Did you catch the quotes by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John McCain in Thursday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story headlined, “Still no give in debt impasse”?
The quotes are referring to a plan McConnell has offered where President Obama would be responsible for raising the debt ceiling and making spending reductions on his own with Congress able to stop it only with a two-thirds vote.
Those are decisions that Congress should make under the Constitution, but that’s not a concern when there are political points to be won. McConnell wants Obama to be responsible for raising the debt ceiling – which McConnell knows has to be done – so Republicans can run ads against him next year for raising the ceiling. It’s political gamesmanship at its ugliest when our country needs statesmanship and leadership most.
Here are the quotes.
McConnell: “I refuse to help Barack Obama get re-elected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy.”
McCain, in a statement, which means he had time to think about it, said McConnell’s proposal was “a smart, forward-looking plan to make clear to all Americans that should we get to August 2nd without an agreement, it is President Obama alone – and not Republicans in Congress – who decides whether to raise the debt limit, and owns the economic consequences of any default.”
This is abdication of responsibility at its worst, and it’s particularly shocking coming from an American hero like McCain.
This site is called “Independent Arkansas” for a reason, and when I think Democrats are wrong, I’ll say it. President Obama’s warnings that seniors might not get their Social Security checks was particularly silly and not believable.
But Wednesday, these two Republicans were about as wrong as elected officials can be. Sen. McConnell, you have been in the Senate for 27 years. Sen. McCain, you have been in the Senate for 25 years and in Congress since 1982. You own this economy and this debt just as President Obama does. Time and again, you have voted for tax and spending policies that have weighed this terrible burden on our children and grandchildren’s shoulders.
Are independents really independents? No, says a website run by Larry Sabato, one of the country’s most interesting political scientists.
An article on his website, “Sabato’s Crystal Ball,” by senior columnist Alan Abramowitz makes the case that independents are not that important a constituency, in large part because they aren’t really independents. Abramowitz says most lean to one party or another and vote about as reliably as party identifiers.
If it’s true, it’s not good for America because it encourages the parties to practice base politics rather than inclusive politics. The more the country hardens into two camps with nobody in the middle and few undecideds, the less likely politicians are to work together to produce commonsense compromises. We are seeing that now with the debt ceiling debate.
The Constitution makes it clear that while the president is the commander-in-chief, the Congress declares wars, and for a very good reason: Otherwise, one person – you know, like a king – can involve the nation in conflict.
Unfortunately, that’s what’s been happening since World War II. The United States has fought long-lasting wars across the planet – in Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, and elsewhere – all without a declaration of war.
Sometimes Congress has authorized the president to use force, a measure that commits troops but not the nation to battle, and we have seen the results: Half-hearted national efforts with the costs passed down to future generations.
Last week, Arkansas’ House delegation took a small step toward restoring constitutional balance by voting against a resolution supporting President Obama’s policies in Libya. The Senate is expected to take up a resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Sen. Kerry that would authorize force for one year but prohibit the use of ground troops in most circumstances.
More about the issue in my Arkansas News Bureau column here.
My column this week is about Gov. Huckabee’s recent speech to the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, where he elaborated on his decision not to run for president.
Huckabee said his decision was based on spiritual reasons, and I don’t question that, but practical considerations were involved, including President Obama’s huge advantages as an incumbent as well as the toxicity of the current political environment.
No need to go into great detail; if you want more, scroll down on this site a few inches to see the former Arkansas governor and current Floridian quoted at length.
Freed from the constraints of a possible presidential run, Gov. Mike Huckabee made a number of candid statements – about the national debt, about the nature of politics, and about the Republican Party – during a speech at the Clinton School of Public Service Wednesday in Little Rock.
Asked how to explain to voters the seriousness of the country’s current fiscal situation, he said this:
“I’m not sure that the political election process is the environment in which it can be told because our election environment is becoming incredibly toxic to the point that I’m not sure that the country is presently governable. I know that’s a very bold statement, but I’m telling you now, that it is becoming where it is impossible to actually govern. Not just because the other side is going to take you on because of everything that you say and parse every word and bring nuances to everything that’s said, but because your own party will do that. One of the processes that I was going through in deciding whether or not to run for president this election cycle was whether or not the environment in the Republican Party was really about moving toward where we had pragmatic solutions to governing the country or whether it was all about, ‘Can we poke out the eyes of the other guy before they poke out our eyes?’ And I’ll be honest with you, I’m right now convinced that it’s all about poking out each other’s eyes. It’s not about solving real problems. And until we change that, and when I say, ‘we change,’ we as a culture, as a country, have to utterly reject the idea tht one party is always right and the other party is always wrong. That’s nonsense.”
Huckabee talked about the importance of strong families and decried the national debt, which he blamed on both Democrats and Republicans. He compared the Greatest Generation’s sacrifices so their children could live better lives to today’s electorate, which seems on the way to doing the opposite. He said that Ronald Reagan might not get nominated, much less elected, today because he worked within the political system, made deals and even raised taxes. He called for an end to corporate taxes in order to better compete with China – taxing consumption instead of productivity.
He said he wouldn’t completely rule out running for president in 2016 or even in 2012, saying, “I honestly thought I was going to run this time.” He said he didn’t run for several reasons, including spiritual ones, and the fact that, since 1868, only once – in 1980 after Jimmy Carter’s first term – has a party been turned out after only one term. Next year, he said, President Obama will have a billion dollars in the bank. By contrast, he said, “It’s not going to be an easy path for whoever the Republican is. Whoever it is is going to come out of a bloody primary, broke and battered, because I anticipate the Republicans will do what they typically do and they’ll have a demolition derby, a circular firing squad and load up with bullets and start shooting and then by the time somebody comes out of this thing in let’s say April or May, they have very little little time to recover, they’ll never be able to come up with the amount of cash that the incumbent is going to have, and plus he’s an incumbent president which means the advantages of flying in on Air Force One and being presidential is very different than being the challenger.”
He also said that “Q and A” stands for “Questions and Avoidance” and then joked that his goal was to “avoid a career-ending response.” Which led him to say this:
“Although I will say that I have a little bit of a liberation in that the decision that I’m not going to be seeking the Republican nomination gives me a freedom that maybe I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“And in part, I would say that’s the shame of our political system today. We say we want candor, but we don’t. We say we want people who run for office to be blunt, but if they are, then we crucify them for their candor. We say that we want people to give straightforward answers. But straightforward answers are usually what gets a person from being able to hold office, not what propels him into it. And so in many ways, I feel like there is a great need in our culture for us to come to the place where we actually want an honest, intellectually upright discussion of issues that we are challenged by in this country.”
