Happy Thanksgiving Budget Update

This is what I hear:  Bush wants $22B cut from the appropriations bill across the board.  The Dems, just prior to watching the dead-enders in the House refuse to override BushCo's veto of Labor H, announced that they would come back with a compromise and cut $11B from an omnibus spending bill.  Labor H, the bill that funds Head Start, Early Start, Community Block Grants, nutrition programs for the elderly, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, programs that help Homeless vets, job training and dozens of other human needs programs and which was already cut to the bone in a first attempt to appease the Republicans, will take another hit of about $3.5 billion. I don't know where the exact cuts will be but nobody can afford to give anything else up without causing increased suffering to fellow Americans so additional pain is guaranteed.

The Dems' message going forward will continue to tie funding the debacle in Iraq to domestic spending and will be clear and simple: every vote for blank checks to fund the President's failed and failing Iraq War means money we can't spend on domestic needs.  It's the classic guns or butter framing. 

The GOP's message reads like a twisted ransom note: Fund the President's glorious War on Everything and we'll let some domestic spending through.  So the party of fiscal responsibility wants to break the bank killing and dying in Iraq with no end in sight and unless that demand is met, they won't allow any FY 2008 spending bill to pass this year - or probably next.   That means that we'll be stuck with another Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government going.  It will cover all spending that hasn't already been signed into law.  Defense has passed and been signed, MilCon/VA is on the brink.

A Continuing Resolution is what BushCo wants because it will mean de facto cuts to everything.  Remember, we're already operating on a CR from last year, which didn't move in any substantive way from FY 2006 funding.  This is Death by CR and it's a twofer for the GOP because they get to position the Dems as do-nothing, while starving the beast that is the American public and infrastructure. 

The federal budget process is very complicated but in terms of broad strokes, it's not too difficult to understand.  The Dems started the game by negotiating with themselves and the loathsome Blue and Bush Dogs.  They sent a stingy budget to both chambers and came out of conference with a stingier one.  BushCo swore to veto nearly every part of it (appropriations bills) and has been doing that to great effect with the help of his party-over-country minions, who refuse to budge.  We're stuck with nothing getting past the dead-enders and faced with operating on funding from last year, which is essentially funding from the year before.   

If you do nothing else on this issue, call your reps in Congress once a day to tell them that you are watching.  You want the budget passed this year with the fewest cuts possible.  No CR.  No more Starving the Beast.  The Beast is us.

Comments

[Democracy Lover]

Why is it that the Democrats can pass billions more to continue the bloody war crimes of the Bush Administration but can't seem to get any money for children, veterans, the sick or anyone else?

Pelosi took impeachment off the table so they could get important legislation passed instead of wasting time defending the Constitution or exposing the criminal behavior of the Bushies. Nice job, Nancy! Apparently the "important legislation" you had in mind was more funding for the war crimes in Iraq, making illegal wiretapping legal, and letting our veterans die for lack of care. At least we know where the Democratic Party stands now - thanks!

[eRobin S]

Why is it that the Democrats can pass billions more to continue the bloody war crimes of the Bush Administration but can't seem to get any money for children, veterans, the sick or anyone else?

They just don't have the votes to get the budget past the GOP. It's painful. More pressure has to be brought to bear on the Republicans who are giving BushCo what he wants, which is all of them really. So if you've got a GOP Rep, give him/her a call daily.

Their devotion is stunning because if we end up with a CR for next year, then the earmarks disappear along with the program funding. That's a lot to give up for a president on his way out.