Avoiding the Cliff, Small Acts of Courage...
by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny
The deal, such as it is, the kicking the can down the road a piece was finally hammered out so at least for now, the "fiscal cliff" was avoided. The nation can thank Mich McConnell and Joe Biden for it getting done.
Every so often in this charged political era we see something that gives reason for possible optimism. But then again...
Via: Memeorandum
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny
The deal, such as it is, the kicking the can down the road a piece was finally hammered out so at least for now, the "fiscal cliff" was avoided. The nation can thank Mich McConnell and Joe Biden for it getting done.
Yahoo NEWS - If John Kennedy had not written “Profiles in Courage,” today we might have a more realistic understanding of political valor. But JFK’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book so raised the bar for bravery in public life that it now seems obvious that no modern figure can measure up.
Who in the 21st century could possibly match Daniel Webster’s oratory as he heroically struggled to save the Union? Or replicate Edmund Ross’ moral fortitude as he destroyed his political career to cast the decisive vote against impeaching Andrew Johnson? Where once legislators risked being burned in effigy and physically threatened, these days the likely consequence of a courageous vote in Congress is a new career as a high-priced lobbyist.
This week’s ungainly legislative compromise that merely delayed the fiscal apocalypse until March can be ridiculed as a Profile in Timidity. Rather than ratify a grand bargain that would reform taxes and spending for a decade, Congress in predictable fashion did as little as possible as late as possible. No one, Republican or Democrat, is going to brag in their memoirs about the fortitude they displayed, dangling over the abyss, as they scaled the Fiscal Cliff.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner deserve credit for the last-minute fortitude they displayed in ending the dispiriting deadlock over extending the Bush tax cuts. It wasn’t Kennedy-defined courage—and it doesn’t erase the prior stubbornness on taxes by the Republican congressional leaders—but their political moxie should be noted.
On Sunday, with the countdown clock ticking, McConnell made a direct appeal to Joe Biden when his negotiations with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid reached a dead end. Rather than setting up secret back-channel talks with Biden, a longtime colleague, McConnell announced on the Senate floor, “I also placed a call to the vice president to see if he could help jump-start the negotiations on his side.”
The Biden-McConnell agreement challenged Republican orthodoxy in two major ways: It raised taxes on families earning more than $450,000, and it did not extract spending cuts from the Democrats. But the White House also made a big concession: Barack Obama abandoned his mantra since 2007 that families earning more than $250,000 should pay more in taxes. {Continue Reading}
Every so often in this charged political era we see something that gives reason for possible optimism. But then again...
Via: Memeorandum
Exactly, Les. "But then again...."
ReplyDeleteI cannot seem to smile these days because when I do it is normally removed by government incompetence that is even now looking to burden my grandchildren.
Yes Don. "But them again..." And that is the point really. Given over the past 32 years we have seen our debt steadily grow and actually explode under GWB and BHO while income growth in the middle class has been rather stagnant and growth for the wealthy has been robust, as well as the increase in businesses moving offshore, ect. isn't something put of kilter? Shouldn't we start thinking outside the conventional box the oligarchs like to keep us thinking in? Just food for thought. It ain't working so well right now, going south on many ways. Frankly I am beginning to believe out politicians and our people are not really interested in fixing much. If they were it would have happened. Kicking the can down the road is easier and for the politicians useful expediency. Of you know what I mean.
DeleteBut at least these two part of the problem bought is some time. But then again...
Whatever happens, it's majority vote that will decide. That lies with the Republicans. They have the votes, thus the responsibility.
ReplyDeleteYep, tis true.
DeleteIt is also true the "enlightenrd ones" bear the responsibility to make the compelling case that moves the debate and direction their way.
In either case the People and or history will be the final judge.
Republicans seem unmovable. Tan Man says he won't even talk to Obama anymore. Today Republicans said it will shut down the government over the debt ceiling debate, again. All the Republican obstructionism and tricks aren't helping at all, in fact they are hurting America. They should use their majority votes to do something, not nothing, and especially tricks that hurt America like losing out top credit rating.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
DeleteSo...the government gets 'shut down'. Okay. Then what?
The only people that care about the government are those with something to gain from it or who have invested in it. I look at it like a business. If I am not actively participating in a business out of fealty and due to their sense of good customer service, I don't care if it goes bankrupt or out of business or what-not.
So let us imagine if indeed the government shuts down because of the 'obstructionist Republicans'. Okay. Um...I see nothing wrong here.
Nothing wrong with higher debt payments because we lost our top credit rating? Nothing wrong with the leader of the House saying he will not talk with the president of the US? What is the dictionary definition of 100's of millions of people without government, without police, without firefighters, without the rule of law? If you see no ill effects of no gover4nment, then you are blind.
DeleteThe obvious alludes most, at least IMNHO. Neither party is as concerned about fixing anything as they are about winning or retaining power and control.
ReplyDeleteThere is really no concern about ethics or rational principles in politics or government any longer. It is all ideology and thus so the parties ate driven.
The goal of both is, as I said to power and control. The outcome of either is TYRANNY. The difference is only the path to power and control that each will take.
It seems to escape We the People that we are being played like a cheap fiddle by the oligarchs.
The following is a comment I left at another site.I copy and paste it here as food for thought. All is not not lost as some rEpublican, Tea Party type, and others working in the liberty movement.
ReplyDeleteFor whatever it's worth...
"Indeed the rEpublican party is rapidly becoming irrelevant. The architects of their own demise. Fighting for liberty requires more than just being obstinate and intransigent. It requires an honest assessment of reality based in objectivism and truth. There was a reason Ayn Rand had no use for rEpublicans or American conservatism in general, and she stated it clearly for those who have actually studied her beyond snippets from Atlas Shrugged.
I for one, while sharing a sense of lost opportunity will continue on Tim. In the only way I know how. In the spirit of Classical Liberalism and reasonable compromise. It is the example our founders ultimately set for their posterity.
Time progresses forward. Realities change. It is up to us to find a way to fuse our principles with the rest of society and affect change in a way that makes sense to the greatest number of people. That is, after all how our republic is supposed to work. That is after all how this republic was formed."