[Outcast_Searcher]

I notice that a number of the Democratic proposals in the "budget cutting amendments" article are for shifting funds or even spending more. How is that budget cutting?

[Outcast_Searcher]

What am I missing for the big picture here? Recently the OMB forecast over a $1.6 TRILLION deficit for 2011. And we're already hearing all sorts of complaints and cries that world is coming to an end when trying to cut a very SMALL fraction of that.

What does this say about the liklihood of balancing the budget? We deserve our fate, and our fate looks like a gigantic version of Greece.

[Cog]

Oh the budget will balance one day. We just won't like it very much.

[Sixstrings]

The White House has vowed to veto the short-term spending bill House Republicans voted on this afternoon that would provide a budgetary “safety net” while the parties work on a long-term deal.

Hours later the House passed the safety net bill anyway on a mostly party-line 247-181 vote.

Without a short-term extension, lawmakers face two options: either reach a deal on a broad bill to fund the government for the rest of this year, or else have the government shut down as of midnight Friday.

“If presented with this bill, the president will veto it,” the White House said in an official statement of policy objecting to the House’s offer. The White House said it was “a distraction from the real work” on reaching a broader agreement.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/7/senate-leader-reid-government-headed-shutdown/

Hm, so they couldn't even reach a deal to buy enough time to keep talking.

I'd need to know more about the temporary budget extension to have an opinion about Obama's decision to veto it. Without that extension, then the government shuts down. BUT.. if those policy riders were part of the extension, then I have to respect the president for sticking to his guns on this one. The left is mad enough as it is, abortion issues have no place in the middle of a government shutdown.

All very interesting.. not used to seeing this administration play hardball. Maybe the political calculation is that Republicans will get the blame for a shutdown, which would help the president.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is still printing up funny money to fund our nation's deficits. And the Republicans' cuts aren't enough to even argue about.. they're not even a drop in the bucket. Plus we have this new war in Libya that both parties support.. how is that fiscally prudent?

They're all for a whole new war, while shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood funding (pennies). Insanity.

[timmac]

I hope the Government shuts down and remains that way for a week or 2, we need less Government anyways and maybe send a message to those millions of Over Paid Government Workers that its your time for a Pay Cut..

[Lore]

I hope the Government shuts down and remains that way for a week or 2, we need less Government anyways and maybe send a message to those millions of Over Paid Government Workers that its your time for a Pay Cut..

But of course not the ones that earn less then their equally educated private sector workers.

[vision-master]

I hope the Government shuts down and remains that way for a week or 2, we need less Government anyways and maybe send a message to those millions of Over Paid Government Workers that its your time for a Pay Cut..

What did you say your combined income is? $175,000 year. lsol

[timmac]

What did you say your combined income is? $175,000 year. lsol

Never said that and I don't discuss my income, and by the way I make my own income with a service business I own, don't need tax payer money to keep me going..

Shut down the government..

[Sixstrings]

What did you say your combined income is? $175,000 year. lsol

Never said that and I don't discuss my income, and by the way I make my own income with a service business I own, don't need tax payer money to keep me going..

Shut down the government..

Something like 40% of the US is getting some kind of government assistance. If that goes away, don't you think that would affect your customers and the money they have to spend on your business?

Anyhow, the problem is JOBS and more to the point REAL JOBS not McJobs. We've shipped our manufacturing base offshore, shipped so much IT and white collar work offshore too, plus we're shipping in illegal and legal H1B immigrants, and on top of all that the quantitative easing Wall Street handouts are all ending up in places like China and Brazil.

Now add in the trillion dollar foreign wars, and the government's refusal to tax the wealthy, and voila this is why we're broke and the government has to shut down. These people won't stop until this country collapses and we're nothing but a United Nations administrative district, the wealthy living in their guarded green zones -- still investing their money offshore.

[Thralen]

I'd need to know more about the temporary budget extension to have an opinion about Obama's decision to veto it. Without that extension, then the government shuts down. BUT.. if those policy riders were part of the extension, then I have to respect the president for sticking to his guns on this one.

From what I understand, the temporary bill (that only extended for a week) included twelve billion of the cuts the republicans are trying for in their desired budget. What, exactly, those were I am unsure of but it may well have included the planned parenthood, NPR, and EPA cuts or at least portions of them. The article I read gave the twelve billion figure but didn't break it down as to what the cuts were on.

Thralen

[diemos]

and by the way I make my own income with a service business I own,

and where do your customers get their money from?

[Plantagenet]

your party....

I don't have a party. I'm unaffiliated.

I voted for Nader in 2000 and 2004.

In 2008 I voted against Obama because I thought he was too much a conventional thinker to do much about peak oil, and his "hope and change" promises and his promises to fix the economy and run a transparent administration and trancend partisanship and craft a new international climate change treaty were just empty and cynical promises. I 2012 I voted against Obama because I was right in 2008 ---Obama has done next to nothing about peak oil or climate change and has broken almost all of his 2008 campaign promises

I have no idea who I'll vote for in 2016---depends on the economy mostly, but climate change and peak oil might both be causing severe problems by then as well.

-------------

IMHO, being non-partisan gives me a more nuanced view of politics then most folks here. For instance, when it come to the government shutdown its pretty clear to me that both parties share in the blame. The Rs were stupid to try to use the debt limit to affect government policy to end obamacare, and now the Ds are being stupid to use the shutdown to try to affect goverment policy to change the budget.

They are both doing the exact same thing.

In the long run History will ultimately blame Obama for the mess---he is the president and this latest budget trainwreck* is happening partly because of Obama's extreme partisanship** and poor leadership skills.

*breaking his 2008 promise to bring down the deficit
**breaking his 2008 promise to transcend partisanship

[NickyBoy]

Please don't validate the stupidity of the birthers by sinking to their level.

[Sixstrings]

Please don't validate the stupidity of the birthers by sinking to their level.

Conservatives from these "aww shucks" places -- a little village in Alaska, Wisconsin, Canada -- I don't know, I just don't like it.

Give me a Southern wingnut over that, at least they're transparent but somebody like a McCarthy or Scott Walker (and maybe Ted Cruz) can do some real damage -- because they "seem" so "nice" and right off the farm, and unflappable, and low-information voters just lap it up but they're not thinking about what these people are actually saying, and doing.

It's this "aww shucks" regional cultural factor that caused Sarah Palin to rocket like a superstar. And people followed McCarthy too, right into a witch hunt. And look at Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, you see these town halls and little old ladies yelling at him but he's so unflappable and comes off like a good kid right off the farm.

Think about it, what is it with Wisconsin -- Joe McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, all from there. Give me a Southerner isntead, please, or a New York Republican or westerner or Californian.

It's just my opinion. I have a right to it.

Forget Canada, forget our regional cultural differences in North America, I'll just leave it at McCarthy was really bad news in the '50s and Ted Cruz reminds me of him and sounds like him. And in that video I posted, Ted Cruz may be affable and "aww shucks" polite but he'll stand right next to a hardcore racist calling for Obama to "come out" and "put down the quran" and all that crap. Folks, this is demagoguery, this is mccarthyism, and it's dangerous.

[basil_hayden]

Haven't the last 2 weeks been....wonderful?

[vision-master]

Think about it, what is it with Wisconsin -- Joe McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, all from there. Give me a Southerner isntead, please, or a New York Republican or westerner or Californian.

Wisconsin was a very strong Union State at one time. Lot's of hard working blue collar types, what happened, I don't know?

[Timo]

Think about it, what is it with Wisconsin -- Joe McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, all from there. Give me a Southerner isntead, please, or a New York Republican or westerner or Californian.

Wisconsin was a very strong Union State at one time. Lot's of hard working blue collar types, what happened, I don't know?

Milwaukee has had a long string of actual Socialist Mayors for a good part of the 20th Century. What happened? My guess is that manufacturing in Wisconsin has gone the way of the dodo.

Actually, i take that back. McCarthy, Ryan, Walker.... they all seem to be the resurection of the dodos.

[Lore]

It's all a natural response to threat. A new paradigm is upon the old Anglo Saxon breeders and they haven't found a way to psychologically adjust to it.

[Sixstrings]

Wisconsin was a very strong Union State at one time. Lot's of hard working blue collar types, what happened, I don't know?

Well there is still a strong Left, I like the lefty folks out there, and that's what Ryan and Walker have been busting up. The unions. The good wages, good jobs.

I hate to get so regional and didn't really mean to go in that direction, but it is kind of strange when you think about that -- McCarthy Ryan Walker all the same state. A valid point would be that we actually do have regional cultural differences in North America, and what may apply in Wisconsin does not necessarily apply to the nation. Nationally, our unions and good jobs are already decimated we don't need a Paul Ryan to come in and bust the working class down even more.

And so, I wonder about Cruz, he's clearly very powerful in the GOP now. He led the entire senate and house into this shutdown. Then to their horror, in the middle of it they sat down in meetings with him, and leaked reports indicate Cruz "had no plan" and literally does not have a clue and "led them into traffic and wandered off," as Grover Norquist said.

I understand Scott Walker and Paul Ryan and Wisconsin, but what about Cruz, what is his background and his story, what shaped his views. What's his motivation -- just power, that's it? What are his roots, where does his family come from, what exactly is his worldview -- is it his father's? If that's the case then I'm sorry but the United States is not Cuba and Obama isn't Castro and thanks but no thanks we don't need a "revolution" here all over covering the healthcare gap for folks like Pops.

One could say I'm being way too regional and xenophobic, but look at Cruz himself, he's got his father speaking for him all the time talking about Obama being Castro and how he fought in the Cuban revolution then had to flee communism blah blah -- what the hell does Cuba have to do with the United States? Should Europe, Canada, and Australia ditch their universal healthcare too -- all because Rafael Cruz says that's Castro communism?

*Something is just off about Ted Cruz* and I've been trying to figure that out. He spent most of his life in Texas, yet when I hear him speak I'm hearing a Canadian accent. Am I wrong?

He really reminds me of Joe McCarthy, for goodness sake Cruz even has a 50s haircut and looks like he's out of the 1950s. Perhaps the situation here is that Republicans are coming up with leaders who just aren't in the American cultural mainstream. Mitt Romney was strange too. John McCain was normal, yet he put Palin on the ticket.

Republicans are getting farther and farther away from what they used to be, *conservative*, candidates like Ronald Reagan and Herbert Walker Bush. Solid establishment types. Bob Dole, there's a good man. What the hell happened to Republicans? I used to be one you know, so I still wonder about it.

[Lore]

Cruz is far from powerful, he is just the latest wedge politician pumped up by the media. Once the corporate money flows away, which is already happening, he'll flameout along with the half governor from Alaska. It's the mess we have to clean up in these clowns wake that everyone has to worry about.