Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Bill Kristol writes today that any GOPer against Boehner's plan is choosing to side with Obama.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/time-choosing_577649.html

 

I'm no fan of His Turtleness, but at least he seems to understand that shit needs to get done. He is an unlikely voice of reason because, at this point, anyone who sounds plausibly reasonable stands out.

By the way, back to what I was saying about fissures in the GOP, comes this from Politico:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/60035.html

House Republicans 0n Wednesday morning were calling for the firing of Republican Study Committee [note: the RSC is a caucus of 170 GOP House members] staffers after they were caught sending e-mails to conservative groups urging them to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against a debt proposal from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Infuriated by the e-mails from Paul Teller, the executive director of the RSC, and other staffers, members started chanting “Fire him, fire him!” while Teller stood silently at a closed-door meetings of House Republicans.

...

In a brief interview with POLITICO on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said he’s “an RSC member and I don’t like to see Republicans attacking other Republicans.”

A steady stream of Republicans stood up at the meeting to heap abuse on Teller and the RSC. House Republicans were particularly peeved that the RSC was targeting some of its own dues-paying members.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a member of leadership and one of those targeted in an RSC email, stood up, read the message aloud and demanded Teller explain himself.

“If we keep this from ever coming to the floor, we have a greater chance of victory than defeating on a vote on the floor.” Goodman ended his email saying: “Here are the people we need to reach today who are undecided or only leaning one way right now,” according to the email, which was obtained by POLITICO.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), an RSC member and one of those on the RSC “target list,” said that leadership has given the RSC “everything that we have asked for.” Ellmers said she may quit the group.

“Yet when it comes time for a little bit of compromise on the RSC’s part, they’re not willing to compromise. And that’s just not the way to go about this,” Ellmers said

Ellmers said there “seems to be a little bit more than a connection” between the RSC and outside conservative groups.


Geez, Rep. Ellmers, ya think?

 

At this point, I say we hire an exterminator and, in the words of Tony Montana, "squash those cockroaches."

The entire bureaucracy has become so corrupted by special-interest money, there is no fixing it. Anytime somebody tries to suggest any substantive changes -- either REAL spending cuts (not pencil-jockeying the books) or REAL tax increases -- he is immediately shouted down by the other side and labeled either a Socialist bent on income redistribution or a mean, heartless bastard who believes in starving kids and leaving old people by the side of the road to die.

It's all meaningless political theater designed to fool their bosses -- also known as the American people -- into believing they're doing all they can to represent our best interests.

Meanwhile, as we fiddle away, the "beacon of democracy" is burning to the ground one day at a time.

They all need to go, the whole lot of 'em. Congress, the president, even the supposedly (yeah right) apolitical Supreme Court. They're all part of the problem and none have any solution to the ever-expanding debt crisis this country faces because to really fix it would require taking steps that will alienate the special interests whose cash sent them to Washington in the first place.

The simple fact of the matter is, we can't keep walking down the path we're on. We can't keep spending more than a trillion dollars we take in every year and we can't stick with a tax code that allows extremely wealthy people to avoid paying taxes on most of their earnings. Neither is a viable long-term solution for what should be a prosperous nation.

Everyone is gonna have to suffer and sacrifice to truly fix the disaster our government has wrought. It's just nobody in the bureucracy has the balls to step up and tell the truth because they're all too scared of losing their cushy-ass jobs, and too many Americans are content to sit back and blame the other side for everything that's wrong in the country.

 

But wait -- when the tax is gone, the price of gas will drop considerably, thus putting more money in people's pockets -- money that they'll turn around and spend on houses and cars and thus increase tax revenues for the various governments that depend on it.

Just like what happened this week when the tax on airline tickets went away, right?

That's correct, isn't it, teabaggers?

 

So you agree the airlines pocketed the money.

Any reason to believe all corporations wouldn't do this if given the change by Republicans who keep hawking trickle-down economics?

 

Wow, I hadn't heard much from him since he was completely wrong about the Iraq war.

 

There are probably plenty of libginas who would love to see this.

 

Cue the RINO chorus for McCain's comments today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/mccain-erupts-conservatives-are-lying-to-america/2011/03/03/gIQAUm2HdI_blog.html?tid=sm_facebook

 

Do you really think the "Tea party" Republicans are going to be swayed by David Brooks, Bill Kristol, or even Charles Krauthammer wringing their hands?

They believe they're on the verge of a victory, and they're not going to be talked into surrendering just short of the goal line.

People keep telling them they don't understand how Washington works.

They came specifically to change how Washington works. That's the goal.

And isn't this the point.

To get a deal done, it has to get done in the middle. There isn't enough votes in either party (especially with divided Government) to get a deal done with just the votes of one party.

The "Tea Party" won't sign on to a deal in the middle though, and neither will the Progressive Caucus.

So, where is the middle? Boehner is the middle.

Obama isn't the middle. He's still talking about tax increases.

Boehner is the middle. That's the compromise. He's willing to get a deal done that his wing won't support. McConnell too.

But the Democrats won't do a deal their wing won't support.

So, we'll drive off the cliff and the "Tea Part" will have won.

 

Bruce Bartlett called today's GOP a bunch of "craven cowards."

http://www.casavaria.com/cafesentido/2011/07/27/8273/fmr-aide-to-reagan-denounces-house-republicans-as-craven-cowards/