I must disagree on your moral equivalency that Democrat protected entitlement programs are on par with national defense. One charge is in the Constitution, one is not. Moreover, less than 4% of our GDP now goes to defense, a historic low. We have become a nation of direct deposit worshipers.......political conservatives as well. I have seen long term Freepers sport the "Support our Troops!" banter in their posts in one breath, and then go ballistic about raising the retirement age for Social Security in the next. I guarantee you that when the next crisis comes (and it will), those Americans who never wore this nation's uniform will be pushing our military to the front of the line demanding we do something now!. Trust me.....I have lived through it time and time again.
Except it was Republicans that were demanding budget cuts in that bill that Ryan used to praise. Obama just wanted that money BEFORE the election and didnt care about the debt short term and so if stupid Republicans were willing to put a gun to their own voters heads with these delayed Defense cuts then Obama told them “You want cuts? Then cut your stuff” then Ryan called it historic after agreeing with it.
RE :”I must disagree on your moral equivalency that Democrat protected entitlement programs are on par with national defense. One charge is in the Constitution, one is not.”
The framers of the constitution had no way of knowing that the defense industry would become the massive money eating pork behemoth that it is. What did they round up money for muskets in that day?
And now you can hear Republicans talk about it ‘killing jobs’ repudiating all the anti-Keynesian ‘government spending kills jobs’ crap they threw out but never believed for two years.
It is very dishonest to claim that their whole plan assumed that Dems would later cut their own pork at their own political risk to dig Rs out of the hole they dug themselves with these delayed Defense cuts.
Elect SMARTER Republicans next time.
so if they agreed to the cuts to avoid a shutdown, why not just raise the debt ceiling w/o pushing the defense cuts to be included in the first place ???
wouldve been easier to tell me that we just wanted to avoid the bad press on the potential shutdown, rather than expect me to believe that they thought they could later barter a deal with the dems...
kabuki, nothing more...