I wrote about Terrorism and Hostage-Taking as the talking point of the week. Now there is a new language game going on in the media. So far today, I have seen five articles describing the Boehner plan that passed the House yesterday as "hard line". I have also seen four articles that say that "the House finally has done something" or words to that effect. Where do they come up with this stuff?
As to "hard line", the Democrat plan that is the counterpoint to the Boehner plan is, of course, the Reid plan. According to the Democrats, the Reid bill cuts about a trillion dollars more in spending than the Boehner plan. While it is true that the extra spending cuts found by Reid are actually phony savings from assuming that the war in Iraq will end rather than continue at the levels of the surge (a pretty good assumption), in the Democrat dictionery there are more cuts in Reid than in the hard-line Boehner plan. Boehner and Reid do differ with regard to how large a debt ceiling increase is approved; the difference is about a trillion dollars. This is not enough to determine which one is hard line. Boehner also requires a vote on a balanced budget amendment. Since this amendment is approved by three quarters of the people in poll after poll, it can hardly be called hard line. In short, to the Democrats, "hardline" is anything that they oppose.
As to the House "finally" doing something, the story is even clearer. Since January, the House has proposed and passed a budget for 2012. It has passed two different bills to raise the debt ceiling. It has pushed for and achieved cuts in the 2011 budget. It has been the driving force behind getting budget cuts to be part of the debt ceiling debate. On the other hand, the Senate and its Democrat majority have neither proposed not passed a 2012 budget. The Senate has not passed any bill with regard to the debt ceiling. The Senate has not even bothered to vote on either of the bills raising the debt ceiling that the House passed; instead, the Senate just put consideration of them on hold for possible future discussion. The Senate opposed cuts in the 2011 budget and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to finally take action. So clearly, it is the House that has been doing its job, not the Senate.
So what about the president? He did propose a budget for 2012. It called for massive spending increases and even the Democrats in Congress could not support it. It was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 97 to 0. After that, Obama came forward with no new plan. Indeed, after countless speeches and press conferences, Obama has no plan as to how to deal with the debt ceiling increase. Even his speeches have been all over the lot. the last speech touted the importance of tax increases at the same time that Obama said he supported the Reid plan which has no tax increases. In fact, Obama's inconsistencies in negotiations have been so severe that he was a hinderance rather than a help in reaching a solution. Congressional leaders have actually frozen him out of the process for now in order to try to reach a deal. Now, the White House is leaking word that Obama has a secret plan to resolve the dispute. How pitiful is that! Obama has no plan so he tries to put out the word that he actually has one but is keeping it secret. It will be hard to pass the plan through Congress if no one tells the Congressmen and Senators about the terms of the plan.
So, the truth is that the Boehner plan is not hard line and it is the Senate and the president who have done nothing, not the House. But then again, why would anyone expect the truth from the liberal media?
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