The Republican Party keeps “shooting itself in the foot”, symbolically, never learning anything, and undermining their support with public opinion.
In 1995, the Republican controlled House and Senate under Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole forced a shutdown of the government over the budget, but eventually had to give in, and Bill Clinton proceeded to win a second term over Dole handily, and the GOP Congress lost seats in 1996.
The budget battles with Barack Obama by the Republican controlled House under John Boehner have also hurt the GOP image in public opinion, and it is certain that the President will win the battle over the present “sequester” crisis, as Obama comes across, after a solid victory in the Presidential Election Of 2012, as speaking for the “people”, while the Republicans are ready to defend the “special interests” and their tax breaks, and hurt the poor, children, the elderly, and government employees.
Obama has a high rating, and the Congress is at a low historically, so the Republican Party is only, in the long run, hurting itself!
Yes lets keep on spending more than last year and more than the year before. Have you ever heard of baseline budgeting? Do you know what that is? If you do, then you know there are no cuts to spending. Instead there is a promise not to spend $10 trillion more over the next decade, but to spend only $8 trillion more, for example. And that is called a cut??? Seriously our politicians truly believe we are all stupid. We’re not cutting anything. We’re just trying to reduce the rate of growth, which by the way will never happen with big government politicians in Washington because that is the source of their power. For example, the baseline says that defense and Medicare are going to go up 8% to 10%. So instead, they’re going to go up 6% to 8%, and that’s called a Draconian cut! The sequester will apparently reduce the budget by $85 billion. But even that is not true. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in its February 2013 report on the budget outlook, “Discretionary outlays will drop by $35 billion and mandatory spending will be reduced by $9 billion this year as a direct result of those procedures [sequestration]; additional reductions in outlays attributable to the cuts in 2013 funding will occur in later years.” ( See: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43907-BudgetOutlook.pdf ) You got that? When President Obama scaremongers about national parks closing and TSA lines getting longer – and when Republicans bitch and moan about the military having to set up bake sales to buy bombers – they are already misstating basic facts. The sequester will slice $44 billion off this year’s budget, not $85 billion. CBO figures that total spending in FY2013 will come to around $3.55 trillion (see table 1-1), or roughly the same as FY2012, when it came to $3.53 trillion. In 2014, assuming the sequester happens, CBO figures total spending will be $3.6 trillion before it jacks up considerably to $3.8 trillion in 2015 and then up to over $4 trillion in 2016. The relief package for Sandy aid, Hurricane Sandy relief aid, cost $50 billion. The extension of federal unemployment benefits costs $30 billion. Congress passed those without batting an eye! Right there is $80 billion that we’re spending. Nobody blinked. It’s not a big deal. But $85 billion in cuts which are really $44 billion is like the end of the world? “Why, the world is gonna come to an end!” There aren’t any cuts. This the reality. But look at what the “Pravda” media says. Washington Times: “Budget-Busting Burgers: Beef, Chicken Supply Could be Casualties of Congress, Obama Sequester Fight — Food shortages may be one effect.” There may be national food shortages if the sequester happens!? CNNMoney.com: “Federal Worker Furloughs Could Start in April.” That’s right! because this $44 billion in cuts, we are gonna have to lay off two million federal workers! So according to the media, we may have to shut down the Pentagon and 2.1 million federal workers might be furloughed. It is irresponsible. None of this is going to happen, because there aren’t any cuts. All there is, if and only if the sequester happens, is reduction in the rate of growth. What all this really is, is an ongoing, concerted effort to ensure as best they can that no massive majority public support for any reduction in the size of government will ever happen. That’s the objective here. That $85 billion, really $44 billion, out of a budget of $3.5 trillion is that catastrophic? Not spending, for argument sake lets take what the media says $85 billion, wouldn’t even be noticed! It would be the equivalent of you earning $100,000 a year and losing a quarter, or the equivalent of people telling you that you’ve gotta give somebody a quarter. What impact would losing 25¢ have on you if you earn a $100,000 a year? We are spending $3.5 trillion, and there’s all this panic and apocalypse over $85 billion? So what’s the point here? The objective is to make sure the public never, ever supports spending cuts because even a dollar will ruin something for somebody. From The Politico.com: “House Democratic leaders are urging their rank-and-file members to use next week’s recess to hold press conferences and other events humanizing the negative effects of sequestration alongside senior citizens, small business owners, police officers and teachers.” See the pattern? “If we do this, your town’s going to lose its cops! If we do this, your town’s going to lose its firefighters!” Even though your town and your cops and firefighters are not paid by the federal government. “It doesn’t matter! Your teachers, your senior citizens, they are going to lose their Social Security, and they’re going to lose their Medicare, and they may never get it back!” We’re talking $85 billion. That $85 billion is irrelevant. It is chump change. It’s insignificant. We are headed for an utter, total collapse. We’re going to have to cut trillions of dollars. If we don’t seriously act on time, the collapse will do it for us and we will not be able to choose. We are $17 trillion in debt, and it’s going be $22 trillion by the time Obama leaves office in 2016, that’s $12 trillion more debt that when Obama took office in 2008, and there’s no end in sight for this. The federal government currently spends $10.5 billion dollars a day. We’re talking about less than ten days’ worth of spending! One week! One week of government spending we’re talking about being cut from the rate of spending growth, and with one week’s worth of cuts, all of this apocalypse is going to happen?
What you write is intriguing, as even the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, is, apparently acting as if the sky is falling in if there are any budget cuts! Maybe you should send this to a major newspaper to be published in the Letters to the Editor. My point is that the Republican Party is not going to win the battle of public opinion, right or wrong, as they did not win in the time of Bill Clinton, just a few years after Ross Perot ran on the issue of the national debt!
The CBO report is online for everyone who to read. I’m no genius for that matter. I mean how difficult is it to realize that President Obama’s federal government is slated to spend $3.6 trillion this year. That is $3,600,000,000,000. The supposedly draconian sequester will reportedly cut that by $85 billion, which is just 2%. The “sequester” $1.2 trillion of less spending over the next 10 years, not all in one year. In other words instead of spending % 10 trillion more over the next 10 years we will spend $8.8 trillion with the sequester. In fact, as the CBO points out, the actual cuts for this year from that level are $44 billion, which is 1% of the budget. But, even after the fearsome sequester, federal discretionary spending will still be $60 billion more than in 2008. The government’s own Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified $125 billion in government waste that can be cut without hurting anybody. In November 21 of 2011, Obama flat out threatened to veto any efforts to avoid HIS sequester that he is now whining about will be the end of the republic as we know it. Remember? “Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise — not turn off the pressure.†See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VqD2h7e_MLg .But now according to the president on Tuesday, “jeopardize military readiness … eviscerate job creating investments in education and energy and research … emergency responders … border agents … FBI agents…federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go … air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks … more delays at airports across the country … thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off … tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care … hundreds of thousands will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings,†and the list went on. All of this will happen a week from Friday.Simply put, on March 1st a calamity of historic proportion will occur if the dreaded sequester goes into effect. How is this possible?
Of course the Republican party will not win the “publicized opinion”. If you, who has an educated view from the left, are intrigued by my post, by baseline budgeting, what can we expect from the “low information” voters? And bear in mind I am not saying they are stupid, it just that they either don’t care or just don’t have time to do some basic research. They just come home tired from work, sit on the couch, watch the evening news, (if they do), and just absorb what the “Pravda” media regurgitates. Which at its core is pretty basic and simple, conservatives/Republicans hate you, Democrats love you and are fighting against evil forces. For the vast majority of conservatives what I have posted in common knowledge, there is no surprise here. We know there never was, is or will be any real cuts. It’s all B.S. As for the Republican party, well as long as the RINO establishment type control the party, the fear of being hated by the media and the need to be loved by the media will continue. I ask, what will change if the sequester goes through? Nothing, the Republicans will still be blamed even though it was Obama’s idea. And if it doesn’t, they Republicans will still be portrayed as wanting to kill grandma and Obama as caring for … everyone! Except the evil rich guys of course.
BILL PRESS (20 February 2013): So Nancy where did the sequester come from? Whose idea was it? Was it really President Obama’s idea as the Republicans claim?
NANCY COOK: Sure.
BILL PRESS: What are the facts?
NANCY COOK: Well if you read, so Bob Woodward’s book about the Budget Control Act and the debt ceiling negotiations in the summer of 2011 is sort of the best account we have so far of how this came to be and according to that book, the sequester was originally the idea of the White House.
Oh my .. could it be that Obama is a liar?? LOL http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_print.html
A visual explanation of the sequester… http://thelookingspoon.com/83-2013/february-2013/4481-a-visual-explanation-of-how-democrats-are-exaggerating-the-depth-of-the-sequester.html
You are on a roll, Juan! I can see that! LOL But the GOP will lose long term on this, and you know that, don’t you? 🙂 Whether you like it or not, public opinion DOES matter, and it is clearly in the camp of Barack Obama, which I know frustrates you, as democracy is a “messy” thing, LOL, when you do not agree with it!
If you have the courage, watch MSNBC and Ezra Klein tonight on the Sequester issue, and it MIGHT open up your mind, but you probably would get a coronary watching it! LOL
I’m not arguing that. But between you and me you do realize at least that it is all based on lies , don’t you? That this sequester was the WH idea and that it is nothing. I know low information voters haven’t a clue, but you seem to be a person with certain intellectual capacity to discern that 2% of $3.6 trillion is nothing, just a mere accounting error.
I will admit that two percent of anything is not a big deal, but this is a philosophical battle!
Ezra Klein?? That ignoramus!!?? I quote “the Constitution is Impossible to Understand Because its Over 100 Years Old”.. Enough said..You watch him? Well then , that explains a lot.
Of course it’s a philosophical battle. As I said before, the idea is that not even the most insignificant cut must be allowed to be accepted by the American people. Thus, Obama is going to do everything within his means to make people suffer wherever he can. He is going to torment us. Today he actually sent Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to say “It’s going to be very painful for the flying public,â€. Even a reporter asked him, “How can you say that when it is only 2% of future spending?” But to no avail. So of course its philosophical. That’s why if the Republicans have any guts they should just sit down and do nothing. Well no, I would repeat every hour from now on till the next election this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vv_P1FOmEg I would repeat it on and on and say nothing. Period.
To call Ezra Klein an ignoramus does not reflect well on you, Juan, as he is a very brilliant young man under 30 who has great insights into government and politics. He is a success story at a young age, and we are not supposed to engage in character assassination. However, I can imagine all those people on Fox News Channel and talk radio that you think are “brilliant”, and are actually windbags! Almost all of them!
And your comment on the Constitution—the point is that any Constitution is not to be seen as a “religious” document that cannot be adapted to changing times two and a half centuries later. “Originalism” is preposterous, and people like Scalia and Thomas are fighting reality and modern times with their ridiculous, 18th century mentality!
Good grief Ron. The Constitution has a mechanism for adapting to “change”. Its called the amendment process. Use it! Do you not know that the brilliance of our Constitutional system is that it provided the mechanism for it own change and even demise. Contrary to the socialist and fascist regimes that were set up to last an eternity, ours wasn’t, yet it has survived more than 2 centuries. Up until now, that we are currently in a post-constitutional era. In any event, if the left is so convinced that its view of the times is what the majority of Americans agree with, then propose amendments! But have put Article 3 judges , who have life tenure and are unelected by the people to make those amendment for you. With all this “living and breathing” Constitution we ended up with a dead Constitution practically. And I repeat , what Klein said was an idiocy. Just the fact that the Constitution is over 200 not 100 years old should be enough to disqualify him!