Who Will Carry the Banner of Economic Freedom & Prosperity?

For the first time in a couple of decades Congress will give the American people a significant tax hike. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the fiscal cliff deal passed by the Senate in the wee hours of Jan. 1 includes $41 in tax hikes for every $1 in spending cuts. These tax hikes, for which Obama has been incessantly campaigning, fund the government for less than a week each year. Some deal.

Remember when George H.W. Bush said this?

But he did allow tax hikes. And he was not re-elected. As a matter of fact, George H.W. Bush got sent packing for allowing $1 in tax hikes for every $2 in spending cuts. Now we’re supposed to be ok with $41 in tax hikes for every $1 in spending cuts? No, thanks.

And speaking of Bush, Americans For Tax Reform mentions the aforementioned tax hike while pointing out another problem with these trade-off deals: while the tax hikes always take effect, the promised cuts never actually happen. “In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes went through, and we are still paying them today. Not a single penny of the promised spending cuts actually happened.”

U.S. Senate passes fiscal cliff deal 89-8. @senatorsessions voted “yes”, Sen. Shelby voted “no” #alpolitics

— Yellowhammer (@YHPolitics) January 1, 2013

Only 8 Senators voted against today’s fiscal cliff agreement, among them was Alabama’s senior senator Richard Shelby. “I do not support this agreement,” Shelby said. “Our economy needs spending restraint by the federal government and fundamental tax reform that eliminates corporate welfare and lowers individuals’ rates. Instead, this package raises taxes, increases spending, and will lead to more borrowing.”

Others voting against the deal included possible 2016 GOP presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

Alabama’s junior senator, Jeff Sessions, however, voted in favor of the deal. This came as a surprise to some Hill insiders who felt that Sessions had been setting himself up for the last several weeks to vote “no” by hammering leadership from both Parties for orchestrating “back room deals” rather than holding negotiations in the light of day for the American people to see. “This legislation is necessary to prevent a large and painful tax increase from falling on the vast majority of Americans,” Sessions said. “Its enactment will end a long period of uncertainty that would weaken or even reverse economic growth.

Meanwhile on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House was proclaiming victory because they believe they have finally slayed the GOP-anti-tax beast. “It will inevitably make it easier to get [Republicans] on board whenever we ask for new revenues,” (a.k.a. tax hikes) a senior White House official told BuzzFeed, “because they’ve already crossed that threshold.”

It’s hard to disagree with the White House on that.

It’s just about impossible not to characterize this as a victory for the president. But it’s also impossible to characterize this as anything but a loss for the American people, especially the coming generations who continue to have their future mortgaged away by current leaders who are more concerned with the next election than they are the next generation.

Conservatives are getting slaughtered in the messaging war. We hardly have anyone — and definitely no one currently in leadership — who is capable of selling conservatism to the American people.

There was a time in recent memory when conservatives were starting to win the budget war because we had framed the debate around the undeniable need for deep and sustained spending cuts. Even Democrats were talking about the need for cuts.

That time has now passed.

It’s time for a new generation of conservatives to rise up and carry the banner of economic freedom and prosperity. We’ve created a government so big that even the wealthiest nation in human history can’t afford it, and this fiscal cliff deal is yet another opportunity lost to get government spending under control.