Gridlock Is Not Dysfunctional

Gary North - November 27, 2019

The Big Government Brigade is concerned that gridlock will prevent the expansion of the federal government.

Nothing will prevent its expansion except a financial default. The default mode for Washington is growth. We need the other kind of default to reverse default mode.

So, the cry of the hour is “surrender.” When you see “dysfunctional,” it means “spend more.”

Here is an example.

President Barack Obama’s victory means that everything he campaigned upon is alive and about to drive the political conversation with his adversaries. Every legacy of his first term is safe and enshrined to history.

Yet big honeymoons don’t come twice and Republicans won’t swoon. If Obama cannot end gridlock, his second term will be reduced to veto threats, empty promises, end runs around Congress and legacy-sealing forays into foreign lands.

Let’s hope!

Obama will push for higher taxes on the wealthy as a way to shrinking a choking debt and to steer money toward the programs he wants. He will try to land a massive financial deficit-cutting deal with Congress in the coming months and then move on to an immigration overhaul, tax reform and other bipartisan dreams.

It’s not going to happen. Gridlock will prevent it. Republican voters had better keep the pressure on.

He will not have to worry that his health care law will be repealed, or that his Wall Street reforms will be gutted, or that his name will be consigned to the list of one-term presidents who got fired before they could finish. Voters stuck with him because they trusted him more to solve the struggles of their lifetime.

And why not? At least 47% of them pay no income tax. “Stick it to those who do!”

America may not be filled with hope anymore, but it told Mitt Romney to keep his change. And voters sure didn’t shake up the rest of Washington, either.

It’s business as usual in Washington. It always is.

They put back all the political players who have made the capital dysfunctional to the point of nearly sending the United States of America into default.

Default is the only thing that will reverse the growth of spending by Washington. Nothing else will work.

The president likely will be dealing again with a Republican-run House, whose leader, Speaker John Boehner, declared on election night that his party is the one with the mandate: no higher taxes.

But the automatic spending cuts will hit the Pentagon. We will soon see if Boehner is on the side of taxpayers or the Pentagon.

Obama will still have his firewall in the Senate, with Democrats likely to hang onto their narrow majority. But they don’t have enough to keep Republicans from bottling up any major legislation with delaying tactics.

Gridlock now! Gridlock forever!

So the burden falls on the president to find compromise, not just demand it from the other side.

Let’s see if he backs off. Let’s see if Boehner buckles or Obama does.

A “fiscal cliff” of expiring tax cuts and budget cuts looms on Jan 1.

If they kick in, economists warn the economy will tank, again. Obama, at least, won the right to fight the fight on his terms.

“If I’ve won, then I believe that’s a mandate for doing it in a balanced way,” he said before the election — that is, fixing the budget problem by raising taxes on people instead of just cutting spending. Obama is adamant that he will not agree to extend tax cuts for people making above $200,000 or couples with incomes above $250,000.

He had not even been declared the winner before Boehner offered a warning that the House was still in Republican hands.

“With this vote,” Boehner said, “the American people have also made clear that there is no mandate for raising tax rates.”

Obama, never one to lack from confidence, is ready to take that fight to Congress.

In his eyes, he just won it, thanks to the voters.

Boehner can hold the line. This will be his moment of truth. Will he back taxpayers or back the Pentagon?

Continue reading here.

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Published on November 8, 2012. The original is here.

Boehner collapsed. No surprise there.