President Obama wants Republicans to agree to tax rate increases and new stimulus spending now in return for entitlement and tax code reform in the future. Accepting anything resembling that bargain would be bad politics given the fiscal principles on which Republicans have stood for the last two years. It would also suggest that Republican members of Congress need a few lessons in the fundamentals of constitutional authority and popular sovereignty.
Agreements of the sort urged by the president are not uncommon. The context is usually something like this. There is a big problem — say, a burgeoning federal debt — that cannot be solved overnight. There is no action Congress can take today that will eliminate the national debt or ensure that Social Security and Medicare will be solvent
10 or 20 years from now. Problems that have developed over decades require some time to correct.The constitutional reality is that Congress and the president will have to chip away at these big problems and hope that those who follow in the White House and Congress will do the same. There is no way of guaranteeing that future presidents and Congresses will not abandon measures implemented today. But unless responsible steps are taken now, we’ll have little hope of meeting these long-term challenges
in the future.Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/03/congressional-republicans-shouldnt-accept-ious/#ixzz2E6VbIH76
No comments:
Post a Comment