Jalen Rose Quotes
You never get what you deserve; only what you have the leverage to negotiate.
Rose, Jalen. Got to Give the People What They Want: True Stories and Flagrant Opinions from Center Court. Crown Archetype, 2015.
Boehner’s Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. However the Democrats controlled the Senate and Obama, the president, was a Democrat. So while Boehner could block any legislation, he could not pass legislation that the Republicans wanted. So the speaker resorted to the tactic of holding for ransom import legislation unless the President and the Democrats would pass legislation that the majority of the public and the Democrats were against. In this case it was the debt ceiling limit. The United States spends money authorized by Congress and then has to pay the bills. When the country is growing, the government has to borrow money in order to meet its obligations and pay bills. Congress must authorize the increase in the debt limit. Boehner held the debt limit hostage until Obama would agree to spending cuts that were unpopular with the majority. A problem for the Republicans with this strategy however was that the government would not have enough money to pay the regular bills and the government would have to slow down. This was considered a most unpatriotic thing to do and one would put the United States full faith and credit at risk. Republicans justified it on the grounds that spending money as the government was doing was worse and therefore it requires extreme measures. This was not the only occasion where a political party put its ideology ahead of the welfare if the nation as a whole. But in those few past occasions the party doing this was not overt about it, and could never be accused of blackmailing. What made this quotation remarkable was that it was the first time that the politician was very explicit about the blackmail strategy. President Obama actually caved in a bit and compromised and reduced spending so the debt ceiling was raised. Earlier, President Clinton had the same tactic tried on him but he let the Government shut down, and after a few days, The political heat on the Republicans were so great that they had to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government.
Jalen Anthony Rose is an American former professional basketball player, current sports analyst for ESPN, and cofounder of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy. In college, he was a member of the University of Michigan Wolverines' "Fab Five" (along with Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson) that reached the 1992 and 1993 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship games as both freshmen and sophomores. Rose played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a small forward for six teams, most notably alongside Reggie Miller on the Indiana Pacers team that made three consecutive Eastern Conference finals, including the 2000 NBA Finals. Currently, he co-hosts the after-noon ESPN talk show, Jalen & Jacoby, with co-host, David Jacoby.
