"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," is the philosophy of ex-Obama chief of staff and White House arm twister Rahm Emanuel. During the reign of Obama, this tactic has been used repeatedly to justify government overspending, overreaching, and overtaxing.
Liberals are masters of applying this approach. They create a crisis, postpone any attempt to address it until the last minute, and then introduce emergency legislation contrived in secret and passed in haste. This has enabled serial transgressions such as stimulus spending, debt monetization, Obamacare, government takeover of lending institutions and auto companies, and countless smaller outrages. It’s time conservatives followed Emanuel’s example.
The current debt ceiling crisis was created by two and a half years of Democrat overspending, and is now being used as an excuse to spend even more. But as often as Democrats use a crisis to justify irresponsible behavior, conservatives have seldom used one to support responsible leadership.
If this crisis is as severe as Democrats say, then why not insist upon a long-term, permanent solution that will prevent it from recurring? The Cut, Cap and Balance plan offers such a solution, yet Republicans in Congress have been talking about compromises and half measures that promise only to postpone the hard decisions that will grow more difficult and costly in the future.
In the past, crises have led to liberal expansion, but they can be equally persuasive of conservative solutions. The response to soaring debt can be the liberal one of increasing the debt ceiling, or the conservative one of reducing spending. The response to downgrading America’s credit rating could be the liberal approach of borrowing more or the conservative choice to pass a balanced budget amendment. The response to approaching exhaustion of programs like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment compensation could be the empty liberal promise of extending benefits or the conservative solution of reducing benefits and adjusting eligibility.
A recent CNN poll (18-20 July 2011 by ORC International) indicates that two thirds of Americans, including Republicans, Democrats and independents, support the Cut, Cap and Balance plan as a solution to the debt crisis. Americans understand that this crisis is a threat to our economy, our way of life, and our position in the world. We understand that drastic action is necessary, and two thirds of us are at least receptive to a responsible solution.
It’s up to conservatives to make the argument for a responsible, long-term solution to our debt crisis, and then to pass legislation that will make that solution possible. Who knows–if we prove as adept as using crises as the other side, maybe crisis management can be permanently retired along with the debt.
