It is true that the proposed deal to cut $38.5B from 2011 appropriations seems modest compared to the $100B rollback of discretionary spending to 2008 levels that the Republican party sought and even tinier in comparison to the $4T expenditure, but is also true that it is probably all that we could have hoped for. It is also more than 60% of the $61B that the caucus agreed to seek from the Democrat President and Senate. While that cut in spending is a tiny couple of tenths of a percent, it is nevertheless a cut in spending -- that rarest of things in Washington -- and in fact is the largest in history.
Little information is available on the deal, but this morning's Washington Post story claims that it includes at least two big riders affecting the District of Columbia that were much decried by the leftist media during the run up to the deal forestalling a government shutdown. The first rider now included prohibits funding for abortions in DC, and the second funds private school tuition for low income students there.
As a tactical matter, I believe Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans got that much in negotiations with the President and the Senate because he could appeal to a higher authority: the Tea Party within his own caucus. Without the fiscal conservatives standing ready to vote against smaller cuts, this deal would not have happened.
Interestingly, Obama chose not to exercise the same higher-authority negotiating ploy. It clearly reflects his electoral strategy of adopting the cloak of moderation and is a further indication of the continuing strength of the Tea Party reaction to his progressivist agenda and enactments. That he involved himself directly in the negotiation, rather than staying out of it so that Harry Reid could appeal to him as higher authority shows that he and his strategists believe that the country still views his policies with alarm and with a concern that he needs to mollify if he is to be reelected. It also shows the Democrat weakness in the Senate, with so many of their class of 2006 still to face the wrath of the Tea Party.
With the release of the Ryan budget the focus has definitely shifted to 2012 and beyond. The Tea Party in the House and Senate Republican caucuses should stand firm and continue to push their colleagues and their leadership. As the Washington Post story opines:
- Some conservative Republicans had pushed for much more and grumbled about the compromise Friday.
- But this was still a compromise made on their terms and a sign of their power. Inside a few months, an ascendant Republican Party has managed to impose its small-government agenda on a town still largely controlled by Democrats.
