Paul Ryan would earn a lot more respect if he would just say this

OK, look, I am today announcing a "budget deal" that represents a complete short-term capitulation to the Democrats. Not gonna lie. We're punting just like that team from my state has done quite a lot since Mr. Discount Double Check broke his collar bone. Stand between a Democrat and spending authority and see how your collar bone ends up. It's usually not pretty. This thing I worked out with Patty Murray has virtually no merit whatsoever. Even the bit about not raising taxes is basically a load of crap because it envisions all kinds of "fee increases," and really it's even worse when you turn Democrats loose with those. Who knows what they'll do? I did manage this esoteric thing about federal pensions that's a slight improvement over the status quo, but it represents the sort of "savings" that will get eaten up by the next inevitable "emergency expenditure" so who cares? Yeah, it makes my skin crawl to sign off on nonsense like this. It projects adding another $8 trillion to the national debt over the course of the next decade, and only in the age of Obama can that seem like a good thing considering that it actually represents a slowing of debt accumulation considering what he's been doing since he took office. Big whoop. It still piles lots more debt on top of what we're already dealing with and shows no sign whatsoever of any serious thought about balancing the budget any time soon. Just between you and me, Patty Murray is a pleasant enough person but we'll end up like Greece if people like her get to decide our fiscal course. So I suppose that leads you to the question: Why am I letting her? We do have a House majority and the power of the purse, after all. Why aren't we using it? Good question. Here's the answer: It's political strategy, pure and simple. The decision we've made is to basically accept that we're not going to achieve anything as long as we don't have the Senate, and even then, we're still not really going to hit it until we have the White House too. Now I know we could have fought harder after we took the House in 2010. A lot of people think we should have. If it had been entirely up to me, we would have. Remember, when I took over as chair of the House Budget Committee, the first thing I did was announce that we would pass real budgets, and we did. I couldn't believe Harry Reid could keep getting away with passing no budget whatsoever year in and year out. But the simple fact is that Democrats play dirty and the media covers for them. We pass a budget, they call it a political trick. We refuse to accept their idiotic continuing resolution, they say we're trying to shut down the government. We insist on conditions for raising the debt ceiling, they say we're trying to default. It doesn't matter what we do. If it's not giving Obama and Reid everything they want, we're trying to destroy the government in one way or another, and the media basically reports their narrative as fact. And as soon as this happens - let's face it - the majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill start to wilt under the pressure. You think it's just McCain and Graham. It's a lot more than that. Something happens to conservatives when they have to run for re-election in less than 18 months and they're getting beaten up daily. If the entire Republican caucus would stand firm in the face of all this, we might be able to do something. But they won't, so we can't. I wish it was different, but this is how it is. So we look at the long game and we realize Obama has handed us a golden opportunity to change the dynamic. ObamaCare may be the biggest public policy fiasco in the history of this country, which is horrible for the country and, consequently, great for us politically if we can keep the focus on it. You can see this coming, right? If the 2014 mid-terms are all about ObamaCare, we might end up with 57 or 58 Senate seats. And in the House? Oh my goodness. We could be looking at 300. I'll remind you that a lot of people with employer-based health insurance are going to start getting cancellation notices late next year. How's that going to play in those compeitive districts? Exactly. And those red state senators who voted for ObamaCare? Mary Landrieu? Enjoy your retirement. And if that new Republican Congress passes reasonable alternatives to ObamaCare, and Obama keeps vetoing them? We'll hang that around Hillary's neck and take her out too. But in order to make it happen, we can't have any unforced errors, and I'll be as clear as I am crass. I'm talking about political unforced errors. Stuff that might be entirely justified in a policy sense, but would still be stupid politically. Is it worth shutting down the government to get serious spending cuts? From a pure policy perspective, absolutely. But if it risks that Red Wave that's building next year? If it gives the Democrats and the media an excuse to make the election about anything other than ObamaCare? Look, I'll be honest. This budget deal is a total capitulation. And a strategic one. We want to head into 2015 with such strong numbers that we can completely control the agenda in Washington. And hey, who knows? If ObamaCare keeps getting worse as we think it will, and we've got huge majorities to start with, it might not be that much of a stretch to think we could get enough Democrats on board to pass a freaking veto-proof repeal. I'm not promising it. I'm just saying you can think a lot bigger when you're firmly in control. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking. We had total control a decade ago and we did nothing with it. We listened to our political consultants and the K Street lobbyists and instead of getting spending under control, we just re-directed the spending to Republican-friendly constituencies. We passed new entitlements. We could have passed a market-based health care reform before Obama, Reid and Pelosi got their hands on one-sixth of the economy. I know. We could have passed a better energy policy, restructured the tax code. We could have done all that. Instead, we sat around and played defense because we were too skittish politically. And you know what happened? We got bazooked politically anyway. And we ended up with ObamaCare. Lesson learned (not that some of us needed to learn it). Proceeding with political cowardice doesn't get you re-elected, and it doesn't achieve anything. And this is not the same group of people that got elected more than a decade ago. Yeah, some are the same. But a lot are different. And everyone sees how well that strategy worked. So I've laid it out for you. I've handed Patty Murray the keys to the car because nothing good can happen if I sit there trying to grab the wheel from her this year. Let her drive it into the ditch. Then, when the country has had enough of what happens when Democrats run the show, we clean their clocks next November - and watch what happens when Harry Reid is relegated to the role of leading a paltry minority. That's why I did it. Don't like it? I'm right there with you. But at least now you understand the long game.

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