Posted on 01/16/2014 3:15:25 PM PST by SkyPilot
This week's spending-bill fight revealed deepening fractures within the GOP, spelling trouble for 2016.
Imagine the ground is splitting open beneath your feet. The rocking plates of earth slowly spread apart, and you're left straddling both sides to keep from falling in.
That is how some of the most publicly visible GOP lawmakers are feeling right now. They must choose whose side they're on: establishment Republicans or the far-right flank.
Ultraconservative groups are furious over the omnibus appropriations package that coasted through the Republican-led House on Wednesday. The bill, which would fund the government for the rest of the year, is expected to pass the Senate later this week, but conservatives are not done pushing back. They have put the Grand Old Party's most vocal members on the defensive on budget issues, and they're not mincing their words.
"I have often been proud to be a GOP-er, sometimes embarrassed, but never until today ashamed," said influential conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt during a heated interview with House Budget Committe Chairman and usual conservative darling Paul Ryan this week. For Hewitt, the most offending part of the spending bill is a 1 percentage point cut to annual cost-of-living increases, which translates into a pension cut that would affect active-duty members.
"If you think that I wanted to do this or enjoy doing this, that's not true," Ryan told Hewitt of the budget cuts. "Had Mitt [Romney] and I won that election, this would not be required. This would not be necessary." He added later, "Now do I want to do this? Did I think this was a great thing to do and what we needed to do? No, course not," he went on. Ryan did, of course, vote for the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
You don’t have to be ultra conservative to be unhappy with the GOP screwing the veterans.
By “Ultraconservative” this hack means the republican base which represents probably a quarter of all voters.
“Ultraconservative”
The prefix “ultra” must mean “we don’t like them”.
RINO Ryan; RINO Cantor; RINO Boner; RINO Graham; RINO McCain; and the list goes on. They service each other while our troops and veterans get screwed over!
Apparently, weightlifting doesn’t guarantee spinal integrity.
Um, maybe because he isn’t acting like a conservative? Trying to sell us a budget increase as a cut? Allowing vet affairs to be chopped while doing NOTHING to stop Obamacare? No tears from me.
A lot of us considered him to be somewhat suspect all along.
Why is it “ultra” conservative to think that continuing to throw trillions of tax dollars down the drain is a fair deal?
Too bad Ryan chose to end his political career. Clown.
See, they're projecting. They pick their guy, usually just by checking for the approved letter after the name, and then they're done for life. No matter what the guy does, it's OK because they vetted him by checking the letter. They encounter someone with principles and don't know how to parse it.
FReep You Paul Ryan (FUPR)!!
What’s Ryan done that’s Conservative????
Who can respect a Republican who let Patty Murray roll him under her boots.
Leftist agitprop.
Just because we want the govt to quit borrowing and spending outrageous amounts that we can never pay back? And we believe that our military personnel richly deserve every penny and should get everything they've earned, we're labeled the 'far right flank' and 'ultra conservatives'?
Screw these people.... That goes double for you Ryan, you phony jerk.
You sound like a hobbit [/ Mcbackstabber mode], or possibly a racist! [/ Osama mode]
Ultra conservative is liberal code for crazy right wing whack job. I stopped reading at that word even tho the title was enough to signal that the article was garbage anyway.
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