Republicrats Win … Some Victory!

By any objective definition, the budget ‘deal’ that ended the government shutdown was no deal at all.

A deal implies concessions by both sides. The basic battle was over Obamacare funding. Obama said the law will be funded 100 percent, no compromises, no delays. The Republicans/Tea Party said the law must be defunded, or at least partially funded or delayed. The Republicans wobbled but Obama never did.

In any debate, the more consistent side wins. Obama was more unyielding, so he won.

Winning doesn’t make you right. History is full of people who won many battles, but could not ultimately win the impossible or irrational goal they sought out.

Let’s look at the ‘victory’ Obama and his side have won.

They have won the right to fully nationalize medicine, once and for all. It was already halfway there thanks to Medicare, and now Obama is free to finish the job.

Obama and his party have won the right to a National Health Care board, a handful of politically connected people who will make medical care decisions for the country as a whole, going forward.

A board of people wiser than ourselves who will decide medical expenditures for all. What could be wrong with that?

Assuming we continue to have democratic elections, and that Republicans will sometimes win, then a National Health Board can potentially be controlled by a President Rick Santorum or some conservative religious equivalent. This means that a national board of politically connected doctors will decide whether women may have abortions, or whether gay/lesbian people are as deserving of treatment as heterosexual people.

The Obamacare law will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including ones that those who supported would never have dreamed of, nor intended.

Obama has also ‘won’ the ability to raise the debt limit indefinitely. Spend more, and borrow more. Spend still more, and borrow still more. Nothing different has been proposed—not by Obama’s party, nor by the Republican mainstream who are fully in line with Obama on this, despite their fallacious claims to support the Tea Party.

The Tea Party, led by Senator Ted Cruz, has merely been stating the obvious: ‘We can’t go on like this.’ In other words, we cannot continue to spend and borrow in exponentially increasing levels. Something has to give. Most likely, it will be the currency, either via massive inflation or deflation, on a scale the United States has ever seen. Cutting and privatizing wealth-consuming entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security? Sure, it will be painful. But what will inflation or deflation look like? What good will Medicare or Social Security be if the dollars spent on those programs reduce in value by 25 or 50 percent?

On the surface, the Tea Party are the clear losers in this budget debacle, while the Republicrats (Boehner-Obama-Pelosi-Reid-McConnell) are the winners. Yes, the Republicrats have the numbers. But they still don’t have the facts on their side; and they still have no answers.

Think of heroin addict, or an alcoholic, living range-of-the-moment and addressing each new issue in daily life with a needle or a drink. That’s the mentality that has won in Washington DC. Those are the men and women in whom we are trusting, and whom we count upon to lead us to ever-continuing prosperity and development, as America has largely known in its history to date.

What kind of a victory is that?

 

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