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

Is it too soon to be seeing civility?

I had to take a big sip of my coffee this morning because I couldn't believe what I saw.  There sat Bill Kristol as the guest of MSNBC's “Morning Joe.” There  were joking of him being in the Lions' den, but as he is on Jon Stewart and other shows, I've seen him on, Bill Kristol sounded pretty reasonable.  It wasn't until the group started talking about Rumsfeld’s new book when Mr. Kristol  started getting a little defensive about the Iraq war.  It was learned that Donald Rumsfeld wanted plans to attack Iraq just four hours after 911.  There is a conflict between President Bush's book and Donald Rumsfeld’s book.  They are some similarities.  Neither one of them take blame or aplogize for the fiasco, we call the invasion of Iraq. 

On “Morning Joe” Tuesday, the Weekly Standard editor appeared to promote “The Neoconservative Persuasion,” a collection of essays written by his father, Irving Kristol. During that appearance, New York magazine’s John Heilemann asked Kristol why Republicans were reluctant to challenge Fox News host Glenn Beck, a regular target of MSNBC’s personalities, as Kristol did in a column for the Feb. 14 issue of the Weekly Standard for his claim Islamists and liberal forces were collaborating to orchestrate a caliphate.

http://tinyurl.com/4cqml8b

I think the new owners of NBC took the first step by releasing Keith Olbermann and making Ed Schultz drop his “psycho talk”  segment.  Since then I've seen more prominent republicans as a guest.  Rachel Maddow had Michael Steele as a guest the other night.  Michael Steele admitted the RNC would not allow him to go on liberal shows as the chairman of the Republican Party.  He has made up for it since, with appearances on Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Rachel Maddow.  The give and take was quite informative.  It's too early to tell, but I hope MSNBC doesn't take a route of CNN, who bends over backwards, so not to appear partisan.  That just means, CNN, is just a sounding board for the left and right to deliver their talking points. 

Sarah Palin is not slowing down a bit but she is getting more incoherent.  The other day she told the Christian Broadcasting Network(CBN) that the Egyptian crisis was Obama’s 3:00 AM call  but it went straight to the answering machine. She when onto say “ the White House was not doing enough to inform  the American people about what is happening in Egypt.”  She didn’t leave it at that, she said “should not stand" for an Egypt led by the Muslim Brotherhood. “ Duh .  As usual  she never said what she would do.  That’s because she doesn't have the slightest idea of where Egypt is or the delicate situation that we are in by trying to come out with the very best solution for in United States, Egypt, the Middle East and Israel.

It's only a matter time before the Republican Party will have to put a lid on Glenn Beck and his conspiracy theories because he is taking some pages from the John Birch Society by not only attacking liberals, now he is saying both Bush's and were leading the charge for orchestrating a caliphate.  He said president's Obama, Bush, I and II put out  strict orders not to bomb Ancient Babylon. Why? Because the Bible tells us that is the seat, right here (aims pointer at map like a college professor) of power of a global evil empire...everybody on this side wants ancient Babylon for their caliphate. (The New Islamic Caliphate) ..I guess they  could wait for the guys with the white coats come for him.

http://tinyurl.com/4gl98a4

The local blogs got a right wing slant this weekend. One was written by itisi called “liberalism” where the author never quoted a reference but instead chose to give a one-sided view point; his. The other blog was written by holly1.  The name and his blog was” It's our way or the highway and other myths of politics.” Both blogs received a lot of traffic, but it quickly became like one of my many political blogs.  They became the dumping ground  for the usual " and you’re another one” back and forth postings  We have a lot of work to do in ridding ourselves of the myths we might have required over a long period of time.  I think it's gonna take a new set of posters to completely overturn the combative dialogue, we call debates.  No one wants to go first and be made a fool of.