How To Use Bipartisanship To NOT Fix Something

Recall my thoughts on bipartisanship.  Then read this brewing bipartisan effort:

Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) is retiring from Congress this year. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) should do so as well. The two are sponsoring a bill with Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) and that "Blue Dog" con artist Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) for a Deficit Commission. This is the worst legislation sponsored by any Republican in this Congress, as it would provide cover for the largest tax increase in world history by far, and would ratify rather than oppose the Obama explosion in Big Government.

That is why indications are that President Obama will endorse this Deficit Commission concept in his State of the Union Address this year, after exploding the federal government to peacetime records. As the Wall Street Journal explained it on December 29,

After signing a $787 billion economic stimulus and embracing two annual blowout budgets that will double the national debt over 10 years even before ObamaCare, President Obama is poised to pivot [this] election year and denounce the horrors of deficit spending. So the White House is now floating a bipartisan commission to reduce federal borrowing, and much of the political class is all for it.

The Journal explained just how reckless Obama's spending has been: "From 2001 to 2008, under President Bush, federal…discretionary spending grew by 54%. Mr. Obama's policies have expanded these agency budgets by another 57% over just two years." Obama has also increased federal welfare spending by one-third over the first two years, with total government welfare spending now slated at $10.3 trillion over 10 years.

Under the Gregg-Wolf free market murder bill, 16 Washington experts would be appointed to a Commission with a mandate to look at everything from entitlements to taxes, and propose specific reforms to balance the budget. Congress would then vote up or down on the entire package without amendments, on an expedited basis.

From the early 1950s, after federal spending settled down following World War II, until last year under President Obama's neo-socialist revolution, federal spending was stable during those 50 plus years at around 20% of GDP. Today, after one year, the federal government is 40% larger at about 28% of GDP, a national tragedy in terms of lost economic freedom. But federal projections show that by 2040 federal spending will soar to close to 40% of GDP, due primarily to the exploding entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Dumping Obama's national health care program on top will just make the situation much worse.

Add in state and local government spending, and total government spending will be well over 50% of GDP. Counting the Obama spending increases and the negative effects on the economy from all this Overwhelming Government, total government spending will grow to over 60% of GDP.

The article goes on to discuss some real solutions that might work - if you're interested, check out the link.  The bottom line of the Gregg-Wolf plan is this:

If anything even close to this happens, America will be over. We will be socialist Sweden instead, which even Sweden is leaving behind now. Traditional American prosperity will be gone. Forget about the American Dream. We, as a nation, would no longer be worthy of that. Under the new system where we give most of what we earn to government bureaucrats and they tell us what we can have and how to live, the whole notion of economic freedom and prosperity will have been eradicated.

For crying out loud, when will Republicans WAKE UP AND STOP DOING STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS IN THE NAME OF BIPARTISANSHIP?!?!  Good lord, if they go along with this, they deserve to be flushed down the toilet!

The problem is, of course, that if the GOP gets suckered with this or something like it, there truly is no hope for this country.  The Dems seem determined to commit economic suicide in the name of political correct socialism, and no third party is capable of wresting control of government enough to do anything significant.  Thus, as awful as they may be at times, the GOP is the best hope we've got for restoring fiscal sanity to America.  We need to boot out those members of the GOP who are willing to go off the cliff with the Democrats ASAP.

Bipartisanship is very, very overrated.  In reality, almost everything that happens in the name of bipartisanship means the American people get screwed.

There's my two cents.