We are beginning to get some clarity on a big political question. The question before and after last year's elections was whether any newly elected Tea Party (TP) candidates or fellow travelers would continue to push their right wing agenda when they got to Congress or would they be absorbed into the GOP congressional establishment and its policy agenda.
Right now it looks like the Tea Party victors have gotten some leverage on that question, although there has not yet been an eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the TP and establishment GOP. That will likely come when the issue of raising the national debt limit has to be dealt with this spring.
One of the central issues for the TP was and remains reducing federal spending. On the surface at least it appears that the TP, particularly in the GOP-controlled House, has moved the establishment GOP in their direction, to the political discomfort of Speaker Boehner, his leadership team, and their followers. Last fall when Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued the "Pledge to America", the Pledge called for a $100 billion reduction in spending for the current fiscal year (which began on Oct. 1) but excluded any cuts in defense spending. The establishment pledge of no defense cuts has now been changed to include the defense budget, a policy shift in line with TP budget plans. But there are significant differences between the TP and GOP establishment on how much and what to cut out of the defense budget.
But while the House leadership has been wringing its hands on the specifics of this year's cuts, the TP types are turning up the rhetoric and the numbers. Representative Michelle Bachmann, organizer of the House Tea Party Caucus last year, has now called for a cut of $400 billion for the current fiscal year, already four months underway. On the other side of the Capitol, TP- darling Senator Rand Paul has pushed the number even farther, calling for a $500 billion cut this year. And last week the conservative House Republican Study Committee proposed cutting $2.5 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years, averaging $250 billion annually.
While the far right seems to be in a bidding war on budget cuts, the best the House leadership could do was get passage of a toothless resolution that would reduce the current year spending by an estimated $60 billion, chump change to the extremists. President Obama in his State of the Union message called for a five year freeze in non-security spending. But none of this, Democratic or Republican, will have any substantive meaning until Congress finally deals with some actual spending decisions. Right now it's all political posturing.
And beyond her far out budget cutting proposal, one has to note more grandstanding by Bachmann with her usual "in your face" style of politics, choosing to anoint herself a GOP respondent to Obama's speech. She did this despite Majority Leader Cantor's obvious displeasure and his insistence that Representative Paul Ryan was the party's official responder.
Not content with stirring up policy issues, the TP, like everyone else, is looking ahead to the 2012 elections. TP activists outside of Congress have already put several GOP senators on the to-be-watched list , meaning that unless those senators adhere to TP positions on various issues., they may face a challenger in the primary by far right conservatives blessed with a TP endorsement.
All of this TP-driven extremism makes the establishment GOP nervous that their newly regained strength with the voters may be lost if the GOP comes to be perceived as too extremist in its right wing conservatism. It has probably not escaped their notice that Obama's recent rise in the polls, as transitory as poll results can be, has come from a favorable shift back to Obama by some independent voters. Add to that the fact that the polls also show growing popular support for health care reform, an issue on which the GOP seems willing to spend a lot of time and effort, and perhaps political capital, to repeal or gut.
To conclude, in the TP vs. establishment GOP confrontation, the best is yet to come.
The President seemed to be talking on both sides of the fence during the SOTU address. On one hand he was talking about cutting spending (or at least freezing it), on the other he was talking about investing in education and innovation and new energy sources etc. At least it is over and we won't have to hear about "date night" anymore. I heard Michelle Bachman was asked to respond by the Tea Party but I found the whole thing rather strange when she never looked at the camera the entire time. I don't think she knew which camera she was on.
ReplyDeleteThe big spending is defense, social security and medicare and now health care. Without addressing issues like social security reform I do not see how any big cuts can really be taken seriously but spending cuts is also a part of it. I found the speech to be a little contradictory also in all the talk about new investments while talking about reducing spending although his point was that things like investment in educaation and innovation are imperitive for the future of this country. I think people are more concerned about the big deficits though and see reducing that as being more imperative to the future of this country, at least at this time. I am concerned about all the spending that is occurring. If we keep spending more than we are taking in and borrowing and borrowing I really fear where are headed. All in all I think it was a well spoken address.
ReplyDeleteShiela and Jeff
ReplyDeleteYou both seem to agree on the investment/spending aspect of the State of the Union and the problem of our deficits and debt. Must admit Obama confused me a bit with the call for a five year freeze on spending while also talking about investments. The freeze seems to acknowledge the deficit problem but it is not clear to me, as to both of you also, how you fit spending into the freeze. The only thing I can figure is that the freeze is his answer to reduced spending which would mean doing less of what Obama calls investments. In short, guess he is saying stop increased spending, but don't reduce it. It is a position that he apparently is taking to please the center, while certain to provoke the ire of the extreme ends on both sides. But it to me both sides are just in the rhetoric, posturing game right now and they won't have to show their cards until some real spending decisions have to be made.
Shiela
ReplyDeleteApparently her eyes stayed focused in one direction because that was the camera closest to the teleprompter. It did make her response seem a bit strange but not nearly as strange as her off the wall, uninformed reading of American history and the founding fathers whom she repeatedly calls on for her interpretation of the Constitution.
But I like to look on the lighter side of the thing and see her trying out her rightist standing and the possibility of being a candidate for President herself. Sharon Angle, the losing Tea Party candidate for Harry Reid's seat has indicated she may also be interested in the presidency. A race that includes Bachman, Palin, and Angle boggles the mind given the propensity of all three to make off the wall statements. While such a contest would give the media talking heads a field day for comment and analysis, I personally think it would damage the efforts of women who want to be considered serious, capable candidates for President.
It sounds like the TP is a little disjointed. They are all calling for different amounts. They should work on getting a concensus on their positions such as spending cuts to present a united front. It is that kind of discontinuity that makes me unable to take the TP seriously and wonder how they will be any better.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama is calling for a stoppage in increased spending but not making any plans to reduce the deficit, I don't seem him really making either side happy. The TP is not just about reducing spending but about actually reducing the deficit. And the extreme left is not going to be happy about reduced spending. This is going to be an interesting year politically.
Carole
ReplyDeleteThe problem with getting any Tea Party unity on the specific of some issues is that TP adherents have made free lancing an integral part of their modus operandi. That is, they don't have a single, hierarchical leadership structure and thus no "policy committee" to provide policy guidance and no one who speaks for the Tea Party per se. So it's a kind of every man/woman for himself/herself. And keep in mind there are various groups with Tea Party in their name such as Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, etc., each one in business for itself.
The problem with reducing government spending is that until consumer spending pumps enough money into the economy, someone has to spend money to keep people on the payroll, both through the private and public sectors. It is a dilemma. There is a need to reduce spending to cut the annual deficits and debt, but in the short term, cutting spending has a negative impact on jobs and tax revenues.
Apparently Bachman was staring directly into the camera, but it was the camera for folks watching her on the internet, not on broadcast TV. Presuming that true TP believers tuned in on the internet, maybe she chose to look her followers directly in the eye while other viewers saw her staring off to the right at some unknown listener. There seems to be some symbolism in that.
ReplyDeleteCosmo
ReplyDeleteOne version is that the Tea Party had a high definition camera which is the one she stared into and that camera had a teleprompter. It sounds like there are different versions of what happened or the same version with different ways of describing it.