Battered GOP tries to find strength in weakness
Even though much of the media is obsessed with the coming fight over the debt ceiling, GOP leaders are urging lawmakers to see that battle as just one quarter of a larger game. They’ve already lost the first quarter, the “fiscal cliff” battle that resulted in many Republicans agreeing to an increase in income tax rates for the nation’s highest earners. The debt limit showdown will be the second quarter, with the third and fourth quarters being fights over sequestration cuts and a continuing resolution to fund the government.
As several influential Republicans see it, the goal is not to focus exclusively on any one quarter but to end up in a better place than where they started. The problem is, they can’t really say what that better place might be…
As far as big cuts are concerned, one reality emerging in Williamsburg is that Republicans will not present Obama with a comprehensive proposal to cut entitlement spending. Beyond the old Ryan road map, there is little far-reaching thinking going on about what should be done on entitlements. So look for Republicans to latch onto a few smaller proposals that Obama has spoken favorably of in the past and push the president to live by his own words.
Blowback
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Good luck with that!
Night Owl on January 18, 2013 at 11:28 AM
Tries to find strength in John Boehner? Good luck with that.
The Rogue Tomato on January 18, 2013 at 11:29 AM
Uh, yeah – the GOP sees SURRENDER as its greatest STRENGTH, and that’s the problem.
Pork-Chop on January 18, 2013 at 11:34 AM
This more than anything else is the real key bit here. There’s zero forward thinking going on about how to deal with the entitlements, just a feverish desire to go along with Obama and a cringing fear of the base’s wrath.
The party is going to be dissolving or dead after 2016. Count on it.
Doomberg on January 18, 2013 at 11:35 AM
Battered wife Republican Party takes in the ass from the RINO’s one more time and tells U.S. they take the beatings for our good, yet we are the ones paying the freight on the whole ball of wax.
The weakness is spelled “RINO”.
Not one thing of any importance in the last 30 years the commie Democrats wanted could have been passed without the treason of the RINO’s.
It is a one problem solution.
Just vote the RINO’s out. Clear it is once we start some of them will crossover and join the commie Democrats for the re-election money and to stay in power.
Just do it. Keep it simple.
APACHEWHOKNOWS on January 18, 2013 at 11:36 AM
“Addicted to weakness”
Force the RINO’s to go cold turkey to fearless or get the f’ out of the way.
Walk tall and smash mouth these commie blood sucking vimpire Democrats.
APACHEWHOKNOWS on January 18, 2013 at 11:39 AM
Voting the RINOs out can only be achieved if there are conservative replacements waiting in the wings – and they are as rare as hen’s teeth.
OldEnglish on January 18, 2013 at 11:42 AM
How about the truth about who Obama is and what he’s doing?
How about fighting tooth and nail to preserve the rule of law via the Constitution?
….of wait…We are talking about the GOP. Silly me.
katy on January 18, 2013 at 11:50 AM
I’m a Portland Conservative. I believe every Gay marriage should have a gun.
ronsfi on January 18, 2013 at 11:57 AM
If we do not get rid of the RINO’s time will march on with the commie Democrats draining the U.S. dry with massive over spending and nutty regulations of CO2 and other mad hatter scams and the U.S. will fail.
Then out of that horible mess sane people will rise up and never will this weakness be allowed to destroy so much,, but the price all will pay world wide will pale to the evil of WWII.
Great danger lies with allowing this weakness to fester and spoil the whole of the body of the U.S.A. and then the whole world.
APACHEWHOKNOWS on January 18, 2013 at 12:04 PM
Funny thing about the effects of WWII – the Socialists won! The only way to get back to sanity is to get rid of Democracy – and that can only be achieved by a very targeted war.
OldEnglish on January 18, 2013 at 12:17 PM
Assuming York has this right, and further that it represents the thinking of the GOP leadership – I await enlightenment from the usual suspects (even those without my extensive Capitol Hill experience) to explain how the 12-dimensional chess being played makes any sense and how the GOP is, actually, any better than the most vitriolic RINO-haters here allege.
Memory is fuzzy … but wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that the pathetic collapse on the “cliff” was “put in context” by explaining how the GOP would have so much more leverage on the debt ceiling? Oh yes, yes it was.
The Dems, the “press”, and most of America’s institutions have become dark disastrous parodies of themselves – and now the GOP, with its ever-receding ridge on which to die to do the smallest bit of responsible public business, joins them.
A real contribution would be an explanation of how this unfolding nightmare, and the last few years, are in fact just a swing of the pendulum, just a phase, and how things will return to some semblance of sanity and respectability in the future, with the human beings currently inhabiting the US.
IceCold on January 18, 2013 at 12:29 PM
Exactly! Well put!
A pendulum will not move unless a force is applied to it.
OldEnglish on January 18, 2013 at 12:34 PM
Values change every minute, principles are set in stone.
Politicians who cling to values are blown away when the sour wind comes, people with a solid foundation of principles don’t have that wind sock issue.
Speakup on January 18, 2013 at 12:53 PM
The GOP needs to listen to Limbaugh, Lavin and Hannity and nominate real conservatives rather than RINO squishes like Romney.
Pablo Honey on January 18, 2013 at 1:16 PM