Conservative Perspective on the Recent United States Fiscal Compromise

           Now that the implementation of the individual mandate of the federalization of health insurance has begun, a better perspective on the bipartisan, bicameral fiscal compromise reached last month between the United States Congress and President Barack Obama can be observable.   

The deal authorizes federal spending, including to implement the plan, by extending the continuing resolution that funds the federal government, thereby ending the partial shutdown.  It also increases the debt ceiling, which allows the government to borrow more to fund its current deficit-spending.

The impasse had saved conservatives in Congress from having to vote to fund the health insurance plan, to which they object on both moral and fiscal grounds, but politically, because they were unfairly blamed for the shutdown, the deal was a loss for the Republicans.  See also my post from last month, Federal Government Shutdowns are Partial, Routine and Bipartisan, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2013/10/federal-government-shutdowns-are.html.  Despite criticisms by liberal politicians, the media and others that the shutdown would be fiscally costly, it has been attributable for a lower than projected deficit for October, which is a fiscal consolation for conservatives.  Most congressional conservatives did not vote in favor of the deal, thereby maintaining their principles.

In terms of policy, however, the deal was partly successful for conservative Republicans, despite the compromise on terms largely favorable to the liberal Democrats.  Although the Republicans, who control only the House of Representatives, had hoped to achieve much more, such as spending cuts to offset the increase in the debt ceiling or to defund Obama’s health insurance plan or to make other changes to the plan to federalize health insurance, such as eliminating the Legislative Branch’s self-exemption from the plan, the GOP did gain one concession: protections against fraudulent applications for one of the plan’s programs, which had been completely absent in the plan.  Without the protections, more and more people would easily become dependents on government, whether they were poor or not.  At least the spending will not increase as much as it otherwise would have because of the solitary concession won by conservatives.

The concession is significant not only because it will save money and limit the expansion of government, but because Obama had insisted on no preconditions, especially in regard to his health insurance plan, to his demands of continuing to fund the federal government without reducing spending and raising the debt ceiling.  In this sense, he lost on principal, as the Republicans were able to salvage the congressional leverage inherent in the requirement of congressional approval of increases in the debt ceiling, which Democrats sought to end by allowing the debt to increase by executive will.  Therefore, while the Republicans made a compromise from a position of weakness that appeared to have gained them little at a high political cost, as they conceded the larger matters of the deficit, debt and health insurance, they did not cave on principal, in contrast to the Democrats, despite the stronger position of the latter. 

Furthermore, the Democrats, too, had hoped to achieve even more, such as ending the federal sequestration that has helped reduce the deficit significantly.  Moreover, any deal that includes any spending cuts without raising taxes, as some liberal Democrats had sought, is at least a philosophical victory for conservatism, even if the deal increases spending overall.  In this case, it is important to remember that spending would have increased and the debt had been raised anyway had conservatives not objected in the first place and opposed funding the federal government without spending reductions or reforms to the health insurance plan. 

The implementation of the federalization of health insurance had begun at the time of the federal shutdown and the fiscal deal.  Although conservatives had hoped to use the fiscal controversy as a means to draw attention to problems inherent with the plan, in some ways the fiscal crisis distracted public attention from the problems initially, some of which would only become more apparent afterward.  Now that these problems have become obvious to everyone, the Democrats are the ones who are suffering politically more than the GOP.  Indeed, conservatives who made their objections to “Obamacare” central in the fiscal controversy have already been vindicated, as the public can now see more clearly why they had warned about the problems of the plan.