‘More,’ Fedzilla screamed, ‘more!!’

I thought I could let this go, but then this Washington Times story by Stephan Dinan begged to differ.

Now I realize that the situation over the last few months was akin to walking a tightrope, but to rack up a record $239 billion in debt in ONE DAY – almost 60% of the wiggle room gained by the Republican sellout – simply boggles the mind. Notice that the previous record deficit day came in 2009, after Barack Obama took office. So don’t blame it on Bush.

In fact, consider that in one day our deficit exceeded that of the entire final Bush budget submitted with a Republican Congress (fiscal year 2007) – $239 billion beats $161 billion in any sort of math, fuzzy or not.

And the public is skeptical too. Today a Rasmussen Poll was released and it showed just 22% of the public approved of the budget deal. Of course Republicans are dead-set against it (by about a 4-to-1 margin) but the poll also showed unaffiliated voters in with the same feelings toward the agreement. Only Democrats had a more favorable impression, with 34% favoring the package with 40% against.

The reason the public doesn’t like the agreement? They don’t trust Washington to cut spending.

Another interesting facet of Rasmussen’s summary is that, despite the frenetic coverage by the media, people had expected the outcome. Perhaps it’s a natural cynicism Americans have with their government. “You can’t fight City Hall,” they often say.

While the TEA Party has made great strides in fighting the excesses of government, its biggest problem is that we only control a small portion of government. Look at the strides certain states like Wisconsin and Ohio have made in curbing their governments – they managed to elect enough conservative legislators in both their legislative bodies to complement the reformist ideas of the governors elected – Scott Walker and John Kasich, respectively.

Both Walker and Kasich also have to overcome continued threats to their reform packages as several GOP state senators are subject to recall elections this month in Wisconsin and Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 – an act which severely curbed union influence in Ohio – goes before Buckeye State voters this fall. Don’t be surprised if unions aren’t looking to dump tens of millions into the campaign to overturn SB5.

So the TEA Party fight may be over for the time being in Washington, and those of us skeptical that Fedzilla could curb its spending appetite may be vindicated based on the one-day deficit record. But we have a lot of state capitals where the fight needs to be renewed.

Come this fall, the scene in Annapolis may rival the one back in March, but contenders will on the opposite sides. I’d love to see 10,000 TEA Party members outnumber 50 union thugs in demanding fiscal responsibility.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.