Cut, Cap and Balance: Seven Reasons the GOP Must Hold the Line

Republicans must stand. Here. Now.

by Rod D. Martin
July 27, 2011

The passage of “Cut, Cap and Balance” in the House of Representatives is a game-changer. It is also the ground on which the GOP must stand, fight and win, especially now that a July 18-21 CNN poll shows that two-thirds of Americans support the House’s approach.

Cut, Cap and Balance allows the debt limit to increase by $2.4 trillion, but only after an equivalent amount in spending cuts are agreed to. That’s a pretty “balanced approach” by any reasonable standard, especially when you consider that the envisioned cuts are barely over half the debt Obama has run up since 2009. But it also requires congressional passage of a balanced-budget amendment, of the sort that helps 49 states stay out of Washington’s kind of trouble, before the debt ceiling may be raised.

To Obama and the Democrats, this is extremism. “Moderation” is the “Gang of Six” alternative that raises taxes by over $1.2 trillion — in the midst of a high-unemployment recession — and makes nebulous p…