There is no question Ryan and McConnell simply gave up and surrendered here. However, it is important to also add context. This is an election year. This is an election year budget.
Not excusing their ducking the hard votes, but what I think they did was simply to take the easy (cowardly?) way out and then try and get Trump to make the hard vetoes and blame him for any certain political fallout.
Right now the deck is stacked against Republicans. If they simply hold the line on spending then the NYTimes, the WaPo, CNNNBCABCCBS, and all the others show individual Republicans as pushing grandma off a cliff while forced to eat dog food.
I am certainly not happy the way they weaseled out of any responsibility whatsoever, but context is also needed. I would be somewhat comforted if I knew they would fix much of this after the election. They won’t. Therefore there is little solace to be had.
Conservatives vote, too. But they won’t this year.
Sorry, every year is an election year, Republicans need to think about that.
Besides, they want to lose. That is why this treacherous bill.
I liked what one FReeper called this bill earlier “imathrowuunderdabus”. bill
Big message to the Deplorables that we are worse than caca to them. Mighty Globalist RINOs Ryan, McConnell, et.al., haven’t given up on anything as they were NEVER on our side in the first place. Please quit making such lame excuses for these Traitors.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the budget items that hem Trump in were their ideas. If they wanted Trump to succeed, we would not have such a spending bill here a couple of days before the deadline.
“There is no question Ryan and McConnell simply gave up and surrendered here. However, it is important to also add context. This is an election year. This is an election year budget.”
It wasn’t an election year budget. This vote was on the budget for fiscal 2018 which began October 1, 2017. This budget should have been wrapped up and approved before October 1, 2017 so it wouldn’t be deliberated and passed during an election year.
Now they move on to the fiscal 2019 budget. The budget year begins October 1, 2018. Since they will all be campaigning for the November 2018 election, what kind of fiscal restraint can we expect? Zero. The Democrats are going to play games and stonewall all spring and summer. The Republicans are going to be trying to add as much pork as they can. If you think the budget just passed was bad, wait until you see the one they are about to start work on. Plus, you can be assured the Democrats will once again play the Republicans for the fools they are in September to create the maximum budget crisis drama just before the election.
What price will the Democrats extract from the Republicans in September to get a continuing resolution putting off the budget vote until after the election. If the it looks like the GOP will lose the House or Senate you can bet the Democrats will exact a high price if they don’t precipitate a government shutdown they can blame on Trump. You can expect zero dollars for the wall in the 2019 budget, plenty of money for student loan bailouts. They may even get the DACA kids through with a quick pathway to citizenship without any concessions to the GOP. If Mitch and Paul wouldn’t put up a fight for the 2018 budget, they certainly will cave quickly to get the continuing resolution they will need before the October 1 start of the fiscal year.
There will be no before or after the election. The lid has now blown off any pretense of fiscal restraint. Both parties are fully behind deficit spending and monetization of the debt by the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians have been buying as much physical gold as they can. The day is coming soon when the US loses reserve currency status due to is fiscal irresponsibility. When that day come we will either have hyperinflation like Venezuela is currently experiencing or we will see the government make draconian expense cuts while piling on confiscatory taxes. Either way, the republic ends, the dictatorship begins, and the sheeple get to experience the ugly reality of life in a 3rd world hell hole.
I respectfully disagree.
I think they want people to believe they are merely afraid of the (supposedly) other party, and the hostile media.
They are Trotskyist leftists at heart. They look for every excuse to go big government, world government. They just have to hide it some, unlike their D pals.