Major Garrett Tells Chris Matthews Why GOP Can't Vote For Tax Hikes
As much as liberal media members pushing for tax hikes don't understand the fiscal and economic reasons for not doing so, they've been deceitfully ignoring the political ramifications for Republicans caving on this issue.
On Monday's "Hardball," National Journal's Major Garrett explained to Chris Matthews that if the President didn't raise taxes high enough for his liking when the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress for two years, it's absurd to expect the GOP to do it for him now (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MAJOR GARRETT, NATIONAL JOURNAL: Boehner and McConnell don't want to default, okay. They’ve said so publicly. They're in negotiations to avoid a default…
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Right.
GARRETT: … and they’re going to try to drive the hardest bargain. What they're telling the President is, “Look at the political realities: you didn't raise taxes in a lame duck session when you had 59 Democrats in the Senate and almost 260 in the House. Don't expect Republicans to raise taxes we own the House of Representatives and have six more it Senate seats.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
GARRETT: Operationally, as a matter of politics, that doesn't work.
Exactly.
Obama had two years of complete legislative control of this country - including months of a filibuster-proof Senate - to get whatever tax increases he wanted on the books.
Now that the Republicans control the House, and have a stronger position in the Senate, it's politically untenable for them to go along with any tax hikes no matter how small, especially coming so soon after their victory in the midterms and with another major election less than seventeen months away.
Doing so would be political suicide, and could result in a repeat of the shellacking Republicans took after President George H.W. Bush went back on his "Read My Lips - No New Taxes" pledge.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on Monday said this is likely Obama's strategy:
John Boehner is Obama's lifeline to reelection. That's all Boehner is to Obama, nothing else. He not a golf buddy. He's nothing other than that. If he can get Boehner to ultimately cave, Obama's reelected. That's what he knows...He sees, "If I can force this guy to cave, I don't care what the House vote is. I don't care if I lose the vote. If I can get this guy to cave and put my tax increase for a vote, even if it loses, I win. And I get reelected." That's what Obama thinks, because if Boehner caves, it's bye-bye GOP. That's the thing that everybody must understand. If Boehner caves, it's bye-bye GOP and nothing to do with the policy changes that might happen. If Boehner caves and takes a tax increase, folks, to the House and it loses, Obama still wins because the Republican base is so ticked off at that.
Exactly.
What Obama and his media minions are trying to do is create a repeat of 1990 when the Democrats and their press surrogates hammered Bush 41 until he finally agreed to raise taxes against his campaign pledge.
Despite the media supporting this move at the time, they were all over him once the 1992 presidential campaign began, and assisted in fomenting conservative as well as moderate anger that led so many to vote for Ross Perot it gave Bill Clinton the victory with far less than 50 percent of the votes.
Those that have been paying attention know that the press have been ridiculing Bush for this disastrous flip-flop ever since.
Now, almost 20 years later, the Democrats and the press are trying to do the exact same thing claiming that the world is going to end if taxes aren't raised hoping to force Boehner and Company to cave.
Once that happens, after initially congratulating the GOP for being willing to compromise for the sake of the nation, they'll attack every Republican during next year's campaign season - including Boehner - for their flip-flop hoping that they will not only get their beloved Obama re-elected but also give the House back to the Democrats.
With this in mind, Garrett and Limbaugh are 100 percent right: if the Republicans want to be successful at the polls next November, they can't cave on this tax issue no matter what pressure they get from media members to do so.
Intelligent people are supposed to learn from history not repeat it.
- Noel Sheppard's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
The question is...
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:13pm.
Does Boehner understand all of this? That if he agrees to a tax hike the GOP is essentially finished? That they stand for nothing at all and that no matter who is elected in 2012 we won't make it as a nation?
Does he?
Submitted by David N MO on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:22pm.
Read My Lips, No. New. Taxes.
What a bad way to be remembered...
How does "Caving Boehner" sound. ...don't think he'd be trusted again.
David
Save me from the Good People!
It would be forever known and
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:27pm.
It would be forever known and Boehner's Boner moment.
accident...
Submitted by David N MO on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:24pm.
Oops.
David
Save me from the Good People!
That is an excellent
Submitted by GregE on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:26pm.
That is an excellent analysis. Fantastic.
Democrats just salivating, hoping to be able to use that flip in the election. They don't give a RATS ARSE about the debt. Think about it............its LIBERALS. Debt? When do they ever care about it??????? ONLY when politics are at play.
Garrett is spot on
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:28pm.
When the Democrats were in total control, they knew that raising taxes was a lose-lose game for them. If they passed the raise and Obama signed it, and the economy continued to tank, they'd get smashed in the 2010 election. If they tried to pass is but couldn't due to Blud Dog Dems voting with the GOP bloc, they'd lose again by revealing their disunity.
So they have to have GOP buy-in on raising taxes, and both Obama and Boehner know it. The DNC and their MSM buddies have to portray the GOP as obstructionists who will bring down the entire ecomony if the debt ceiling isn't raised, but Boehner knows that in the end, they can pass a bill raising the ceiling while enacting spending cuts but no new taxes -- and that will leave the President as the guy who will have to pick the winners and losers in reduced Federal funding.
Politicians
Submitted by grammajane on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:41pm.
Republican politicians better start listening to Rush. He knows whats up and knows libs like the back of his hand. If they don't listen there will be a third party and Barry will win again. This is what Rush predicts, and he is right 99.6% of the time
→ Ed Zacchary
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:41pm.
Barry Poppins hopes Boehner will be the spoonful of medicine. The Dems have already declared themselves as keepers of the huddled stupid and they want the Republicans to declare themselves helpless also.
reason why
Submitted by Tjexcite on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:54pm.
Blame.
The Dems did nothing just to blame the GOP when they do something.
Aw, Tingles sounded so
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 9:57pm.
depressed there. Kind of like a CFL went off in his head. Poor little fella.
By the way- strong article in the Daily Caller by Michele Bachmann. Worth the read.
Obama and the Democrats also
Submitted by motherbelt on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:03pm.
Obama and the Democrats also didn't deal with the debt limit and the budget while they had the majority. They want Republicans to do the dirty work and take the flak.
If Republicans fall for this ploy again, they can kiss any kind of redemption goodbye for 20 years. At least.
Third Party
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:12pm.
The Dems are trying to split the Republican party and have a repeat of the 1912 Presidential Election.
(On a side note, check out how many electoral college votes California had in 1912!)
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
Wow
Submitted by GregE on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:35pm.
Interesting tidbit on CA.
Balanced Budget, by Default
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:03pm.
If the federal government can no longer spend more money then they take in, the budget is balanced, by default. Sure, the feds have 1.5 trillion less to spend. Does that mean that the GDP is going to suddenly shrink by 1.5 trillion? Of course not. The United States economy is not a closed system. If we don't have the 1.5 trillion to spend, raised through increased bond sales, then the money that would have purchased those bonds will have to be deployed elsewhere.
Less capital flowing to the federal government will mean more capital available for private investment. Economy grows, increasing tax revenues, increasing what the federal government can spend. But it will alwasy be limited because they can't issue more debt.
I guess Obama can issue an edict to print money and devalue the currency even faster. That might be too transparent except for his communist base.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
It's Inevitable
Submitted by Samaritan01 on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:17pm.
The Republicans are spineless and they will cave, bet the farm on it!!
they better not
Submitted by ohio granny on Tue, 07/12/2011 - 10:17am.
they better not or they will be on the unemployment line. they better know and understand we are watching and we will not forget!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tony Blankley had some interesting comments regarding
Submitted by Rush Fan on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:26pm.
Major Garrett on last Sunday's CNN Reliable Sources, hosted by Howard Kurtz. The subject was objective journalism.
BLANKLEY: When I was Newt's press secretary, I would seek out the journalists who knew the substance and were trying as hard as they could to report objectively. There's not as many of those reporters and those news organizations around now as there used to be.
If you have the choice between a transcription service, where the media just reports what each side says, and cheerleading, which I think is sometimes we ultimately we get, I'll take transcription over cheerleading, but I prefer journalism over transcription.
Let me give you just one example, and he's a good friend of mine. Major Garrett of today's "National Journal." He's one of the best reporters, he's got a story on this budget, where he leads in the first two paragraphs characterizing Boehner's position to Watergate, because he's standing firm on no taxes.
You have to get down to the 13th paragraph of a 15-paragraph story, before he says the Democrats are just as much to blame for refusing to deal with entitlements as the Republicans are for taxes. So, is that -- Major is one of the best reporters in the business. Is that objective journalism?
-------------------------
The Major Garrett 'objective' article that Tony Blankley referred to is titled Boehner's Backpedal on Debt Ceiling Moves Washington Closer to the Brink.
It makes you wonder how many "fair and balanced' reports Major Garrett did when he was working for FoxNews.
IF YOU VOTED FOR OBAMA IN 2008 TO PROVE YOU'RE NOT A RACIST, YOU MUST VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2012 TO PROVE YOU'RE NOT AN IDIOT.
Ahem
Submitted by Ashrak on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:58pm.
It is not media's fault people voted for Perot.
That responsibility is on GHWB for breaking his own promise.
It is a non sequitur to claim that Clinton won because of Perot. Again, Bush did that to himself. Many who voted for Perot would likely have not voted at all - as opposed to holding their nose and pulling the lever for Bush. The notion that folks "have" to vote for a (D) or an (R) is in the past. While the Perot time may have been the mainstream example noticed most, it was only the start of that recognition.
If Boehner caves, AGAIN, the responsibility for that is on him. The "rank and file" had better take notice of the Pelosi Principle. Many Democrats were tossed because of her and many Republicans may well be too over Boehner. Indeed, it may already be too late to stop that based on caves he has already folded. CRs Libya, GunWalker, Birth Certificate/ Natural Born Citizen, etc etc etc.
Mr. Speaker has an opportunity for redemption. A FIRM no on Obamacare funding, hold the line with NO debt ceiling raise whatsoever and a serious mustering of prosecutions over GunWalker (where the REAL Watergate comparison holds TRUE) will save the Republican Majority and his Speakership. Absent that, the man will be looking for a job along with a large number of other Establishment pubbies in 2013. If he , or they, think it impossible, I guess they forgot the 2006 and 2008 elections.
Why Obama is afraid to cave ...
Submitted by HelloDare on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 11:15pm.
PROGRESSIVE GROUP VOWS TO WITHHOLD SUPPORT FROM OBAMA IF ENTITLEMENTS CUT
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/progressive-group-vows-to-withhold-suppo...
Is President Obama not liberal enough for progressives? If one CNN report is correct, that could in fact be the case. Hailed by MSNBC’s Ed Schultz as the “top progressive group in the country,” The Progressive Change Campaign Committee isn’t too keen on supporting President Obama in 2012 — that is if he decides to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
And according to CNN more than 160,000 of the 700,000 member PCCC have already pledged to withhold support for Obama’s 2012 campaign if he does in fact make such concessions.
The group, whose stated mission is to help “elect bold progressive candidates to federal office” doesn’t seem to think Obama fits into that category.
PCCC co-founder Adam Green theorized that if Obama doesn’t fulfill the requests of his supporters during debt negotiations, he may be more poised to run as an independent in 2012 instead of in the Democratic primary.
An overwhelming majority of Democratic voters oppose cutting Social Security to deal with debt, according to PCCC polling.
“If he’s running as a Democrat, antagonizing the base like that is a pretty bad strategy,” Green told CNN.
HelloDare: Enjoyed it – but respectfully disagree w- your Post
Submitted by Grumpy in Arizona on Tue, 07/12/2011 - 10:13am.
Had to reread your post (and link) several times before coming to the conclusion that the entire argument [on the part of the quoted sources] is just another attempt to camouflage the truth. The Socialists organizations and sympathetic media will stick with the “Supreme Mullah” because they don’t have anywhere else to go.
While your post is encouraging to conservatives in many respects, (IMO) there are too many unreliable sources quoted in the references and link. CNN is not a reliable source, nor is “The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC).”
Thanks for bringing the issue to our attention, and wish I could believe the Dems are being undermined from within… but I’ve fallen for that “hope” once too often.
- Grump :o)
$4.5 Trillion total government revenue coming for 2011.
Submitted by The Vet on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 11:28pm.
Out of a $15 Trillion GDP. Almost a third boys and girls.
Is the problem that sucking 1/3 of the money out of the economy just not enough? The solution is to suck out more?
What in the heck is
Submitted by Boudin on Tue, 07/12/2011 - 7:41am.
Major doing talking to Chrissy? Not a good career move Major
Private Garret..
Submitted by pepperoniprince on Tue, 07/12/2011 - 11:23am.
...is sooo irrelevant. I am glad he defected, showing his true self.