The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch
A Progressive Talking Point on the Iowa GOP Debate:
Rejection of 10-1 Spending Cut to Tax Increase
I hate with a passion what I see as contrived questions. I didn't comment on this point in my blog before now, but Washington Examiner reporter Byron York, whom I defended for asking a controversial question to Michele Bachmann, asked a hypothetical deal about a potential bipartisan deficit reduction plan promising $10 in cuts for every $1 in new taxes. None of the candidates would accept that deal. You have to see this question in the context of an old George Bernard Shaw joke:
GBS: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?Anyone specifying a price--even 10-1--first of all concedes the legitimacy of a progressive talking point of (class warfare) tas cuts from the get go. Never mind we are spending a record percentage of the GDP, and the progressives have yet to propose any serious current year spending cuts against the baselines. Never mind discretionary spending increased by almost 25% last Congress. How is refusal to increase taxes any more ideological than the refusal to rollback spending?
Actress: My goodness, Well, I’d certainly think about it.
GBS: Would you sleep with me for a pound?
Actress: Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!
GBS: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
The net effect is for progressives to use that photo opportunity to argue that the GOP/Tea Party is unreasonable and hence negotiation is impossible. I fault York for failing to provide context and not offering a more open-ended discussion of said point. But there was a major point that I wanted to point out here:
We have been there, done that. We have played this game before. Reagan agreed to a 3-1 ratio, but it never happened. Bush agreed to a tax increase, contradicting his "no new taxes" pledge--only to discover the Democrats actually increased spending as well. So how many times do the Democrats get to play this hypocritical game and not be caught?
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Bread, "Baby, I'm A Want You"
