Senate rejects two budget bills over spending cuts
Today the Senate voted on two budget bills which would have reduced spending in Washington–both failed. The first bill was the House version of the budget bill which included over $60 billion in spending cuts–just over half of the $100 billion House Republicans promised us in the first place–and then shortly thereafter the Senate also rejected a bill put forth by the Democrats which included a mere $5 billion in cuts.
Democrat Ben Nelson stated that the House bill contained “too much hate” and because of this he could not vote for it. By labeling spending cuts in a time of economic turmoil a “hate” bill he is showing us that he–and I fear too many in Washington–simply are not serious about confronting the looming deficit crunch. The fact is that nobody wants to make the tough decisions and I feel as if they are not willing to do what is best for the country–even if it means they may lose re-election–they shouldn’t have run for office in the first place. And when I make this comment I mean both Republicans and Democrats because the Republicans promised to introduce $100 billion in savings but once it came to make good on that promise they let us down.
We know that both sides are going to start with a number and the final number will be somewhere in the middle. And this is where the Republicans made their critical mistake: Knowing that whatever number they started with–and knowing that the Democrats would have rejected it regardless of that number–they should have gone higher than the $100 billion and forced the Democrats to settle on a higher number, but they failed to do this so the Democrats offered a bill that contained spending cuts which were half of their original $10 billion number. When the Democrats realized that the Republicans cut their $100 billion promise in half, they did likewise with their proposal.
We now know that whatever bill makes it to the president’s desk for his signature it will be less than half of what the Republicans promised the American people and they have nobody to blame but themselves because of their own weakness. I have been willing to cut the Republicans some slack on this issue while some conservatives have not, but I now realize that they were right and I was wrong because Republicans had a chance to make a difference and they backed down before the fight really even began.
Here is my prediction for the upcoming budget battle in the next couple of weeks: This is going to come all the way down to the wire, but in the end the Republicans will give up much more than they gain because they will be too timid to shut down the federal government in light of the repercussions it had when they tried this in the nineties. The budget will contain some spending cuts but they will be much closer to the Democrats number of $10 billion rather than the $60 billion the Republicans were seeking.
The Democrats will then be able to call this a victory because they were able to cut spending while at the same time avoiding the “hate” filled budget and “draconian” cuts the Republicans were seeking. The Democrats will rightfully be able to claim that they cut spending in Washington and the Republicans will have to go back to their constituents with their tail between their legs and try to claim that they achieved some sort of victory when we all know they dropped the ball when the opportunity was afforded them.
America's Watchtower 
I was not surprised to see that both of the spending bills failed in the Senate. I fully expected that to happen, as I am sure you did also. It’s clear the Republicans are going to have to compromise to get anything past the Senate and they should have started with a higher number.
There is one point on which you and I disagree, namely the $100 billion in spending cuts the Republicans promised in the first year. I know they failed to specify this when they released their pledge to cut spending, but I think it is a little unrealistic to think they are able to cut that amount of spending in the first year, considering the fact that they will have control of the House for only 9 months in fiscal year 2011. Should they have tried harder? You bet they should have, but I think we should give them the chance to fulfill this promise in the first full fiscal year they have control of the House, not in the remaining 9 months of a fiscal year that hasn’t had an actual budget applied to it. Just a thought.
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I was not surprised by these bills failing and perhaps you are right and we still need to see what happens with the next fiscal year.
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I recall that there was a partial solution given when the Republicans took over Congress in 1995. Their plan was to block grant money to the states for social spending, which would have taken the Federal level of bureaucracy out of the picture entirely. That would have taken about 1/3 of the expenses out of managing the money, and given the credit of managing the programs to where they actually ARE being managed, by the social workers at the state level.
The Democrats screamed bloody murder, of course, because that would have removed an enormous amount of their power from their centralized government construct. They would have lost a huge portion of their voter base at the Federal level. So naturally, they had to depict the Gingrich congress at stealing welfare money from starving kids.
The simple fact that there would have been a lot more money to spend on those kids went completely unremarked upon by the news media, of course, and the idea was dropped.
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This comment should have been in response to your reply to my comment to Atlanta R. I posted it in the wrong thread. 🙂
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Whoops! 🙂 The Democrats have a way with playing off the emotions of the people, don’t they? After all, they are doing it all for the children, while Republicans don’t care about the children. At least that is what the Democrats and their all too willing accomplices in the media would have you believe.
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Find it absolutely disgusting that they are slashing every program that benefits average Americans, while yelling that it is a necessary sacrifice. Meanwhile, the rich were extended tax breaks that would have given this country vast amounts of money to work with. Ultimately¬, the poor and middle class have to sacrifice and suffer so that the rich can save a few dollars. Sounds messed up to me.
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If you feel this way,then perhaps you are unaware of this:
You send a tax dollar to Washington. That dollar gets appropriated for, say, welfare spending. It gets sent to HHS where the paper pushers decide where it should go. Say they put it in child protective services, if you want a really valuable program named.
OK, so HHS sends it to, say, Florida, where we filter it through our HRS (Health and Rehabiltative Services), who run it through THEIR paper pushers, pay the social workers, etc. By the time that tax dollar gets through a government agency at the Federal level and another government agency at the State level, about $.23 is left to give to the person who needs it.
Twenty-three cents.
The Salvation Army gives 87% of the money they collect directly to helping. The 13% they use for expenses is the best rate in the entire charity world, but it proves that it CAN be done, and over an extensive period. The Salvation Army has been around for more than a hundred years.
If ANY private charity organization worked the way our government agencies do, they’d end up in prison for fraud.
We need to go back to private giving. The reason we don’t do it so much these days is BECAUSE there are government programs to cover most problems.
We need to wean ourselves OFF government programs, and we need to start NOW.
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A great example of why the government should be out of the business of charity!
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AP is reporting that we have had the biggest deficit in history last month and of course they blame this on the tax package signed in December.
I guess the lap dog media figures there is no relationship between spending and the deficit. It always comes down to funding i.e. taxing.
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Exactly!
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What’s going on here? The GAO just found BILLIONS in complete waste. What exactly are they fighting about?
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I know! Let’s get serious about this!
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