EGYPT AND BOEHNER'S BUDGET: WORKS IN PROGRESS

With all of the conventional wisdom about events in Egypt that has now been widely distributed through print and electronic media, it is a challenge for a twice a week blogger to say anything new. So the first part of this somewhat lengthy posting is my perception of where we and the Egyptians are at this point. The second part is a look at where we are at home with the internal GOP struggle on the budget/spending issue. First Egypt.

Three quotes seem to fit the situation.

"After me the deluge." King Louis XV of France who was followed by Louis XVI and the French Revolution, and a lot of beheadings including the king and queen.

"But I am confident that the people of Egypt can find the answers and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity. . . ." President Obama following the announcement of the resignation of Egyptian President Mubarak.

"Just shut up." Columnist David Ignatius' reflection on the U.S. propensity to give advice to Egypt.

Right now what has been achieved in Egypt is the overthrow of an autocratic, repressive, and corrupt regime, replaced by military rule. That's a momentous, historical achievement but in some respects that may have been the easy part. Mubarak in justifying his retention of power had taken the Louis XV view. Dump me and you'll get chaos. Obama took an optimistic view that the spirit of the pro-democracy movement on Tahrir Square will prevail and will bring the actual fruits of democracy. We'll see.

As the initial euphoria fades, people with jobs will go back to work while the immediate prospects have not changed for those without jobs and who were so much a part of the revolution. That will be one of the great challenges ahead -- reforming and developing the economy to relieve the poverty and near-poverty that sent so many protesters into the streets. Politically, right now the military is in charge but it must sit down with diverse groups and work out the rules for the next stage--presumably free elections. Meanwhile the army also has to take up the reins of actual governance and see that, to use an old expression, "the trains run on time". At the same time the military must resolve internal differences between those who were firm backers and beneficiaries of Mubarak's rule and those with reformist leanings.

The bottom line for the U.S. at the moment should be Ignatius' advice to "Just shut up". We have enough scrambling to do to sustain and/or repair relations with various countries in the region who benefitted directly from Mubarak rule, such as Israel, and those who shared his view on autocratic rule and self-preservation, such as Saudi Arabia. In a previous posting, "The Gospel According to Us," I found considerable fault about the U.S. preaching reform in the Muslim world while sharing a bed with the autocrats to whom we were preaching. We should now firmly resist the temptation to preach to the Egyptians about what they now must do to achieve their democracy. We seem to have made it through the first 48+ hours of post-Mubarak Egypt with no preaching from our officials. It should be clear that the world is weary of our preaching one thing while realpolitik takes us in the opposite direction. Now a bit on the GOP and its internal struggles in the House of Boehner.

In some sense watching the turmoil within Speaker Boehner's House majority is akin to watching the final act of the Egyptian revolution. Just when you think a decision has been made, a new push by the "opposition" forces a new decision. In Egypt, Mubarak's "no" I'm not leaving was followed the next day by his departure, occasioned by pressure from the military in concert with a new rage from the protesters after Mubarak initially said "no". In the case of Boehner's problem in controlling "opposition" within his majority, it is the House establishment GOP headed by Boehner vs. the more extremist Republicans--the Tea Party (TP) and other cut-spending hawks.

In a sense Boehner is the source of his own problem by including in his pre-election "Pledge to America" last September that he would cut government spending by $100 billion in fiscal 2011 which began last October 1. Now that same $100 billion cut has become the target goal for the TP/hawks. Meanwhile, the establishment GOP has been trying to adjust the number downward because so much of fiscal 2011 has already passed and the money has been spent.

In trying to pro-rate the spending cuts downward to fit fiscal year reality, the establishment GOP, through the Appropriation Committee, came up initially with a reduction figure of about $40 billion. When TP/hawks rebelled, the Appropriations Committee went back to the drawing board and boosted the cut to $60 billion. The TP/hawks were still not satisfied so a new cut of $100 billion was cobbled together, but it's really the old "smoke and mirrors" game on federal budget/spending policy. The $100 billion is based on cuts to Obama's original 2011 budget which was never enacted. Because no 2011 appropriation bills were ever passed, the government has been funded through "continuing resolutions" passed by Congress and these are based on 2010 numbers. So the $100 billion cuts conjured up and forced on the House GOP establishment is actually about $60 billion.

As of this writing the House Republicans have not yet presented their final budget to be sent to the floor for a vote, but will be doing so this week. While the House Republicans are putting the final touches on cuts for fiscal 2011, Obama is sending his 2012 buget plan to Congress today (Monday). In any case, like Mubarak's "no" and then "yes", following the Republican twists and turns and verbal gymnastics is like watching a motion picture. And to repeat a quote from Yogi Berra, "It ain't over 'til it's over."

But this posting has gone on too long, so using a part of Yogi's quote ". . . it's over."