Posted on 04/04/2011 12:42:52 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
On Saturday, The Hill reported that momentum in the budget battle had shifted to the Democrats, in an odd and thinly-sourced story. The article cited “political experts” twice as the source of claims such as these:
Momentum in the partisan messaging battle over who’s to blame if the government shuts down has shifted in recent weeks to favor Democrats, according to political experts. …
Political experts say the outspoken role of the Tea Party will influence the blame game if there there’s a government shutdown.
Despite the use of plurals in both cases, the article only quotes one person in each instance to support the specific position. The first time, Alexander Bolton quotes a professor of political science from Rutgers University offering nothing more substantial than a personal opinion. The source of the second argument is a director from the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank that is hardly objective when it comes to the Tea Party. Their latest posting on the subject features a panel discussion on just how fascist the Tea Party might be.
Two days later, The Hill follows up with actual objective poll data that offers readers an Emily Litella moment:
A plurality of likely voters believes Republicans have been more reasonable than Democrats in the negotiations over spending cuts.
A new poll conducted for The Hill showed 41 percent polled said the GOP had been “more reasonable,” while 29 percent said Democrats had been more sensible. Twenty-two percent said neither party was more reasonable than the other, and 7 percent were not sure.
The message is clear: The Hill needs to find more intelligent “political experts.”
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
The Hill LIES! A lot.
The usual. Media trying to carry the Dem’s water by making up news & stating it as fact to discourage us and shape public opinion.
Although primarily, this is to intimidate spinless Republicans in DC. Oh, I guess that term is redundant.
“The Hill needs to find more intelligent political experts??” Oh please. The Hill needs to base stories on fact rather than political bias. Period.
Republicans will be catching flac from the Dem info that 97% of Planned Parenthood money is spent for women’s health care, and only 3% is abortion related, and that is not paid for by the government because of the Hyde amendment. Others feel that eliminating WIC programs is counterproductive becaue malnourished babies and children are more likely to be premature, become ill, drop out of school, and become delinquents, etc. Thus making this program very cost effective. I get these arguments, and have no answer when people ask me what/who is going to take up the slack.
And notice the presumption:
“..who’s to blame if the government shuts down...will influence the blame game if there there’s a government shutdown.”
If it happened, many people wouldn’t mind so much, might actually prefer it, and could actually CREDIT lawmakers who refused to go along with the same old same old. That’s why it won’t happen.
Cut waste and theft , streamline all programs and examine every tax exempt organization each year .
They have a double-digit lead in the budget battle. Why are they settling for a piss ass puny amount to reduce it then? Huh?
After Reagan was safely out of office, the media called this "Reagan's magical ability to go over the heads of Washington establishment and speak directly to the people."
“The usual. Media trying to carry the Dem’s water by making up news & stating it as fact to discourage us and shape public opinion.
Although primarily, this is to intimidate spinless Republicans in DC. Oh, I guess that term is redundant.”
Exactly. Winning through intimidation.
Trying to undermine the Now 2010 election.
Give Boehner etal more credit - they have not given in on the $30b deal the Dems were trying to push as a ‘compromise’, although the Dems have yet to pass ANYTHING.
We are on track to having a shutdown but having the Dems get the blame for it, then a final 2011 deal to be close but not at $60 billion. The Dem attempt to stampede towards a $30b ‘compromise’ is not working.
“Why are they settling for a piss ass puny amount to reduce it then? Huh?”
$60b in a current budget year that is half-way spent is not puny - it will save $800 billion over the next 10 year by lower spending trajectories.
Someone needs to shoot your math teacher.
The proposed budget spends 68% more money than total incoming revenues.
$61 billion is nothing when you’re running a deficit of $1.5 trillion. $800 billion over 10 years is nothing when you’re piling up the debt by tens of trillions of dollars.
The GOP has a rare opportunity to actually do something of value for this country and they are wussing out again.
They need to nut up or shut up.
What I would like to see on the continuing resolution is double the amount of cuts every two weeks. We started with $4 billion for the first two weeks - equates to the $100 billion promise for the first year. The next CR should have been $8 billion for another two weeks. This one being discussed now should be $16 billion and so on.
Churchs/charity organizations will if given the opportunity.
Also, it will be shocking to some how fast the numbers of people needing these servies will diminish if handout money decreases. A lot of bad behavior goes on just because the "safey net" is there.
“And $800 billion over 10 years sounds like a lot...until you realize that the 2009 deficit (one year) was $1,200 billion (1.2 trillion). Granted, it’s better than not reducing the spending, but it only means it will take slightly longer to go bankrupt.”
Understood, but this 2011 battle is just the warmup/leftover from the Pelosi Congress that didnt even do their job last year. The good news/silver lining is that Pelosi and Reid were so incompetent they didnt get 2011 funding done, otherwise it would have been baked in at higher levels and we’d be talkng about 2012 only.
Whatever we can cut is a head start on future cuts.
The real rubber-meets-road will be in 2012 budget.
“$61 billion is nothing”
Nope, its $61 billion more than nothing.
“The GOP has a rare opportunity”
actually the next opportunity to spend and save is in May ... then again in October in 2012 budget, then every year...
” to actually do something of value for this country and they are wussing out again.”
Nope, they are not.
Rep Ryan has a plan to cut $4 TRILLION from the projected deficits. If you have a better plan, show your cards and share your insight.
Drink that deferred Kool-Aid.
First, $4 Trillion cut from deficits over the next 10 years does not impress me much. If we just repeated this year's budget 10 times, we'd rack up $15 Trillion in deficits before we even start talking about paying interest on it. We'd probably need to cut 5-6 times that much to fill in the hole that has been dug since 2006.
Second, I have an inkling of how huge and complex the federal government's budget is. Nobody pays me enough to even consider formulating a plan to fix it. That's what the Republicans were sent to Washington to do, not me. I'm just here to evaluate the end product.
It’s not even a real shutdown. No checks will be held back, we are told. So, how many people will even notice?
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