But, Do They Now They Own the Economy?
The only problem with being an absolutist AND trying to govern a country is that from time to time you get your way. I can see John Boehner patting Eric Cantor on the back and saying, “congratulations son, I hope it works. If it doesn’t, you, the Tea Party, and maybe the Republican Party are sunk.” If you believe the Tea Party got as much as you could get in a divided government and if calls continue in the new group (committee) of twelve to reduce Medicare without tax fairness, I think the case can be made.
You can bet the case WILL be made by the Democrats in 2012.
The same broken record you are hearing from Republicans will be reversed in 2012 if the economy continues to sputter. “It’s been 18 months and where is the prosperity you promised,” will be the question the Democrats yell from the roof tops. Of course, not everyone believed it about the Democrats and not everyone will believe it about the Republicans either. Tea Party candidates however, may have a harder slog. Rand Paul and others claiming the debt ceiling deal did not go far enough and voting no on the deal are not helping.
Although most moderates and centrists believed deficit reduction was a good idea, it can be argued many centrists will believe the way the Tea Party went about deficit reduction did something many thought was impossible. If someone had said eight months ago the Tea Party would have responsibility for what should have been Obama’s awful economy, we would have thought them crazy. After the debt ceiling has been raised, you can bet Democrats will be running away from this deal as fast as they can. Instead of bipartisan buy-in and blame sharing, everyone including moderate Republicans, enter John McCain, will be saying, “the Tea Party made me do it.”
If this column is remotely correct, the proof will be moderate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats rushing to inoculate themselves from the Tea Party noose.
Inoculation may take the form some good ole job buying. Job buying however, in the current environment will be difficult. The political parlor game will just get more interesting. Watching progressive lawmakers vote down jobs bills might be the start. If they do vote them down, it will be to ensure the Tea Party takes the fall for the economy. Of course it probably wont be a hard sell to talk a progressive into voting down a jobs bill because in the current environment, something will have to be cut to pay for it. Cuts will most likely be something else the progressives hold true.
Truth has taken a vacation in this fight. After “listening to the American People,” John Boehner continues to say he passed what Americans wanted. We will see because the Americans to which he refers are the balance after you count the sixty-something percent he ignored. Two-trillion in cuts, balanced budget amendment and no tax fairness are just a few of the prizes the right won. Because he began to believe his spin, he might have won the battle but lost the war.