By Sam Stone
GOP voters have plenty of reasons not to trust our leaders in Washington. For decades, Republican elected officials have overpromised and underdelivered. Actually, “underdelivered” is too kind. Congressional and Senate Republicans have repeatedly surrendered, given up, and left the field for Democrats. And while the debt ceiling fight was not the hill to die on, the consistent refusal of D.C. Republicans to even fight, much less die, on any hill has shattered trust in the Party, fueled intra-party divides, and put our entire country at risk of financial collapse.
Every cycle, we’re told that if we just elect one or two more Republicans, that everything will be better. In 2010, GOP leaders told us they needed the House and spending would be brought under control. Voters delivered, our politicians didn’t. Instead, they told us they needed the Senate, too. So in 2014 voters delivered control of the Senate to Republicans as well. And, once again, the politicians failed. They told us they couldn’t rein in spending without the White House. In 2016, we gave them control of that, too. For the next two years, with control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in hand and decades of promises waiting on the sidelines, Republican elected officials again failed to deliver. Two decades of hard-core budget hawking promises went down the tubes. Government got bigger. The deficit expanded. Somehow, despite all the time, effort and money Republican activists had poured into winning the field, it was Democrats who won. Again.
Given that history, it’s easy to understand why Republican voters and activists are disheartened at the failure of our elected officials to stand their ground once again in the debt ceiling fight. But that’s a mistake. Officials who voted for the debt ceiling increase did the right thing, even if they or we didn’t get what we wanted from the deal, because the consequences of a debt ceiling default would have permanently harmed the United States. First, it wouldn’t have reduced our debt, it would have exploded it. The U.S. currently borrows money at the lowest rates in the world. We’re able to do that because U.S. Treasury Bonds have always been 100% reliable. Take that away by defaulting on our debt and we’d end up paying vastly more interest on the money we already owe, more than enough to erase any gains we might have made holding out for a better deal. Second, it would hasten the replacement of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. Americans have a substantially higher standard of living due to the dollar’s standing as the world reserve currency. Take that away, and it’s effectively like a 15% across-the-board tax increase on every single American regardless of total income. Put it simply: when the U.S. is no longer the world’s reserve currency, the quality of life of Americans will go down. Had we defaulted, that would have happened immediately. Put simply, preserving the full faith and credit of the United States is more important than any gains that could have been made in this situation.
But if the “full faith and credit” of the United States is too dangerous a hill to die on, when can and should we expect our elected officials to put themselves on the line and make a stand? In the budget negotiations. Because the full faith and credit of the United States will still be at risk, and almost certainly be defaulted on in the near future unless we get our out-of-control spending tamped down. That crisis is still with us, still hanging over our heads, and it won’t go away unless Republicans make it go away and own the libs in the best and only way that actually means anything: by defunding them. And any Republican who isn’t willing to die on that hill needs to replaced. All of them. If Speaker McCarthy even hints at wavering, he needs to be tossed out of leadership. No hesitation. And anyone who fails to stand firm, even in the face of united DeMediacrat opposition, needs to be run out of office on the end of a pitchfork. Shut it down. Let the ink-stained Marxist stool pigeons squawk and AOC’s Squadron of Useful Fools scream all they want. Shut it down, and keep it shut down until you get the cuts. No negotiation. The left and their media lapdogs are going to call us all terrorists regardless. Be the econ-terrorists they fear.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Sam Stone only and not his co-host Chuck Warren or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.