David Karki

Congressional Republicans and President Obama agreed on a deal that will preserve current income tax levels for two more years. Contrary to the big lie being spewed by the lamestream media in its role as propaganda machine for the DNC, this was not a “tax cut” deal but a deal to prevent a tax hike. Nothing gets lowered,  no one is going to be paying less because this was done; all that happens is a whole lot of people don’t have to pay a whole lot more in taxes when the economy is already deeply in recession.

It’s merely the preservation of the status quo, save for the estate tax coming back in part (35% of estates above $5 million, rather than no tax) and unemployment insurance finally being something less than perpetual and eternal.

Of course, the only reason that we’re even having this discussion at all is because the Democrats’ insistence on the Bush tax cuts being temporary in order to agree to pass them at all a decade ago. They’re expiring on January 1, and thanks to the Democrats’ unconscionable dereliction of duty in trying to run out the clock in hopes that they could get an automatic trillion-dollar tax increase by doing nothing, we’re facing the last-second avoidance of that increase – and all the economy-killing disincentives it would cause – in the form of this deal.

So Obama, the Democrats, their base, and the media can whine and cry all they want; they are the ones who created this situation.  And they are the ones who insisted on having a lame-duck session in hopes of cramming more liberal stuff through after voters had already unelected so many of their ranks, without which this issue would have to be H.R. 1 under the new Congress with a GOP House.

In short, the Democrats sowed the seeds of their own demise on this and they have no one and nothing to blame but themselves and their wrong ideas.

For their part, the GOP got a small “win” on this, presuming the mere preservation of the status quo and not letting things get worse can be considered a win. But it’s nothing to crow about. It ratifies the erroneous and un-American principle that people should be paid to do nothing for long stretches of time, as well as disincentivizes the initiative to end that arrangement. And having an estate tax of any kind is inherently immoral, but better to have it come back only halfway than roar back in full. They can always pass permanent estate tax repeal when they have the House in January.

Furthermore, just staving off an enormous tax increase isn’t near enough. The GOP needs to advocate for real tax cuts (seeing as the lying media thinks any tax level not infinity is a “cut,” might as well make truth-tellers out of them for once) and substantial spending cuts. With the Senate still in Democrat hands and Obama in the White House, they’re not going to get them, of course, but that game will be the pre-season warm-up to 2012’s Super Bowl. And the GOP needs big-time practice in playing politics-as-bloodsport the way the Democrats do, seeing how that election year is aligning:

•  Obama is up for re-election with a now-infuriated base, as evidenced by his infantile, hyper-partisan temper tantrum of a press conference that was wholly beneath the office he holds. He did that solely to suck up to them and keep them from bolting, though I’ve no doubt he believes every bit of Marxist class-warfare bilge he spewed.

•  The Senate is up for grabs with the Democrats defending many more seats and this deal is expiring in two years, thus guaranteeing the subject will be revisited during the homestretch of the campaign for every single one of them. It can be used as a wedge issue to either separate Democratic Senators from their already disillusioned base or lose them the independent center.

• Nothing of consequence will get done the next two years, as partisan gridlock shuts down Washington. As this deal showed, any compromises will send at least one and often both parties’ bases into apoplexy.

As such, everything will be on the table in the 2012 election year, and we’ll be that much closer to $70 trillion in debt and entitlement obligations hitting the fan with that much less time to avoid total meltdown. It will be the textbook definition of a “must-win”.

We know what Democrats will do, playing their usual tired class-envy wealth-redistribution card and having their media buddies scream it loud enough for the entire planet to hear. The question is whether the GOP is ready to fight that, and in turn fight what amounts to a political civil war to save the nation as we know it. We’ve seen how committed the Democrats are to what they believe, how ready and willing they are to go to whatever lengths are necessary to implement it; will the GOP wake up and see that these are not colleagues to be gotten along with but opponents to be defeated, by whatever honorable means are required?

This small deal and the left’s angry reaction to it are but a small taste of what is to come should the GOP knuckle down and really fight to reverse the damage the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime has inflicted. They will open up with both barrels and feel no compunction whatsoever for it. Having seen the bad consequences of the Democrats’ policies and knowing what we all shall face should we fail, how can we not fully return fire?

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