One of the greatest influences on my understanding as a conservative comes from Dr. Thomas Sowell. One of the few voices of the original conservative movement left, he has always laid out the case for limited government and the free market in economics. While people flock to the vitriolic blogs for their red meat, it falls to those like Dr. Sowell to actually make sure the conservative movement retains ideological coherence.
That is why I view his latest column important. Yesterday I had a discussion with a Tea Party advocate who claimed Dr. Sowell opposes not only the Boehner plan, but raising the debt ceiling at all. Being a student of Dr. Sowell's work, I was skeptical. I had reason to.
In the article, Sowell savages those conservatives who oppose the Boehner plan, and offers some timeless political wisdom. He recognizes, like everyone else, that you can't get everything you want in an imperfect world. Being unable to obtain the perfect, you then have to weigh your options against the competing goods. Simply liking something does not mean being able to obtain it. That isn't being a "sell-out." A sell-out is a complete abandoning of your previous worldview, and adopting the opposite. Calculating how to accomplish a goal is a nasty business. Some purists might not like it, but it isn't a sell-out.
A second major point is something that should be obvious but isn't: We live in a republic that has a democracy. A republic is built around an innate fear of one man amassing too much power. To limit that ability, structural checks are placed upon the leader. Two of those structural checks are elected by the popular vote. Due to the checks placed upon any one man (or group) becoming too powerful, you are forced to negotiate and compromise to enact something. The best legislative victories are those which move the country closer to the perfect ideal you advocate, yet still maintain a chance of passing.
The idea of not raising the debt ceiling is not an option. As much as Tea Partier's might hate to hear it, Cap, Cut, and Balance is not an option either. A balanced budget amendment doesn't solve a problem outright, and would take years to get enacted. What would we do until that point? Of equal anathema to conservatives are tax increases in both the realm of principle and practice. (Seriously, who really wants to raise taxes right now in this kind of economy?) Even though tax reform couldn't happen (and who seriously though it would during this debate), Republicans still scored a victory by removing tax increases from the table.
Those Tea Party members advocating opposition to the Boehner plan have no credible alternative. As mentioned before, CCB can't pass the Senate, and doesn't actually solve the problem. The idea you can force the executive branch to prioritize payments in a default to your liking is folly. If your default position is indeed default, then you are adopting what Dr. Sowell calls a "rule or ruin" philosophy. If you can't have all the power, you will do your best to ensure nobody has any power. When people act this way, they don't last very long in politics.
The final point made by Dr. Sowell is again something that should be obvious: there is a world of difference between the priorities of Rush Limbaugh and a Congressman. Rush Limbaugh first and foremost is worried about ratings. Any idiot can go on the air and spout conservative platitudes. (Indeed, turn on talk radio and you will hear precisely that more often than not.) It takes someone with true talent to make these views marketable. Yet it also requires being "principled" in taking absolutely no compromise ever. Who is going to turn into someone who advocates anything other than equating Barrack Obama as a mix between Sauron, Darth Vader, and Barney? Rush Limbaugh can safely do what he feels the need to do without worry. People won't vote him off EIB because they disagree with him.
Yet a Congressman can lose an election. If you want to detonate America's economy simply to make a point, voters will want to make an equally forceful point in the next election. Their priorities are about winning elections and advancing their ideologies. You can't do the latter without the former. The Tea Party was sent to Washington to act like adults as well as be stricter guardians of our finances.
This they have achieved. Who would've thought 2 years ago that going into the final stretch of his Presidency, we would have a Republican House and Democrats would officially abandon their love with high tax rates? Yet it has happened. In addition, we are actually cutting spending. We all wish it were more, but there are actual cuts, and those cuts magnify over the future as a smaller pie is available due to baseline changes.
Given the small amount of Tea Party members, that's quite an achievement. Yet they cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good. If they do so, they will deserve everything they get, and Republicans will suffer greatly.
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