BILL LIND: McCarthy is willing to raise debt ceiling? That concession would be bad for America
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Just over two years ago, the tea party movement was born and, as a result, millions of Americans rose up to protest our federal government's reckless fiscal behavior. Recently, Rep. Kevin McCarthy had his first formal town-hall meeting with the Bakersfield tea party. Through this meeting, we were able to confirm that McCarthy is pushing for a debt ceiling increase in exchange for the promise of future spending cuts.
This deal is bad for our country because an increase in the government debt allows for more unconstrained spending. The only solution is to dramatically cut the size of government by lowering spending and taxes.
The latest political establishment mantra to come out of Washington, which is echoed by Republican leadership, is that "You can't cut your way out of this crisis; we have to be smart." When was the last time that our federal government was smart about managing our money?
McCarthy used this same mantra when he said to our local tea party group, "You can't cut your way totally out of this; you have to grow the economy as well." When I hear a politician say we need to "grow the economy," that usually means more wasteful government spending. This is right out of the Democrats' playbook and I am worried that the Republican leadership in Congress has drifted over to their side.
McCarthy went on to state that Republican leadership would not take the political way out by tackling the whole budget. This is great, but I have heard this promise before. The bottom line is the Republican leadership actually needs to do this without compromise. It is time for McCarthy and the other establishment RINOs to stop the sales pitch, roll up their sleeves and get the job done with courage.
This job involves capping the debt ceiling and capping spending, balancing the budget accompanied by a balanced budget amendment, and passing tax cuts that will increase tax revenue to the federal government. The American people, with the help of the tea party, did not put them back in power to do anything less. The Republican leadership in Congress must take a strong stance because President Obama and the Democrats refuse to do anything right to address the serious economic problems that face our country.
What McCarthy was trying to convince the Bakersfield tea party of was that they just do not understand all of the complicated details involving the budget and debt. Let Congress handle it. They are smart. But that is a complete lie. In each of our households, we must live within our means. When our family spending is out of control, we are not wise to increase our debt limit by getting more credit cards -- in fact we cut up our credit cards.
It is time that McCarthy quits talking out of both sides of his mouth and does what each of our families must do. Stop the reckless spending and do not raise the debt limit. One without the other is merely political posturing in an effort to confuse the public.
There simply is no evidence to prove that Congress and President Obama are qualified to make unsupervised decisions about spending our money. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that millions of Americans (the ones congressional representatives think are unsophisticated) successfully operate households and businesses every day and have done so for more than 200 years using a very simple financial principle. When you run out of money, stop buying stuff.
Congress and President Obama, you are out of money. Stop buying stuff and do not raise the debt ceiling. Period.
Bill Lind of Bakersfield is co-organizer for the Bakersfield/Kern County Tea Party Patriots.
