Posted on 02/21/2011 7:17:12 PM PST by Hojczyk
Remember, the budget saga began with Republicans vowing in the Pledge to America to cut $100 billion in discretionary non-defense spending. That’s a token cut — as noted many times here previously, the deficit this year alone will be 15 times that amount — but that was their promise. Then, last week, they backed off it when huge numbers of Republicans joined with Democrats to reject an amendment to add $22 billion in additional cuts to the current number of $60 billion. So the current number is even more token still. But because they’re not prepared to go to the mat even on that puny number, we’re going to swerve again to avoid a game of chicken with Democrats before funding runs out on March 4. Enter the temporary budget fix, which will provide new funds for two weeks to keep things running while they work out a deal for the rest of the year.
Question: What happens after two weeks if there’s still no deal? If Republicans are this terrified of being blamed for a shutdown, why shouldn’t Democrats drive the hardest bargain they can?
News of the negotiations comes a day after several Republican lawmakers indicated they might accept a short-term spending bill as long as it included at least some spending reductions and not necessarily the deeper cuts the House approved last weekend…
“Everyone knows that, no matter what the truth, we would be blamed [for a government shutdown], so it would be a dumb political move,” one House Republican leadership aide told CNN…
“If they send something over with cuts we could probably accept it,” said one Senate Democratic leadership aide…
Rep. Tim Scott. R-South Carolina, a Tea Party-backed freshman who was elected by his colleagues to serve as liaison to the House GOP leadership, told CNN Monday, “the time is short for the Senate to come up with on a long-term solution so we are prepared for a short term conversation on a short term [spending bill].”
Don’t count too heavily on that Democratic leadership aide in thinking that the Senate will accept a short fix with small cuts. Chuck Schumer told the Wall Street Journal that they want no cuts at all in the temporary bill, that Obama’s spending freeze should be good enough. Can’t say I blame him. Why not test the GOP’s mettle on this? They’ve already demoralized the base with last week’s vote. Why not try to force them to cave on the short-term bill and demoralize conservatives even further?
Mind you, this surreal debate about how small cuts should have to be comes in the context of a story in WaPo announcing that federal, state, and local debt now exceeds the total size of the economy. That’s happened before, after World War II, but some of that debt ended up being paid down by a young population during an age of economic growth. Now we’ve got the opposite problem — a lingering recession and an entitlement load from Baby Boomers from which there’s seemingly no escape. The ship is going down, yet even a sum as paltry as $60 billion in cuts is somehow so unimaginable that we need a two-week patch on the budget to give us extra time to weigh whether we should do it. We’re truly doomed.
In other words:
BOHICA
Screw the budget, let the government shut down.
The Speaker should help this person get a new job somewhere else.
No deals.
More house cleaning to do, that is if we make it to another election
We need to elect better Republicans.
It was just one of those Democrat "we'll let thePresident find 5% or 10% somewhere because we can't find anything in particular we don't like" type amendments.
In short, it's not a thing to die for.
REAL cuts are things like DEFUNDING PBS and NPR.
The RATS wouldn’t hesitate to shut the government down or do anything else, for that matter, to get their agenda through.
The Repubs need to toughen up.
Screw ‘em
I’m with ya pal! Shut her down! Since Pres. day is now over we would be looking at like 2 months till the next long weekend. As a govt worker I say shut her down for a week or two so I can break in my new fishing pole :-)
Just remember to pay us back wages when all the kerfumpling is finished.
i think we are all in for a round of “disappointment” as usual.
lots of military retirees will be looking for our paychecks ya know. Contrary to a lot of people’s opinions, not all of us live on a golf course and drink martinis every day. A lot of us live on tight budgets and need those retirement checks to pay our mortgages. My family took a beating in real estate over the last 2 years, and before that lost all our UAL stock when that company tanked. Yeah, flying navy jets and working in the medical hobby shop were a lot more fun than being an old retired fa#t! Now he wears a suit and tie every day and flies a desk (thank the Lord he has a job!) and I homeschool our daughter, help my aging parents (including nursing care), and aid my extended family in any way I can. Find a job? Sure, but I’ve got family depending on me now in other ways than when I used to wear a uniform. Yes, I want the government to stop spending so much da*n money, but I want my retirement check too. Seems to me that we could do a whole lot more to fix this royal mess. He)) yes I’m mad!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.