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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 10:17 am Post subject: _ day weekend for me! Furlough time! (aka gov't shutdown) |
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Reid: Shutdown is due to Planned Parenthood. Boehner: No, It's about our spending addiction!
What a bunch of ass clowns. Is it really that hard to cut a few billion from the Pentagon?? Are you kidding me?? Uggh.
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With a government shutdown less than 10 hours away, it has come to this: Top Democrats and Republicans both said Friday morning that key disagreements are holding up a deal on the budget.
But they can�t even agree on what they are disagreeing over. |
I honestly don't care if the government is shut down next week but if it goes beyond that, I'm going to be seriously disgruntled. The local economy is here is going to drive to a halt, that's for sure. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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First the GOP demanded budget cuts of $100 billion out of the budget for what is remaining of this fiscal year. When it was explained that we're dealing with the fiscal year, not the calendar year, the Tea Party had to back down. Boehner got his caucus to agree to $32 billion. Mind you, all of this occured at a time when we should be stimulating the economy, not cutting budgets. Round One to the GOP.
The Dems made concessions and agreed to $33 billion in cuts, surpassing the GOP offer. Round Two to the GOP. (I don't know why, but defense spending is not part of the negotiations. From what I understand, the cuts can only come from the 12% of the budget that is 'non-military discretionary' spending.)
However, 'yes' is not a good enough answer because the GOP also wants to set policy with the budget, not just pass a budget. Hence, Planned Parenthood. Since PP cannot spend any of its gov't money on abortions because of the Hyde Amendment, the GOP is demanding cuts to PP programs for women's health.
At this point, I'm hoping for a shutdown because it looks like it will be another GOP debacle. On the other hand, laying off 800,000 workers and suspending gov't contracts might cause enough economic damage to stop the economic recovery which may be what the GOP wants. Bad economy results in better electoral prospects in '12. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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I agree entirely with Ya-Ta Boy.
The GOP is playing politics. Why do the cuts need to come from Planned Parenthood? The GOP doesn't even have a full mandate. They have a House Majority, a Senate Minority, and the Democrats occupy the White House. They simply have to compromise.
This is bad faith on the GOP's part. They have to come to the middle. Good for Obama for setting a reasonable compromise, but not bending from that. I think the GOP are essentially reprising the budget shutdown during the late 90s with Bill Clinton. And Obama is savvy enough the remember the lesson from that: stake out a reasonable middle position and hold.
Obama is definitely going to win in 2012. Boehner has really overstepped himself, and revealed himself to be in Newt Gingrich's mold, not some new sort of Republican.
Okay, well, Dave Weigel and Joshua Green (the latter is a shill, but for Obama's Treasury) are telling us this is not the Tea Party freshmen's faults.
| Weigel wrote: |
It wasn't new Tea Party members of Congress who fight on this -- it was Mike Pence who introduced it and Chris Smith who has been shepherding the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Bill. Both are veteran members of Congress; Smith is unpredictable, and voted for cap and trade. And on Hardball yesterday, Tea Party Patriots co-director Mark Meckler said, after some prodding, that his members were not going to the mat on Planned Parenthood.
MATTHEWS: Where`s the Tea Party on Planned Parenthood?
MECKLER: The Tea Party Patriots have not taken a position on those. And we`re looking for fiscal responsibility. The riders are something the Republicans are pushing for their base.
[MATTHEWS obnoxiousness snipped]
MATTHEWS: OK, does your membership tell you they care about abortion rights or birth control, even?
MECKLER: They tell us to go for the $100 billion. That`s what we`re doing. So that`s what we take a position on.
MATTHEWS: So you have no additional demands beyond those.
MECKLER: We don`t. |
| Green wrote: |
| So let me add a sub clause: it's also a little misleading to say that "Tea Party freshmen are forcing Boehner to shut down the government." In fact, a lot of the freshmen have stuck with Boehner. Only 21 of the 54 Republicans who voted against the latest continuing resolution were freshmen. |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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Right, the Tea Party cannot be blamed for the House GOP's intransigence. The anti-abortion rider seems to be coming from the SocCon wing of the GOP. The House GOP would be best to accept the hand that they have been given (and let's be honest, it is a much better hand than the last one) and accept the budget as it is for the rest of the fiscal year. They can continue to make more changes to next year's fiscal budget and make their case for 2012 in a much better situation.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/04/08/29403/ |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| What parts get shut down? You can't shut down the DOD during war, right? Veterans Affairs? NASA? What of time sensitive research? |
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Space Bar
Joined: 20 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| What parts get shut down? You can't shut down the DOD during war, right? Veterans Affairs? NASA? What of time sensitive research? |
How about starting with the White House and Congress? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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Deal reached, shutdown adverted.
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Perilously close to a midnight deadline, the White House and congressional leaders have reached agreement to cut billions of dollars in spending to avoid the first government shutdown in 15 years.
House Speaker John Boehner informed the GOP rank and file of the accord, reached in grueling negotiations over several weeks, an official said.
"We have an agreement," concurred a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Jon Summers.
Because drafting and then passing the broader legislation could take days, congressional leaders raced to approve a stopgap measure to prevent the onset of the first shutdown in 15 years, due to begin at midnight. Officials said it would keep the government in funds through the middle of next week.
Boehner told reporters just before 11 p.m. EDT that the House would continue working.
Republicans said the deal called for $39 billion in spending cuts, a measure that one official said Boehner told his rank and file marked the "largest real-dollar spending cut in American history."
Over a decade, the agreement would cut more than $500 billion from the federal budget, Boehner added, according to a participant in the meeting.
The agreement marked an extraordinary reach across party lines and the first test of a new era of divided government that includes Obama in the White House, control of the Senate by fellow Democrats and a tea party-flavored Republican majority in the House. |
I don't know the exact details, but I read that the deal did not include cuts to Planned Parenthood.
Last edited by Fox on Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| What parts get shut down? You can't shut down the DOD during war, right? Veterans Affairs? NASA? What of time sensitive research? |
The DOD and VA would have still been open but no one would have been paid. Great huh? Time sensitive research, out of luck.
Anyway, it is moot now as Fox's post says. What a bunch of silliness. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Republicans said the deal called for $39 billion in spending cuts |
A rounding error. Hard to see how this thing gets fixed. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| Republicans said the deal called for $39 billion in spending cuts |
A rounding error. Hard to see how this thing gets fixed. |
Apparently, Boehner is not as reckless or arrogant as Gingrich. Maybe Obama late in the evening brought up the middle class and Boehner started crying. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:24 am Post subject: |
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There is something odd going on with the numbers in the deal. Once it was sealed, the number jumped from $39 billion to $70+ but with a different base (???) or something. So far no one I've read has explained the sudden change in the number.
The joyful news is that we have at least two more of these financial battles to go through this year: next month on the debt ceiling and then around September on the '12 budget. Oh joy.  Anyone care to bet that they will be very close replays of this one? (Down to the wire shenanigans about unrelated matters with the end result being the GOP gets pretty much what it wants.) |
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