Palin: Americans did not get what they wanted in budget compromise

Congressional leaders agreed late Friday to a compromise that will keep the federal government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year and averted a government shutdown. Many are now analyzing the 11th-hour spending deal, and looking ahead as Congress irons out the details of the long-term plan.

Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News’ Justice with Judge Jeanine on Saturday night and was asked if she thought the Tea Party was happy about the budget compromise.

Palin said, “Well, what the tea party wants is for government to be smaller and smarter. So, you know, when you consider that we just saw an increase in government spending by about 28% and saw a little chip out of that to the tune of 1%, I would say that no, the tea party and Americans in general who are concerned about the fiscal health of our country did not get what they wanted. We have a lot of work to do to help educate Congress when it comes to the expectations that we have when we send our politicians to D.C. to do the job of making sure that our country is solvent.”

Things will certainly get interesting next week as the debate begins over raising the debt ceiling, the amount of money Congress allows the U.S. government to borrow. The current debt ceiling is about $14.3 trillion, a figure that should be reached within the next five weeks, according to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. To avoid possible default, Congress must decide on whether they should increase the debt ceiling by $1 trillion. Republican lawmakers say they will not vote for it unless the Democrats agree to significant spending cuts.

I really liked Karl Rove’s analogy he gave Monday afternoon on Fox News. Rove compared it to a family’s credit card. When a family exceeds their credit limit, you don’t go out and get another card. You cut that credit card up and work on your debt. That’s exactly what Congress needs to do. Instead of increasing the debt ceiling and heading further into debt, why don’t they focus on spending cuts? Many are worried that if you don’t raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will default on its loans and the economy will collapse. However, on Justice with Judge Jeanine, Palin stated that she doesn’t think the economy will collapse since the government takes in about 6 billion dollars a day.

Palin said, “Raising the debt limit just shows you that there really is no true limit to the debt that our politicians are willing to incur. They’re going to keep digging, and digging, and digging this hole that we are in until Americans tell them to stop and to get us off this road towards bankruptcy. The only way we do that is to draw a line in the sand and we say “no, we’re not going to increase this debt limit. No more.”

Hopefully Congress confronts the reality that the federal government is still spending more than it takes in and listens to the polls in the last few months that suggest most Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling. (here’s some here and here.) It’s time to cut spending and as Palin suggests, “Everything is fair game.”

Palin continued, “Nothing should be off-we can’t afford to take anything off the table. We have to make sure that national defense is fully funded. That’s number one. And from there, put everything on the table and make some good choices and good priorities in where the dollars should go.”
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As published on Examiner.com