So Speaker Boehner decided that the danger of the fiscal cliff destroying the economy was a graver risk than letting Obama and the Democrats collapse America into a statist nightmare of never-ending deficit spending and ever-higher taxes. Tea Party darlings Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist both supported the fiscal cliff deal, and they had some legitimate arguments: taxes were permanently lowered for most Americans, taxes went up only on the rich, and the Tea Party House can use the automatic sequestration, in March, and the coming debt ceiling showdown in February, as leverage to extract spending cuts from the Democrat-controlled Senate and Obama.
But what does it all mean? I think there is no reason why the showdowns to come later this year will be any different from the fiscal cliff, New Year's Day drama. We are headed for a hellish roller coaster ride on which we face dangerous, potentially disastrous duels between the president and the Tea Party House over whether America is headed toward bigger or smaller government.
Obama's ultimate goal is a less free, more state-controlled economy, of which Obamacare was only the beginning. The Tea Party was our best chance at stopping his socialist agenda. But because anxiety and fear are always resented, and the Obama vs. Tea Party House confrontations are portrayed as scary by the mainstream media, the American public will probably come to hate the Tea Party House, and the Tea Party may pay a steep price for brinkmanship in the 2014 Congressional elections.
Who will win in deciding America's future? I think Obama has already won. The Democrats will always use the scarecrow of the supposed disaster that will happen if the federal government shuts down to pressure the House into raising the debt ceiling and ending sequestration. Speaker Boehner, by bringing the Senate deal to a floor vote over the Tea Party's objection, has already proven that he buys this argument. If the federal government's vastly bloated bureaucracy is viewed as "necessary," then the debate over America's future is over before it has begun. Look forward to a coalition of the House Democrats and the “moderate” House Republicans, with the Speaker's help, neutralizing the Tea Party-conservative alliance for the next two years, with truly disastrous results for the United States and our economic policy.
The Tea Party may be able to get some spending cuts, but can it seriously alter the structure of American statism? I doubt it. At this point only a series of electoral victories by the Libertarian Party to give the LP legitimacy would pose a true challenge to the dominance of the American Left, and that seems implausible. The Tea Party consists of good people, but the Republican Party as a whole is too soft to win this duel, and the Tea Party has not yet been able to realize its goal, taking control of the GOP from within.
