Amidst the noise that passes for discourse these days, the role of Idaho’s “Two Mikes” as national leaders on deficit reduction hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.
Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Mike Simpson are abandoning GOP orthodoxy to join hands with Democrats to find the only realistic solution: cutting entitlement spending and reforming taxes in a way that means new revenue.
Crapo was a member of the 2010 deficit commission that built a framework for a lasting solution and has tirelessly sustained the effort as a member of the bipartisan “Gang of Six.” Simpson came later to the game, but his partnership with Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., persuaded 100 House members last month to touch their political parties’ third rails.
Wise men — from Secretary of State Ben Ysursa to political scientist Jim Weatherby — could cite no previous example of two members of Idaho’s tiny congressional delegation playing leading roles on the major issue of a generation. “It takes a lot of guts in this highly toxic anti-tax environment,” said Weatherby.
“It’s the only truly large-scale bipartisan effort that has taken place in this Congress, and to have it being substantially led on the Republican side by two Idahoans is of huge significance,” said former Idaho Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick, a prominent deficit hawk since his failed 1996 run for U.S. Senate against GOP Sen. Larry Craig.
I called Minnick after hearing Craig’s longtime Chief of Staff Greg Casey tell the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho on Thursday that Crapo and Simpson have been underappreciated at home. Casey calls them heroes. “I’m extremely proud of them,” he told a crowd of 300 business people, legislators and lobbyists, who replied with applause.
“It takes courage and vision to put yourself in a difficult position politically for the good of the country,” Casey told me.
A Boise kid, Casey has climbed the ladder of power in Washington, D.C., for 27 of the past 31 years. A former sergeant at arms of the U.S. Senate, he runs the country’s largest grass-roots business group, the Business Industry Political Action Committee.
The Mikes vow to press on, after the failure of the less-than-super supercommittee. “Once you’ve cast your lot with the extraordinary process rather than the party process, there’s no coming back,” Casey said.
Casey helped found Fiscally Sound America, a new bipartisan group of former lawmakers that includes Minnick and two other Idaho Democrats, Larry LaRocco and Richard Stallings. They have hope Crapo and Simpson will be part of a solution before the 2012 election — even as President Obama and Establishment congressional leaders in both parties seem content to do nothing and make finger-pointing a campaign theme.
“The leadership in Congress may well come from the middle from people like them,” LaRocco said. “Everything else has failed and the inmates are going to have to take over the asylum.”
Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, told Casey she had emailed Crapo a note of gratitude and planned to do the same for Simpson, who faces the uncertainty of the first closed GOP primary May 15. “I thought it was very, very risky,” said Jaquet, who served under Republican Simpson and calls him a mentor. “But he’s always been a leader.”
Tea party leaders are calling Simpson names, though their standard-bearer in the 2010 primary won just 24 percent of the vote even after Simpson’s vote for the Wall Street bailout bill.
Ysursa said the closed primary is a wild card but that both Mikes are sticking out their necks without regard to re-election. “They realize there are decisions that have to be made today to make sure we remain the country we are as far as our economy and our standing.”
Ysursa said it’s no coincidence both served as the top officials of the Idaho Legislature — Crapo as Senate president pro tem and Simpson as House speaker. “They have a habit of following the constitutional mandate to balance a budget.”
Like Casey, Minnick says he’s confident a solution will be reached — because collective insanity is ultimately not an option.
“If it’s not satisfactorily resolved,” said Minnick, “it will put in jeopardy the economy and the political future of the country in the same way that the crisis of confidence is playing out in multiple European countries right now.”
Dan Popkey: 377-6438
