Recently, John Boehner said this:
"My goal here is to have a serious conversation about those things that are driving the deficit and driving the debt up
What drives the deficit is, by definition, the difference between spending and revenues. Does John Boehner pretend that spending priorities and taxes were not part of the 2012 elections?
This entire debate regarding domestic policy between two fellows John might recognize didn't count as a serious conversation?
I guess it didn't matter. Either because the guy Boehner voted for didn't win, or because John Boehner wasn't on the stage. The results of the election must be set aside, and the nation threatened with economic ruin, because of John Boehner's arrogance that he and his caucus ALONE understand the sources of the deficit.
More below the Orange Squiggle of Power.
Then, of course, there's Obamacare, and the 40 or so votes to repeal or defund it carried out by Boehner's House. Why are they so focused on this one law? Several arguments are advanced.
That it's unconstitutional
To which it must be said:
Do you really claim you understand the Constitution better than the Supreme Court, but also
In
1790, the Founders required all seagoing vessels to have a medicine chest, furnished by the ship's owner, in
1798, the Founders required that every seaman purchase health insurance. This last was furthermore
socialistic; the more a sailor made, the more they paid, but everyone went to the same
government run hospital.
When you claim to understand the Constitution better than both the Supreme Court¹ and the Founding Fathers, that's arrogant.
That it's a job killer
To which I respond that
Since the Affordable Care Act was signed on March 23, 2010, the S&P 500 benchmark has risen 42.9%.
And
Every other industrialized nation in the G7- every one - has some sort of government health program to cover all their citizens. Canada? Great Britain? Japan? France? Italy? Germany? Yes to all. So does Switzerland.
So
only American conservative politicians understand economics. The Invisible Hand of the free market doesn't understand how lethal Obamacare is; nor do all the politicians and economists of the rest of the industrialized world.
When you say that you're the only people in the whole industrialized world that understand economics, that's arrogant.
That Obamacare is a threat to freedom
I will respond to that by going back up one topic and noting that Great Britain is among the nations with government health care; and in fact, the National Health Services represents completely socialized medicine - the government runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. And who came up with this idea?
Winston Churchill. In 1942. Now, that's a bit of an oversimplification, but not too much; in 1941, Churchill asked a prominent Liberal Party social reformed named Sir William Beveridge to look into social programs that could reduce poverty, disease, unemployment, and illiteracy. And in 1942 Beveridge came up with ... the NHS, which Churchill endorsed. After Churchill's Tories lost the 1945 elections, the Labor party implemented the NHS in 1948, but Churchill and the Tories returned to power in 1951 ... and increased NHS funding.
While Churchill was hardly a progressive champion, in 1942 he was looking across the English Channel at Adolph Hitler and telling him to bring it on. And by 1951 he had coined the phrase "Iron Curtain", which suggests he may have had some comprehension of the whole Soviet - Western Democracy dynamic.
When you claim you have a better grip on freedom versus tyranny than Winston Churchill - in 1942 and 1951, mind - that's arrogant.
This arrogance is very dangerous. A recent FP article styled the GOP as "an insurrectionist neo-Confederate party". I am forced to quibble with a well-sourced and well-written article. The Confederates were willing to concede to Abraham Lincoln the right to rule the remaining states of the Union after Dixie departed. The modern GOP does not concede to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party the right to rule one single square inch of the world. When combined with the neo-conservative idea of America as the one superpower able to work its will everywhere, you wind up with an America that uniquely knows what true freedom is, and has the right to impose it anywhere and everywhere, by force.
Starting at home, of course, which is why you find Tea Party Republicans preparing for armed insurrection and insisting that they need to own sufficient arms to oppose the might of the US military.
While the Tea Party and the neo-conservatives are not yet completely allied, it is not inconceivable that one might manage to co-opt the other. And then what you have is a small group of Americans - perhaps 30 millions - who believe that they alone understand freedom, that they alone understand economics, and because of this, they alone have the right to rule.
The right to rule the whole world.
And that, friends, is dangerous arrogance. Which makes it the duty of every patriot, and every rational person, to oppose these fools, beginning right now.
The cure for overweening arrogance is humiliating defeat. The Tea Party must be crushed in the debt ceiling and government shutdown battles - for a start. And then treated disrespectfully for so long as they pretend that they, and they alone, are fit to rule. The counter for arrogance of this sort is not a seat at the table, but a seat in the corner.
Footnote
1: Why did 4 members of the Supreme Court vote against the ACA despite the clear precedent of the cited laws? Starts with a "t" and rhymes with "fools".