Charles Krauthammer was on Bill O’Reilly last night and was voicing a major (and legitimate) concern. Since it is impossible to get everything we want now, with only the House under GOP control and therefore open to pressure from the GOP and Tea Party Libertarians, how do we declare victory and reap some rewards on the debt ceiling? More important, how do we not fail and lose all the progress to date.

In many ways victory has been achieved. Endless deficit spending is now the enemy of democracy and our free economy. We have begun to end the knee-jerk myth that the answer to all things is a government program. Many are prepared to sacrifice if that sacrifice turns things around. Raising taxes is not a preferred solution, and is probably considered a last resort if anything.

All in all, the Tea Party has to be congratulated in turning the debate around and in the right direction. But as I have said before, now comes the part where we need patience, steel nerves and real results.

Which is why I still say a short term debt ceiling rise is in the nation’s interest. Contrary to the left wing media spin, I think the country would prefer the forcing function of the debt ceiling and the debate it forces over the pretend out year fixes that never arise. Because that too is another victory we have in our hands – no more shell games or punting. No one is buying the grand solution. Every poll shows:

• People don’t want the debt ceiling raised because it adds to our kids life long burden, but we know it must be and therefore serious reforms and changes must come with it.
• People absolutely reject broad tax increases or more mad liberal spending – we know the stimulus bill was a disastrous fail. So liberal economics has been totally debunked.
• People don’t trust government to work, politicians to tell the truth or the news media to know what the truth is, which means the voters are freeing themselves from the propaganda and spin.

The best sign of progress was President Obama whining about how Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W Bush all increased the debt limit without any friction or debate. Well, that era mindless debt limit increases is gone and Obama is the poor sap who has to deal with an electorate fed up with a screwed up, ineffective and overly costly government.

While the debate has turned in the right direction, we have yet to see tangible changes. Even Boehner’s plan fell short of making any real cuts. The problem is too big and to multifaceted to solve in one fell swoop. You can’t take on all the out of control spending issues and their political implications all at once. We can’t cut 40% of the budget overnight. The toll in human financial pain and fear would be too much too soon.

So we go back to an idea Krauthammer and I both promoted – small increases tied to digestible and acceptable changes in fiscal course. I would put on the table a 6 month debt limit increase and some low hanging fixes that can be implemented now, and some that can begin to be phased in after the 6 months. Rinse and repeat.

This will take us to the 2012 election without chaos and the blame that will go with it. Krauthammer is right, we can all still misplay this thing and end up with an Obama second term and Pelosi back as Speaker. We have to find point where we can bank the fruits of our labors without total failure. Face it, concrete measures can only be ensured over short time periods, primarily because the government take years to change its mind, let alone fix things. So the long game should be off the table. Even if the House fails, we will have another shot in 6 months.

With the ship of state turning in the right direction, we must recognize we are heading into a sea of icebergs of possible failures. Running full steam is not the answer, no matter how badly we want to get to our destination. We must find that line between victory and failure and make sure we get as close to it as possible – this round. Then we prepare for the next round and the next goal.

Update: And BTW, Krauthammer rightfully noted the next big goal – the 2012 elections. With only the House the GOP and Tea Party are unable to do anything major. But if they took the Senate and White House, while expanding their reach in the states, that Balanced Budget Amendment looks more and more feasible.

Which brings us to the other fruits of the 2010 victory and debt ceiling debate – Obama’s sinking poll numbers:

The race for president isn’t a national contest. It’s a state-by-state battle to cobble an electoral vote majority. So while the national polls are useful in gauging the president’s popularity, the more instructive numbers are those from the battlegrounds.

Those polls are even more ominous for the president: In every reputable battleground state poll conducted over the past month, Obama’s support is weak. In most of them, he trails Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. For all the talk of a closely fought 2012 election, if Obama can’t turn around his fortunes in states such as Michigan and New Hampshire, next year’s presidential election could end up being a GOP landslide.

Obama’s support is collapsing because of this debt ceiling debate and his failures on the economy and job creation. Again, we don’t need to throw the guy a life line by overplaying the hand now. Short term debt ceiling rise, some achievable (yet small) fixes and come back this winter to discuss the next round.

My fellow American Dupes & Stooges, it seems the President and his Treasury Secretary have been running around crying “Wolf!” and basically lying their asses off to us:

While officials from the Obama Administration raised their rhetoric over the weekend about the possibility of a debt default if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, they privately have been telling top executives at major U.S. banks that such an event won’t happen, FOX Business has learned.

In a series of phone calls, administration officials have told bankers that the administration will not allow a default to happen even if the debt cap isn’t raised by the August 2 date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will run out of money to pay all its bills, including obligations to bond holders.

So he lied about not paying our obligations after next Tuesday. He got up on his bully pulpit last night and looked us in the eye (probably wagged a finger our direction) and lied. Seems to be a Democrat President thing. And you know the President is all smug and laughing about how he fooled us poor rubes into thinking the world was going to end next week if he did not get his way.

The audacity it must require to get in front of 300 million people and lie like that is stunning. And a clear sign the man is not fit for the office he holds.

President Obama will go down in history – as another one-term disaster juts like Jimmy Carter. Why?

Because he has lost all credibility. His political capitol is all used up and every time he comes out spouting platitudes and partial truths (like he did last night) he digs the hole deeper. He is not inspiring ay more, he is repulsive. His talk is too sugary and surreal when compared with the reality of the economic and financial mess the Democrats created. He is so devoid of credibility even his rabid liberal base is abandoning him over reckless promises never kept:

… few people noticed what Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders said:

“I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.”

This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election.

…

Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama’s liberal base is starting to crumble. Among the nuggets:

Despite those hundreds of billions of blown stimulus dollars and almost as many upturn promises from Joe Biden, 82% of Americans still say their job market is struggling. Ninety percent rate the economy negatively, including half who give it the worst rating of “poor.”

Sadly, Obama, Pelosi and Reid come from the bizarre world of liberalism where results don’t mean anything, and all that counts is how well you spin and how hard you pretend to care. The three of them kept racking up deficits and debt expecting the US economy to naturally right itself, naively assuming there was no way a greedy, bloated and intrusive government could do any harm.

Yes, they are that stupid. We have the recession itself (caused by liberals intruding on mortgage rules and creating mountains of risky debt for the US taxpayer to cover instead of lenders) and after that the bumbled recovery to finally prove liberals don’t have a clue about how to make things work – like jobs, industries, education, etc. You name it, they will screw it up.

Because to them everything is childishly simply and anyone can create new technology, new medical treatments, create success and control the weather. All you have to do is care, after that it is easy.

The left had control of the ship of state and ran the entire country aground, destroying the life savings and life’s work of tens of millions of Americans. And they demand more???

To this day Jimmy Carter, with his BS PhD in physics, still does not understand how wrong he was. Neither will Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their groupies in the news media (CNN and MSNBC especially).

Likely voters hold a dismal view of the news media, generally regarding reporters as biased, unethical and too close to the politicians they purport to cover, according to a new poll for The Hill.

…

The share of voters who believe the media are too friendly with politicians is almost twice as large as those who find their coverage of politicians appropriate. Forty-four percent of voters assert the former; only 24 percent believe the latter.

But it does not matter if they wake up – it only matters if the voters do. And they are definitely waking up.

Update: Bill Kristol nails Obama on one of his more repulsive comments last night:

I was struck by these sentences in President Obama’s speech:

Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling – a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.

Understand – raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up.

Consider the condescension implicit in the president’s statement—“a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.” These “people outside of Washington” are not little children being lectured on an obscure subject by a worldly adult. These people outside Washington are … citizens. Judging by the polls, most of us have opinions about whether, and under what conditions, the debt ceiling should be raised. We don’t seem to be as ignorant as Obama thinks we are of the term or concept of a debt ceiling. But the president assumes we’ve never bothered our pretty little heads about such a thing.

Clearly, it is not American voters who have resisted bothering their pretty little heads with real world experiences, skills, hard won success and knowledge. What happens when 95% of the country is smarter and more experienced than their president?

Apparently we are about to find out.

Obama’s prime time BS-er will go down in history as the prime example of how stupid you sound when you have lost all credibility and political capitol. Obama claimed we are here because Congress (HIS Congress) made promises it could not keep. Brilliantly dumb.

He also claimed the GOP wanted him to give in, and then demanded they give into him. Sadly for Obama, very few are on his side.

Yes – we want his butt back here in 6 months to explain why he should be given any more money.

Yes – we want him to cave to spending cuts and no new taxes

No – we DO NOT want to rubber stamp another debt ceiling increase as was done for his predecessors. Of course they were less mad about blowing large mountains of tax dollars.

No – we don’t want to punish corporations (who have plenty of lawyers and accountants to dodge taxes).

We know he rejected two bipartisan plans recently. We know he is rhetoric is 80% lies and misrepresentation. We know he can no longer be counted upon to match his rhetoric.

Bottom Line: He can avoid any defaults by prioritizing payments in the order of Troop Pay, Social Security Payments and Interest Payments. After that pay what we can afford.

That was the ‘big fail’ of Bully Pulpit speeches.

BTW: His call to contact Congress is going to backfire big time. Question: will he finally cave when he gets the coming ear full?

I like this:

Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus have met with House freshmen to discuss a plan to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to bring the Full Faith and Credit Act to the floor.

…

The legislation would direct Obama to prioritize federal payments to the nation’s creditors, Social Security recipients and soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I dare any Democrat in the Senate or White House to oppose this bill. Checkmate.

Time to put the Dems on a Diet.

Democrats have been in denial so deep and for so long it borders on the insane when it comes to the mood of the country on more government growth (and debt). The Debt Limit was the first major hurdle for the new GOP led House to begin an intervention for those spend-mad Democrats in DC. Up until this weekend the Dems were still making ridiculous and reckless demands for more tax increases in any debt limit resolution. A clear sign Democrats had not gotten the message of 2010.

But now it seems the Senate Dems are starting to get a partial clue:

House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, pitched his colleagues on a plan to raise the borrowing limit by about $1 trillion and match that with similar sized spending cuts — enough to last through the rest of the year, and leaving for later the heavy lifting on taxes and bigger spending items.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he is working on a plan to raise the debt limit by $2.7 trillion, coupled with an equal reduction in projected future spending. In a concession to Republicans, he said that plan would not include tax increases, but that the new debt level would last through the 2012 elections.

Well, now that we at least have the Senate finally aimed in the right direction, we can work on setting the right pace of reigning in government. Reid can no longer hold out for tax increases. But pretend or out-year cuts are not going to be sufficient either. Now that they have finally buckled, it is time to get some real cuts and in some of Obama’s supposedly marked off areas. And they are nuts if we are putting their election needs above our economic needs. Any demand to help them get through elections is going to be rejected – and will be a legitimate firing offense come November, 2012.

My guess is the polls are really beginning to dive on them, like this one at Gallup where Obama’s approval rating is now well under water with 42-49 rating among ‘adults’. Lord knows what the ‘voter’ and ‘likely voter’ numbers look like.

CNN has bad pollng news too:

According to the poll, the president’s 45 percent approval rating is down three points from June. Fifty-four [54] percent of people questioned disapprove of how Obama’s handling his duties, up six points from last month.

Note the switch between numbers and spelling. That is an old trick to diminish the comparison, to blunt the effect (which is why I added back in the numbers). But it cannot hide the reality of the size of the backlash building out there.

Rasmussen’s numbers have been opening up into wider negative territory as well.

People are fed up. As I noted over the weekend, the Dems had their time at the pubic trough and now they are going on a serious, financial diet.

It seems the petulant Democrats are all upset because Mommy & Daddy Americans took their credit cards away from them after they blew their capitol on bogus and wasteful programs and ran up historic deficits.

After emerging from a lunch meeting on Thursday with members of her party and Jack Lew, the White House budget director, Ms Mikulski said her colleagues were feeling “volcanic” about the prospect of a $3,000bn deal to cut deficits and raise the debt ceiling that did not include any higher taxes, adding that it was “like Mount Vesuvius” in the room.

In 2008, the last year President Bush was in office, the annual deficit (then a record) was $485 Billion. This year, after the Democrats ran amok in 2009 and 2010, the deficit is well over three times as much!

The whole point of this debt debate is to RESTORE BALANCE after Democrats screwed up so badly and spent 2 generations worth of income. When I told my 11 year old twins these knuckle heads had spent so much money they would have to work to pay it off, they went ballistic. They couldn’t believe anyone could be allowed to spend money they haven’t even earned yet. The coming generations are not impressed with Democrat performance.

And the Democrats are in denial. They think after the usual BS language and spin they can put their porky snouts back into the trough. Sadly for them, they are actually heading for something other than the trough – like a bacon and eggs breakfast.

It is funny how people who are accustomed to controlling the political debate and influencing the mood of the people never understand when that ability has been ripped from them. In the debt ceiling debate going on right now, the left leaning news media – along with the rest of the Political Industrial Complex – have decided to try and ignore the fact that the nation does not want any more business as usual. As Ed Morrissey noted today, CNN buried a key poll number that indicates the people are lined up with the Libertarian/Tea Party members of the GOP House more than any other faction in the debate:
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Note: Many images can be clicked for larger size.

Fate or coincidence have two very disturbing headlines side-by-side this morning. Not surprisingly – unless of course your a brainwashed liberal – jobless claims are once again on the rise as the economy falters under the crushing deficit spending, mounting debt and uselessly intrusive federal government. A federal behemoth jacked up by reckless liberal actions from the recent Obama, Reid, Pelosi era of run amok government intervention and madness. (more here at Hot Air)

The other news regards this being the last flight of the Space Shuttle, after which tens of thousands of more people will now be laid off in Florida and Texas, as well as all across the country where parts and service contractors once helped lead mankind into the final frontier. The sad irony of the dueling headlines is brutally obvious.

This is the incoherency of President Obama and his total lack of practical experience. This and his obsession with trains to/from nowhere California. The sad fact is the cost of a useless high speed air mover in California alone could have funded the next generation of space vehicles and kept America’s leadership in space exploration. But no, we threw away our exploration vehicles instead.
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Congratulations are in order for the House Republicans and the Tea Parties across the nation:

Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted Tuesday night to slice federal spending by $6 trillion and require a constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states in exchange for averting a threatened Aug. 2 government default.

The 234-190 vote marked the power of deeply conservative first-term Republicans, and it stood in contrast to calls at the White House and in the Senate for a late stab at bipartisanship to solve the nation’s looming debt crisis.

While we have not turned this ship around from the brink yet, the ground on which the debate is occurring has shifted dramatically. It is not longer impossible to discuss a realistic, near term time to balance the budget by shrinking government. And if the cuts I have seen in NASA and NOAA are any indication, there are real cuts on the table – not just reductions in spending. Hopefully this prioritization of resources will happen in every nook and corner of the federal bureaucracy.
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