Barack Obama will win the 2012 electionFollow

See, this is one advantage to having the Executive only being allowed to be culled from the ruling party's members in the lower and upper house. It cuts down on the confusion of the masses as to the blame allocation between the Presidential Executive, and the Houses of Congress and Senate.

If it was clearer where the blame lies for bad outcomes of policy making and enforcement, then it would be easier to vote in the better, more effective politicians.

A point several people have made: You don't have to work hard to get footage and quotes from GOP lawmakers crowing "Shut it down!" and cheering the idea of a shutdown.

That's technically true but a bit misleading. The bulk of the budget (66%) is mandatory entitlement spending for things such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The budget cuts being discussed are discretionary spending which is 33% of the budget. But, out of that 33%, something like 60% is military spending which isn't really being addressed. So you're in the neighborhood of 485 billion, of which a $36B cut is 7%, a $61B cut is 13% or a $100B cut is 20%. That's how much would come out of things like energy, transportation, public aid, education, housing, etc.

Then there's the obvious question of WHAT in that discretionary budget is getting cut and then addressing all the policy riders attached to the bill that save no money at all but merely direct money towards or away from things due to ideological desires. So it's not "Should we cut 0.2% of the budget?" but "Should we cut this program, that program and the other program (plus a hundred others) by 15% each and throw in these extra provisions about abortion, the environment and school vouchers?"

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Edited, Apr 8th 2011 4:39pm by rdmcandie

Except for the dozen or so citations Joph already provided, you are absolutely correct!

Not one of which includes a member of the GOP team confirming what Joph is claiming. It's not enough to just quote a source, the source actually has to prove what you're saying is true. Let me know when that happens, cause I haven't seen it yet.

I don't think that response quite works out the way you think it does.

Huh? It's what they passed in their bill Joph. WTF? You're taking second hand claims over a bill that was voted on and passed in the House? You're kidding, right?



I've done plenty of searches Joph. I can't find *any* information to support your claim that the GOP opened up negotiations with the Dems by offering $36B in cuts with no compromises or riders required by the Dems in return. Absolutely zero, zip, nada, nothing, supports your claim. It's not that I'm not interested in finding things out, but that there is nothing to find.


You're the one who is making this bizarre and unfounded claim, not me. How about you support it with something more than just "some liberals said this"? Can you do that?

Scuttlebutt is that they're reaching an agreement of around $38B in cuts without the major policy riders. Ironically, by the standards of reality, this was a minor win for the GOP over the $36B they wanted (although they lose the riders). But, by Gbaji-Reality, this is a total bath for the GOP who started at $100B and lost 64% of the cuts they wanted plus the riders.

We'll have to see if the agreement sticks, of course. Reid is supposedly going to push a clean CR if things aren't going well for another couple days (week?) plus some military funding to secure pay for troops overseas even if the government does shutdown.

Huh? I'm not sure what that has to do with anything at all. That's what is in H.R. 1. Are you denying this? By definition, that's the starting negotiating position of the House.



And yet, you can't produce any evidence to support your claim, but insist that I must disprove yours and when I can't find evidence to support your claim either, I'm just not looking hard enough? You've kinda got this whole thing backwards, don't you?




No. I didn't. Not one. How many times do I have to explain this to you?

I did happen across speaker Boehner's blog. I mean, if his argument was that they offered to drop down to $36B and then the Dems still refused to accept that, you'd think it'd be right there, front and center, right? I see no mention of any offer of $36B in cuts there, do you?

I have not found a single source with a quote or statement or even suggestion from a member of the House GOP stating that they were offering the Dems 36B in cuts with no conditions from the Dems in return. Not one. I suggest that the burden of proof lies on you here, not me.



And I've already shown that none of those links actually say what you are claiming. Every single one that mentions the $36B figure comes out of a Dem mouth Joph. And none of them speak about riders.


Let me bottom line this for you. It's not about the dollar amount. It's about getting the Dems to budge on funding for their pet projects. That's why the GOP is willing to drop from 61B down to pretty much any number in the 30s. It's not about the specific number, but about testing the resolve of the Dems. Do they care more about funding for Planned Parenthood than they care about making sure active duty military get their paychecks? Do they care more about funding the NEA than they care about making sure that someone is writing IRS refund checks for American taxpayers? Do they care more about funding NPR than making sure that new Social Security applicants get their benefits?


The answer to all of those is apparently: Yes. The Dems care more about funding for those pet projects (some might even say "special interest" projects), than they care about funding vastly more important parts of the government. That's what this is about. That you don't see it is amazing. The GOP has positioned this so that it's so abundantly clear that no one can miss it. What did you think that short term resolution was about? They passed a bill in the House extending military pay for the full year, and everything else in the government for another week, and all the Dems had to do was to agree to a measly $12B in cuts, including those riders for those three projects. The point of that is to show that the Dems care more about those projects than they care about military families.


And while I'm sure most of those in the liberal bubble can't see this due to their own ideological blinders, the rest of the country is getting that message. It's as clear as possible and it's right in front of them. All the Dems had to do was give up funding for extremely non-important programs which most Americans think are a waste of money already, but they love them so much that they'll shut down the government in order to protect them.


That's the message of what's going on. It's really not about the dollar amount.

Fudging maths, how do they work?

Haha... by typing too fast, it would seem :)