Obama Willing To Risk Reelection To Make Debt Deal Happen
The ever cool-headed Obama apparently felt the effects of the summer heat as he responded to the stall tactics of Eric Cantor and the Republicans on the debt ceiling talks. Obama and the Democrats have been willing to compromise on their biggest issues, mainly discretionary spending and programs like Medicare and Social Security, but the Republicans refuse to budge on anything to resolve the debt ceiling issue. This isn’t anything new though, the Republicans have done this since Obama took office leaving the President with little choice in many cases but to cave in causing many of the President’s supporters to be disappointed in the man they elected.
Apparently Obama has had enough and it’s about time. He’s even willing to lose a possible re-election over it. When was the last time you heard a politician put his political career secondary to what he was elected to do. Hopefully this catches on. He threatened Cantor to not call his bluff and that he would take the issue to the people. I think he should, I would have taken many of these issues to the people and shed some public light on backroom shadows exposing the detrimental manipulation.
The President want’s a long-term solution. The Republicans want a short-term one. We need long-term solutions on everything instead of flying by the seat of our pants as we do on things like energy and pollution. A short-term solution serves to stall for time until the Republicans have a majority in both houses or the presidency.
These politicians are holding the American people’s lives hostage for their own political, monetary and special interest gain. This is the sickness that is American politics. Real people, not statistics on a page, face real repercussions as a result of them not coming to an agreement. The Republicans know this and know that the President has to act to avoid the people getting hurt in the process. This has been their strategy the whole time in order to get their way. Newt Gingrich, in an interview with Fox News’ Hannity, said it clearly in response to the debt ceiling talks, “Put the shoe back on his foot. Make him responsible. You can
do that once a month for the next 18 months.” He would have the government and the people face a debt ceiling shutdown and debate every month for the next 18 months until the election. How childish is that? That would lock up the government for the next 1 and a half years in a time of financial crisis in something so that they could get their way. Obama described this type of behavior perfectly in his exchange with Cantor.
From the visual re-creation of the exchange between President Obama and Eric Cantor.
To make matters worse, in the midst of time constraint, the Republicans have added that they want a balanced budget amendment added to the Constitution. The name sounds good but an amendment to the Constitution should be thought through for more than two weeks. Politicians play this game to try to get things to slide through without much scrutiny and it’s usually in the form of pet projects or pork spending. Apparently at least 247 national organizations oppose the amendment including the American Postal Workers Union, Easter Seals and the NAACP. I don’t know what the amendment contains but the federal budget should always be balanced, debt spending leads to ruin.
Additional:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/12/135314575/the-debt-ceiling-explained
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/president-obama-vs-eric-cantor
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/obama-debt-ceiling-meeting_n_897834.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2011/07/13/gingrichs-advice-house-republicans-call-obamas-debt-ceiling-bluff
http://news.yahoo.com/247-national-organizations-oppose-balanced-budget-amendment-172605566.html
Jaylon Carter is a blogger, social media marketing consultant, former Congressional Campaign Media & Communications Director, national labor union vice block leader, and a Hip Hop artist who performs under the stage name Timid (@timidmc).
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