Posted on 02/12/2013 6:21:24 AM PST by cotton1706
Washington’s latest budget rumpus is perhaps best understood as a Western in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plays a Nevada buckaroo ranch foreman charged with driving the House Republicans back to the Oval Office corral for deficit talks with President Barack Obama.
Speaker John Boehner bolted before Christmas and is now threatening to let across-the-board spending cuts go into effect March 1. Reid must cut Boehner off at the pass and steer him back to the president, who left $600 billion in entitlement savings on the table in December.
There’s a bit of serendipity to this script: Reid’s camp says he only fell into his role. But it is timely with Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, and it helps explain the bill being drafted by the Senate Democrats to forestall the March cuts with a mix of new revenues and savings.
Final details have not been released, but the goal is to come up with enough deficit reduction to secure a seven-to-10-month window in which a larger deal with the White House — including entitlement savings and at least corporate tax reform — could be implemented.
To get past March, farm subsidies would be reduced; millionaires taxed under a new 30 percent minimum levy first popularized by billionaire Warren Buffett. And while defense spending would still be cut under the Democratic bill, the reductions are less severe than the across-the-board sequester that threatens to wreak havoc with military operations and readiness.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Reid does not at all like regular legislative order i.e. House passes a bill sends it to the senate, senate passess a bill then the House and Senate go to Conference to come up with one bill to send to the president.
The House conservatives gave John Boehner his job back and are holding his feet to the fire: NO MORE NEGOTIATING WITH THE PRESIDENT! REGULAR CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER!
Reid hates this. The senate can come up with all the ideas it wants but cannot act on its own. The House would have to pass a revenue bill and send it to the senate for them to be able to act. The senate right now is powerless. Senators can bluster all they want but can do nothing.
The sequester should happen. Its minimal. It's actual spending cuts (really it's reductions in spending increases) and democrats hate any department, agency, bureau, or program to not be increased by their arbitrary figure.
And yet Republicans Senators regularly sell out...they all go to the same cocktail parties.
Boehners strategy must be working not to negotiate with the idiot.
On CNBC some spokesman for the wh was practically begging for Boehner to negotiate with the idiot.
Let Reid do his job
Their scheme in this one seems to be to pass some kind of Buffett minimum tax for the rich idea.
It's getting late in the game and the Dems and media like Politico seem to be scrambling. Only a couple of weeks left...not much time for them to come up with a demogogue strategy to avoid sequester.
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