I support Congressman Ryan's deal. I do so for two reasons. First, government dysfunction is never a cause for celebration. It fosters a climate of economic doubt and a culture of self-perpetuating disdain. It's clear that many conservatives oppose this deal. Still, in order to make the spending reforms that are necessary for the long term of the country, Republicans will have to control Congress. In similar vein, if liberals want to have a chance of asserting the Warren agenda, they'll also need to control Congress. This deal recognizes those two competing truths. In essence, it ends the dysfunction by deferring those judgments to a later date. Second, the United States military is being gutted by the sequester. As I've argued before*, this cannot continue. Especially in the context of growing threats from China and a splintered but metastasizing collection of extremist groups. This is the essence of a compromise. It's a deal all sides can learn to live with.
* The title is a little harsh - Although I disagree with him, I've grown to respect Norquist.
Interviewed by AJ Delgado (video below), I offer my thoughts on the shutdown, ObamaCare and the broader ideological disagreements sustaining the discord.
1) House Republicans are making an awful mistake on immigration reform. I get and respect that many members of the Republican caucus oppose the Senate's immigration bill. That's fair enough. But to simply offer intransigent opposition without response would be terrible mistake. It would play to Democratic caricatures of the GOP as a party that has no interest in governing. It would reinforce negative perceptions of the GOP in the eyes of Hispanic Americans. Most of all, it would represent a stunning neglect of the ultimate responsibility of elected officials to govern. There can be no doubt that America's immigration system is broken. It deserves and requires resolution. Yet, I fear that in much the same way as was the case with health care reform, by ceding the debate, Republicans will also effectively cede control over the contours of immigration reform. This will lead to the worst possible outcome - open borders, unfettered amnesty and a tremendous political defeat for the GOP brand. House Republicans need to listen to conservatives like Paul Ryan.
2) Members of Congress are complaining that the Intelligence Community regularly obfuscate their reports to the intelligence oversight committees. This is nothing new (see The Deep State). Yet, it's open airing speaks to a dysfunction at the heart of the US Government. Many intelligence professionals simply do not believe that politicians can be trusted to make objective decisions on the merits of particular intelligence operations. As a result, they do their utmost to sell those programs in uncontroversial ways. Don't get me wrong, misleading Congress is absolutely unacceptable and where it occurs, it must now stop. Nevertheless, Congress bears responsibility for its shifting rhetoric on the constitution of appropriate intelligence activities.
3) I share Chuck Hagel's concern over the looming impact of the sequester on the US Military. Unfortunately, until Democrats accept the inevitability of major entitlement reform, the prospects of an appropriate defense resolution are very low. It's stunning to me that liberals still refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue over entitlements. The numbers speak for themselves. In the interim however, it's crucial that Hagel resists efforts by President Obama to play politics with the sequester (a preference for which Obama has previously shown significant sympathy). For one example, it makes no sense that USN/USAF fighter squadrons are seeing degraded readiness. We should be closing bases before degrading our power projection capabilities.
4) A new book on air hijackings has been released. The author covers the 'epidemic' in hijackings that afflicted the world in the 1960s/70s. Of course, things have since changed. The threat of suicide hijackings and the rise in politically motivated attacks (especially by Palestinian affiliated terrorist organizations) forced western governments to develop highly trained counter-terrorism capabilities. For example, the United States lead agency for plane focused hostage rescues is ACE (aka Delta Force). Combined with greatly improved airport security efforts, the ability to respond to and effectively resolve hijackings has meant that air travel is now substantially safer.
It's been interesting to see thedeployment of US Military assets to South Korean territory in recent days. A response to ongoing threats from the North. These show of force efforts are necessary and justified, but they also illustrate another factor. A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration took a very different course (quite literally) when they pretended that the sequester was preventing the deployment of a carrier to the Persian Gulf. It now seems evident that with the sequester having taken effect, the Administration has decided to stop playing games with national security.
The situation with the North is tense. Butcognizant of this danger, we should nonetheless have confidence. In our Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force we have the greatest military force in the history of the world.
I try to give the President a fair hearing. I hate the bitterness that has come to define so much of our national discourse. I'm repulsed when the President's wife and daughters are insulted. But... as I've argued in recent weeks, since winning re-election, the President has found comfort in unmitigated partisanship. And now, as the Sequester approaches, the President's behavior has reached unprecedented summits of absurdity. Due to the GOP refusal to submit to his theory of governance (my way or the highway) and reluctant to fulfill the sequester deal that he himself developed, the President has instead resorted to using the national security of the United States as a partisan prop. As Bob Woodward noted on MSNBC yesterday, the President's decision to cancel a carrier deployment to the Persian Gulf is nothing short of astonishing. I've always felt that the President's foreign policy is confused and contradictory, but this is simply unbelievable. Sadly, the President hasn't stopped with his Carrier games. Instead, he's also overseen the release of hundreds of detained illegal immigrants. Counter to the Administration's claims of ignorance with regards to this release, because of its major political tenor, the action must have received approval from someone in the President's inner circle.
Let's be clear, these actions are not born of a national leadership focused on the common good. Nor are these decisions derived of necessity- with a budget in the hundreds of billions, the DoD could easily allocate sufficient funds to send a second Carrier to the 5th Fleet Area of Operations. As could DHS with regards to meeting its criminal detention responsibilities.Unfortunately, these national priorities have been subjugated to the President's ego. We're witnessing a leadership that is both gleefully reckless and stunningly arrogant. An imperial White House happy to threaten journalists and make policy in the style of North Korea.
Why is the President behaving this way? Why won't he accept the Sequester?
Because he refuses to accept a major debt deal (which would necessarily involve major entitlement reform). And because he wants an American welfare state. A welfare state doomed to fail.
I'm not feeling so hot about the next four years...
Noticed the President's growing concern over the Sequester? He knows that his position is growing weaker by the day. Hence his desperately absurd demands that the GOP yield. Sorry Mr. President, it's not going to happen.Check out my post from a couple of days ago - Why the Sequester is likely to occur.
