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Don’t Negotiate In The Press Or Anywhere Else For That Matter
Monty Pelerin / EconomicNoise.com
The “crisis” of the fiscal cliff continues to dominate the news. The coverage, as usual, is unbalanced and naive. The media and the President think that taxes are the issue. They are an issue, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to fixing our governmental insolvency.
Tom Lester weighs in with his opinions on the fiscal cliff and how Congress should handle the issue:
I listen to the rhetoric from Barack Obama and John Boehner regarding the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, spending cuts and the fiscal cliff and wonder why the Republicans even participate in this charade. Each side is attempting to “win the hearts and minds” of the public using the media to sway the public to their approach. The most egregious wrong is that the Federal government spends too much for which it demands that the American taxpayer cover with an ever-increasing tax burden.
Conservatives are at a disadvantage playing this game in public. They have two entities against them — the liberal socialists and the left-leaning media. Both are ideologically opposed to any conservative view regardless of how logical or reasonable it might be. Both demagogue whatever conservatives present. Their volume and repetition serve to demonize and destroy whatever competing ideas are presented. The deck is stacked against conservatives in the public arena.
We all are Monday morning quarterbacks in some fields. Allow me the privilege of being one here. My recommendations to conservatives in this so-called fiscal cliff battle would be to stop dealing with the press. We saw what happened the last go round and know that a similar outcome is shaping up again. Here is my advice:
Get off the airwaves! Don’t debate issues on radio or television shows where you lose before you start. When queried for commentary, simply say we are doing the business of the country, taking our responsibilities for maintaining and controlling the purse strings seriously. We are discharging that responsibility logically and reasonably through the bills we pass in the House.
- Pass bills through the House and send them on to the Senate. Bills should be separate in the sense that entitlements, discretionary spending and continuation of the current tax rates represent three bills. It’s not likely that Harry Reid will allow a vote to be taken much less ever bring them to the floor. So what!
- As each bill is passed and before it is sent to the Senate issue one concise statement to the public regarding the amount of money that is saved by the bill and that the bill represents the best that the House can provide. Failure to address and pass it in the Senate is the responsibility of the Senate.
Invariably a reporter will ask something like the following, “Are you going to allow the Bush tax rates to expire for everyone?” The response should be that it’s now out of the House’s hands and in the hands of the Senate and President. The Senate and President, no longer the House, must now exercise responsibility. “But will not the Sequester go into effect without your efforts?” Again, “it’s out of the House’s hands, we have made our best effort.” If the country goes over the fiscal cliff, that decision was made by the White House. The House has done its duty.
When the issue of responsibility is raised, the opportunity should be taken to explain responsibility in its full sense. Is it responsible to have unemployment continue at its present rate for so long? Is it responsible to have a continuing stagnant economy? Is it responsible to pass an $800 billion stimulus package and have no discernible results to show for the expenditures? Is it responsible to pass a bank bailout of 2,700 pages that has further stymied lending and commercial expansion? Is it responsible to have passed $2.3 trillion healthcare legislation in the middle of a prolonged bad economy? Is it responsible to have passed the auto bailout and after four years only about half has been repaid? Is it responsible to have allowed the national debt to surpass $16 trillion? Is it responsible to have bailouts for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and others? Is it responsible for the Fannies to return to zero-down (subprime) loans knowing that taxpayers with continue to have to bailout these bankrupt entities? Is it responsible to make no comments for over three months on the attacks in Benghazi which took four American lives?
The bottom line is that we [the House] are all for being responsible and that is why we have taken this stand regarding stopping this fiscal madness. The future of this country deserves an honest effort not the usual political gimmickry.
Mr. Lester’s position may appear strong to some, but I am not one of them. Politicians of either party owe it to the country to be responsible, not to conform to some politically expedient action out of their own self-interest. When a policy is foolish and dangerous to the survival of the country, it would seem that any true representative of the people would not support it. Unfortunately, in the cesspool of politics that we know as Washington, DC few have either backbone or principle.
continue at EconomicNoise.com:
