Congress, White House Make Progress On Budget, But No Deal

[Swilly]

[quote]
[img]http://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/2011/03/31/111144848_blog_main_horizontal.jpg[/img]
Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman are in agreement on one key thing: Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.

But that didn't stop Vice President Biden from heading up to Capitol Hill Wednesday night to announce that House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House had agreed to a top line number in cuts. The appropriators have settled on a total of $33 billion in cuts from current spending levels -- or about $73 billion below President Obama's requested FY 2011 budget.

"There is no reason why, with all that's going on in the world and with the state of the economy, we can't reach an agreement to avoid a government shutdown, because the bottom line here is we're working off the same number," Vice President Biden said to reporters Wednesday.

The vice president went on to explain that this is just the beginning. There are still all those policy riders (health care, abortion, etc...) to be hammered out in a final negotiated deal.

That $33 billion in cuts is still nearly $30 billion shy of what House Republicans wanted, which begs the question of whether Speaker Boehner is going to be able to sell compromise to his members, particularly those 87 freshmen who came to Washington on a Tea Party-inspired cost cutting wave.

As Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said, "This is a defining moment."

Also, from Thursday's New York Times:

"'There are a lot of people who know this is small ball and are ready to get to the debt limit increase,' said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona. 'A lot of us recognized we were not going to end up with $100 billion in the final product.'"

Tea Party activists plan to rally on Capitol Hill Thursday to urge Republicans to hold the line on their pledge to slash $100 billion from President Obama's requested 2011 budget.

It's clear that compromise is needed to avert a government shutdown on April 8. It's just as clear that compromise is an unwelcome concept for the Tea Party activists who helped deliver the GOP majority in the House last November.

It won't only be the activists outside the Capitol who will be heard Thursday. Former House speaker and likely presidential contender Newt Gingrich is expected to meet with House Republican freshmen for a bit of a history lesson on how the budget showdowns of 1994 and 1995 played out.

Last month, in a Washington Post op-ed, Gingrich argued that a government shutdown might not be as politically perilous as many observers have suggested.[/quote]
[U]Source[/U]
[url]http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/morning-line-congress-makes-progress-on-budget-but-no-deal.html[/url]

....and they still can only cut 33 Billion. Nice job guys, nice job.

[SM0K3 B4N4N4]

well of course they wouldn't want to cut off the constant supply of money going to their corporate friends getting subsidies and tax breaks and the military contractors, not to mention the bankers who are probably still getting money for fucking shit up for everyone. No they just want to cut all the liberal spending so they can start circle jerking and do their piss on a donkey with a communist/nazi flag draped over it ritual while getting legal bribes from all these organizations.

[BaconMan_lol]

[QUOTE=SM0K3 B4N4N4;28930354]well of course they wouldn't want to cut off the constant supply of money going to their corporate friends getting subsidies and tax breaks and the military contractors, not to mention the bankers who are probably still getting money for fucking shit up for everyone. No they just want to cut all the liberal spending so they can start circle jerking and do their piss on a donkey with a communist/nazi flag draped over it ritual while getting legal bribes from all these organizations.[/QUOTE]

aside from the nazi part you are probably right, although I would really hope not in till there was plenty of proof :)

my solution to the problem is remove everyone in the government office over 40 (just a one time removal, not a law saying that no one can be in office over 40)

then the US will start making progress, on the economy and pretty much everything else

I would love to see all those stuck up old men out of the fucking power seats. they were good at one point, but the cold war is over.