Government shutdown?

I suspect when the republicans get through using every trick in the book to weaken Roe v Wade and the Hyde amendment; they will submit some serious budget plans.  I expected them to  submit  proposals on the high end and strictly partisan but the ones I've heard will lead to a government shutdown.  We have not seen the level of cuts they're proposing since World War II.  Senator Harry Reid said "in many cases these proposals may mean taking workers off the assembly line or taking teaches out the classrooms or police officers off our streets." He went onto say "after all, you can lose a lot of weight by cutting off your arms and legs," he added.  "But no doctor would recommend it ."Not to be outdone, Iowa Congressman Steve King said he would not vote for the legislation until it completely defunded health care reform.

For the past two years, the Republican Party has been screaming about high deficits, spending and debt.  You would think that they would have a plan to put in place immediately upon taking office. In their last campaign, they promised to cut $100 billion from the budget.  They knew they didn't have a basis for that number, but it sounded good. After some serious arm twisting by the tea party, their proposals is to cut $100 billion in the next seven months, mostly in items that will damage our frail recovery. The house republicans want to make cuts in job training, environmental protection, disease control  and crime prevention.  The republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Harold Rogers, warned that the full cut will require laying off the FBI agents and air traffic controllers.
 
Speaker the house, John Boehner, will appear on Meet the Press, but I suspect it will turn out like they always do. David Gregory will ask him a question. He'll give the canned answer. David will try again to no avail.  I'll be watching just to see how far they are apart from the president's budget, which the White House will unveil Monday.

We do need spending cuts, but we also need tax increases because our country not only needs to get to get its house in order; we also need to grow.  This is not a time to privatize Social Security or Medicare.  If Senator Rand Paul thinks that Social Security can be fixed by raising the age limit and means testing, then that's the bipartisan route, we should take.  Senator Harry Reid  said that Social Security was fine for now(40 years), so there we have it ,views from very different sides of the aisle.  Now, if you think the house of representatives is taking an ax to the budget; Rand Paul takes a 50 caliber machine gun to the budget.  He is proposing a $500 billion cut.  The freshman senator has a lot to learn about economics' and Washington.
 
Federal and state budgets are different because most states have to balance their budgets but the Federal government doesn't, but early in March, I believe we will have a showdown between those that know the seriousness of that action and the tea party faction which remain in solidarity by not increasing the debt ceiling. At CPAC today, the tea party may have found their presidential candidate in the former governor of Minnesota ,Tim Pawlenty. He said " We should not...We should not raise the debt ceiling." Pawlenty used to be a moderate Republican but he has really change.

President Obama will hear from the democrats about his 2.5 billion cut to LIHEAP, a home heating fuel assistance for low income people.  Today republican senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts joined the democrats saying". “With Massachusetts residents getting pounded by brutal winter storms, cutting…funding is a nonstarter for me.”

I understand it is customary to sway voters with some outrageous proposals like the one Governor Rick Perry proposed but he is serious.  The good governor " urged Texas colleges and universities to create a bachelor's degree program that cost less than $10,000 including textbooks. Of course, he didn't say how these schools could or should do this..

http://tinyurl.com/49ppwwp