Posted on 02/19/2011 2:44:40 AM PST by sunmars
In a rare early morning weekend vote, the House approved an aggressive plan Saturday to eliminate dozens of federal programs and offices while slashing agency budgets by as much as 40 percent, drawing out more than $60 billion in deficit savings.
Setting up a showdown early next month with President Obama and Senate Democrats, House Republicans pushed the legislation through after a marathon debate capped off by an all-night session Friday that spilled into Saturday morning. During the bleary-eyed final roll call at 4:35 a.m., 235 Republicans were joined by no Democrats in support of dramatic spending reductions that they said were needed to address a soaring annual deficit of $1.6 trillion; 189 Democrats -- as well as three Republicans -- opposed it, accusing Republicans of writing the bill with a "double meat ax."
For Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), it marked an early political victory as his newly empowered GOP troops lived up to a 2010 campaign pledge to trim spending levels to those before the 2008 financial crisis caused an unprecedented level of government spending and intervention into the private economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They call that small a number dramatic? I consider a trillion to be dramatic.
This is a little bitty piece of a large Iceberg...Ryan plans much much more....
That’s true, and the Republican campaign promise was just the $100 billion. Now that they have checked that box, they can start building the siege machinery to do the big cuts.
Flake said it is not enough.
Campbell was on Hewitt’s show Friday and said he would vote no because the cuts weren’t anywhere near large enough.
Don’t know about Flake but I suspect the same thing with him.
Well, it’s a start with small steps, but it’s all meaningless until we get the biggies under control — Medicare, Medicaid, SS, and the military.
We need to bring these soldiers home, put them on the borders.
We need to demolish social security, M nd M.
Unless we hit these two, the rest of it is just window dressing.
Yeah, and try accomplishing this nation of morons who can’t work, don’t save, don’t care, and continuously wait for the day they can hold their hands out and get their “due.”
What we need in our country is a radical change to our thought processes — that you work now and SAVE for yourself. No one is going to come in and “save” YOU.
Must have been so nice to have been a beneficiary of this great society plan ... the rest of us are on the short end of the stick now.
It's like the old lawyer joke..."a good start."
Now I'm waiting for the news conference with our guys announcing a new website where the public can provide feedback and ideas for further cuts. I'll bet we could knock their socks off.
Pragmatism and public relations, THAT'S the ticket.
they need to cut hundreds of billions not tens of billions
What’s dramatic is the headline and their lack of giving a rat’s @ss:
Budget financed with borrowed money /cuts:
3,700,000,000,000.00
60,000,000,000.00
“Got to do more to cut the budget.”
We need to concurrently eliminate the Fed and replace it with a sovereign money supply. Debt based money and debt saturation is KILLING us all.
How about mamaObama's 45 assistants raking in a couple of million a year?
Bravo, not bad for a group that’s got a hostile band of socialists in control in the other house and in the other, other House.
Well put.
Crumble: GOP effort to cut $100 billion fails — thanks to massive Republican defections
Yesterday half of the republicans in the house voted with the rats to block an additional $22 billion in cuts. The $22B was needed to get the cuts up to the promised $100 billion and they blocked it. Unbelievable!
That’s a better idea than what members of the political class are proposing.
“Homeland Security, are we one bit safer in the country thanks to this behemoth and the tremendous price tag that goes with it?”
Well I think that’s arguable. There have been quite a few foiled terror attempts since 911, including cyberterror.
Enhanced security through DHS has been somewhat responsible. Would they have been found with conventional security? Debateable.
But the fact is, Bush started DHS after 911. There have been no succesful terror attacks on our soil since then. One could argue, yes,we are safer.
I am not saying we are still not vulnerable, espsecially with border security.
Cantor is a liar. It’s probably not even the $60 billion WAPo claims.
I think I've seen Jeff Flake's name tossed around for the open Senate seat left by Jon Kyl. I guess Flake isn't serious about running for higher office after all.
I agree. How pitiful that returning to the budget of just a couple years ago is described as "draconian" cuts.
That way, if the Dems refuse to accept the “essential services” bill and shut the whole government, it would be the sole fault of the Dems that granny would not get social security and medicare, soldiers would not get weapons, etc. The Republican “Essential Services” bill would not allow that to happen. Nobody will miss the non-essential services like the department of education for a while.
The problem with the general govt. shutdown during the Gingrich days was that it lacked credibility. Both essential and nonessential services had to stop. That was a non-starter with the public. An “Essential Services “ bill would greatly enhance the leverage of the Republicans.
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