Republicans in Congress are not yet ready to utter the word 'compromise,' but most have finally realized that unless they act in the spirit of that notion, their long-term prospects for winning national elections will continue to look more like a long shot.
The Washington Post's Katleen Parker said that there isn't much
public interest in the budget, and nor should there be. It should be
something that Congress simply gets down without much fanfare. The reality is that it had gotten to a point where they couldn't even compromise enough to do budgetary housekeeping.
However, with the support of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) anchored the creation of a bi-partisan budget deal with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). The compromise budget served as a small, but very significant, step in body's attempt to reestablish trust with the American people and elevate a nine percent approval rating.
In more practical terms, what is does do is eliminate the possibility of a government shutdown for two years, a legislative stick in the eye of the tea party caucus who no longer have leverage to irrationally tank the world economy if they do not get everything that they want. We get at least two years of peace as far as shutdowns go; call it a well-needed extended break. Merry Christmas to us.
At the end of this clip, a reporter asks Mr. Boehner if he's telling these Tea Party Outside Interest Group to stand down, and he replies, "I don't care what they do," meaning that whatever they do, he'll challenge the credibility of it.
But let's not get too excited that this is going to start some new era of cooperation... please. We have a long way to go before this civil war in the Republican Party plays itself out. The next major battle will be the Republican Congressional primary races in 2014.
Tea Party groups, as it has been reported, have heavily criticized the budget deal and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) stated that 'as an American he could not vote for it,' something that Mr. Gregory had to correct himself on, because the compromise with Democrats was that there would be some sequester relief.
But in the end, the deal is a Republican win because even though it's modest. There is a net deficit reduction as Mr. Ryan pointed out. This helps Establishment Republicans because now they can say we worked with the other side and we got more of what we wanted than Democrats did. And Democrats should be more than willing to do these kinds of deals right now to help Establishment Republicans regain rationality within their party. Something that will move this process along that was mentioned by Governor Richardson during the round table discussion was that Jon Podesta, President Clinton's former Chief of Staff, has been working in the White House and communicating with Congress to facilitate these kinds of compromises, and to straighten out a disfunctional operation that is the Obama Administration.
As Senator Murray pointed out, Congress had created some much uncertainty in the business community with a governing-by-crisis approach that it rendered the prospects for real growth very dim. With all interested parties knowing all too well of this reality, Mr. Ryan, under cover fire from the House Speaker, worked out a compromise.
However, speaking about what Congress knows and doesn't, it doesn't seem like it knows much when it comes to surveillance, spying, and the NSA's data gathering.
Former head of the NSA and CIA, General Michael Hayden said that he agreed with the proposal to overhaul the parameters in which the NSA can gather information on U.S. citizens, but how do you put that genie back in the bottle? He said that he hasn't seen any abuse in the NSA's gathering of information, but could see the potential for abuse. The General is speaking in terms of what the courts have authorized, but what about the abusive nature of the intelligence gathering itself that has been brought to light by Edward Snowden? A debate as to whether the NSA should have this authority couldn't have happened due to the power of the Patriot act so really there is no dismantling of the surveillance state at this point. And to regulate it, legislators have to know the full extent of the program which they do not... Plausible deniability is political bliss.
General Hayden talked about the need for a discussion on the cultural understanding of privacy, but what he was really saying is that we need to redefine what, in fact, privacy is.
Round Table: Former New Mexico Gov. and ambassador Bill Richardson, TIME magazine
Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker
and Nation Public Radio’s Steve Inskeep
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