George Rebane

Cut, Cap & Balance Lite just passed the House 218 to 210 with no Dems voting for it, and 22 Repubs opposing it.  The tea party backed Repubs came and took the heat to the end, they would not vote for an increase in the debt ceiling.  Why?  Because our continuing to borrow with no plan to pay back is what will pull the country down, and even CCB Lite won’t fix that.  That is what will cause our credit rating to be downgraded, not the piddly crap going on in Washington this weekend.

So now we have the ongoing Beltway game that’s over the heads of most Americans –

- The President bloviates (nothing scorable),
- The House Legislates,
- The Senate Kills Bills.

Academic political scientists are telling us that there is less overlap between the Dems and Repubs than there has been since the 1890s (the beginning of the American progressive movement).  However, one thing we can all celebrate in this epochal national debate on how we citizens want to relate to government is that these bills focus on the real ideological differences between our political parties.  There is no pork appended to any of these bills CCB and CCB Lite.  Therefore there is no back room deal making and back slapping as votes are traded ONLY for the purpose of insuring re-election.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid goes into the weekend to pass his smoke-and-mirrors cuts alternative, for the first time in 30 years the issues on the national fisc and governance are singular, clear, and complete.  No cuts?  Yeah, you heard the way he added savings to his spending cuts column from the presumed halt of the mid-east campaigns.  Well, the Repubs can come back with a ‘I’ll see ya and raise ya’, and claim that we could have had NASA launch a $30T program to put a man on the Sun in this decade.  And since we’re not going to do that, we’re going to cut $30T from future budgets.  Put those cuts in our column please.

[update] Without debate, the Senate killed it.  BTW, H/T to RR reader who sent the following –

Conservative star Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ripped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the fantasy savings in his budget plan.

“Let’s pass a bill to cover the moon with yogurt that will cost $5 trillion today. and then let’s pass a bill the next day to cancel that bill. We could save $5 trillion.”

Great minds and all that.  I guess my little fantasy was not that far off the heavy thinking going on in Washington during these hours.

[30jul2011 update]  I'm happy to report that our congressman Tom McClintock was one of the 22 Repubs voting NO on CCB Lite.  These one shots to reduce spending by a skosh over ten years along with no provision for stopping the national debt going up forever are a joke.  Such legislation will give our creditors no greater comfort, and therefore not affect our credit rating one way or the other.  'Give us more money so we can pay our interest on what we already owe you, and forget about getting back the  principal.' is what passes for fiscal policy in Greece.

930AM – Just received this document (Download S_627 Extended version_29jul11) from Congressman Tom McClintock that analyzes CCB Lite, gives the rationale for the congressman's no vote, and outlines a future course of action.