Red Ink as Far as I can See

Seven months ago I had a dream.

Hoping to capitalize on the overwhelming popular opinion against racking up new debt, I devised the "No More Red Ink" campaign with the notion of inundating House Republicans with hard-copy red letters urging them to stand firm against any hike in the debt limit.

I actually believed that 241 House Republicans, coming off an election that had placed them in the majority, could be persuaded to restore constitutionally limited government in Washington with a simple no-vote on more borrowing.

World Net Daily readers responded to the challenge, sending a very impressive 1.5 million letters to the House Republicans.

Today, however, we can see that the expression of popular opinion was not enough to convince House Republicans to do what they promised to do when they were elected last November.

We're back to business, as usual, in Washington. We're back to red ink as far as the eye can see.

Before I get into the details of the "bipartisan" scandal that is the debt deal shaping up this week, let me explain the historic opportunity that was blown by the Republican House majority. They could have crippled President Barack Obama's administration for the remaining 18 months of his term. They could have forced the deepest cuts in federal spending in the history of the republic. They could have forced the budget to be balanced immediately. They could have forced deep cuts and possibly even the elimination of worthless and unconstitutional agencies and departments like Education, Agriculture, Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency and Homeland Security. They could have forced de-funding of Planned Parenthood, NPR, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and countless foreign wealth transfers. They could have postponed any implementation of Obamacare until it could be dealt with in finality in 2013.

Republican control of the House could have made all that possible with one no-vote on raising the debt limit.

Instead, House Republicans chose to trade away the political nuclear weapon it wielded for a "compromise" plan that calls for massive new unsustainable debt and massive new unsustainable spending.

They did not trade for "cuts," as you have heard. There are no cuts in the plan. Charitably, we could describe what they settled for was reductions in planned increases in spending. But no cuts have been mandated. The federal government will continue, under this plan, to spend more and more, and borrow more and more for the next 10 years.

The House Republicans gave Obama a blank check for the remainder of his first term. They may have also guaranteed him a second term that will bankrupt America once and for all.

Amazingly, they even agreed to allow him to raise the debt limit a second time unilaterally — over the objections of Congress.

They even boxed themselves into a corner by agreeing to have a committee of establishment Republicans and Democrats work on the second phase of proposed spending reductions. If Congress doesn't like the plan this panel comes up with, it will trigger massive, disproportionate cuts in the U.S. military — one of the very few constitutionally justifiable endeavors for the federal government. Obama has already made it known that this committee will be examining not only cuts in proposed spending, but tax increases too!

That's what the Republican leadership in the House and Senate wrought. And this is the record they chose to run on in 2012.

In other words, we don't have two competing parties in Washington. We have one-party governance, totally unresponsive to the will of the people and the rule of law. Republicans and Democrats represent two wings of the same party — both of which, at the end of the day, don't really covet a return to a constitutionally limited government.

Disaster? Catastrophe? Outrage?

Yes, but none of these words even come close to adequately characterizing the betrayal perpetrated by the Republican establishment in Washington over the last few days.

The era of big government is back with a vengeance — apparently here to stay.

There are no limits. There are no restraints. There is no accountability. There is no end to the red ink that extends as far as the eye can see.

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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