 am
I think you needed to edit that last paragraph:
“At that point, I’ll put up the Trojan front of abandoning my wild spending roots, and try to join the Tea party, (I don’t know how my wild friends in this blog party will be about this…:) and run for Congress. (They really need another big spending Republican) I don’t know how applicable my spending voting record fits into the Tea party agenda, but just like in Manassas it would appear to be exactly what we need in Washington. It’s clear that the established parties (like me & my fellow Republicans) are far more concerned with their own well-being than in the health of our collective union. (see I would fit right in) What is required is a fundamental recalibration of America’s goals and aspirations (more Hope and Change !!!eleventy!!!) and we need new blood to do that. (too bad I don’t have any Tea Party blood)”
November 25, 2011 at 7:32 am
@CroMM: Ungly, vicious, untrue, and written on Thanksgiving no less. Shame on you.
November 25, 2011 at 5:11 pm
CroJo: whatever. You need to lighten up a shade.
November 25, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Also to CroMag: Is that you COM? The IP address is one you’ve used before….