Debt Ceiling Compromise Weakens Obama, Empowers Tea Party

COMMENTARY | The debt ceiling agreement has been struck between President Obama and congressional leaders almost at the last minute and is expected to pass both houses of the Congress and be signed into law literally at the last minute.

The text of the bill is 74 pages long, short by comparison to other bills that have been passed by the Congress with a deadline looming. CNS News has a summary of the bill, which includes the immediate spending cuts, the raising of the debt ceiling in stages, the 12-person commission to find more spending cuts, the trigger mechanism for cuts in case the commission fails and the mandate for a vote on the balanced budget amendment.

The debt ceiling agreement is one of those horrible compromises that makes no one happy but may be better than no deal at all. The left hates the deal because there are no tax increases (at least immediately). The right hates it because it cuts too much from defense, does not solve the entitlement problem, does not reform the tax code and might allow the commission to try to raise taxes and cut defense to cover the extra deficit reduction.

President Barack Obama is wounded, perhaps mortally. His behavior throughout the wrangling has been feckless and his low poll numbers have shown it. His own liberal base is now unhappy with him, weakening his support going into the 2012 election. Most everyone else is unhappy with him as well, for putting the country through the trauma of a possible default. The probable downgrading of American debt is not likely to help either.

The tea party is not likely to be very happy with the results of the agreement nor should they be. The question arises about what it does about it. If the tea party decides that the Republicans are irredeemable and decide to go third party, then President Obama can expect another four years to run the country into the ground. However if the tea party decides to redouble its efforts to elect a true conservative majority in the Congress and a conservative president, then the political balance of power in the United States will have shifted profoundly and permanently.

Much depends on whether there will be a candidate around which the tea party can rally. This will be an opportunity for, say, Sarah Palin or perhaps Rick Perry, if they want it.