[Diddle E. Squat]

When will the GOP stop playing prevent defense?

Perhaps when its about an issue that is really important. Compromise on the little things, stand firm on the big ones. Maybe I'm missing something, but is the division of committee funding really that important? About the only thing I can think of where it would make much of a difference is in the amount of staff available to assist in issue research. But with all the think tanks, activist groups(on both sides) and the speed of information these days, that really shouldn't make much of a difference.

Let the Dems get their choice of what radio station they want to listen to, as long as we stay in the driver's seat and determine where the car actually goes.

[The Wizard]

if dasshole is happy, we lost

[Sabertooth]

Perhaps when its about an issue that is really important. Compromise on the little things, stand firm on the big ones.

The Democrats were bluffing, and we should have called them on it.

We pay a cumulative price for these retreats (not "compromises").

Democrats said that traditional committee funding ratios, where the minority got as little as one-third of the money going to each committee, was no longer relevant in light of the last Congress when the funds were divided nearly equally.

The rationale behind the Democrats demands was that they felt they shouldn't have to give up a lot of the ground won in Trent Lott's funding surrender in 2001. That was their beachhead for this advance.

[montag813]

Compromise on the little things, stand firm on the big ones

It's much harder to win on the big things, such as judicial nominations, when you give Schmuck Schumer 40+% (instead of 33%) of the budget, money he can use to dig up dirt and hire P.I.'s on every nominee.

[WOSG]

"Maybe I'm missing something, but is the division of committee funding really that important?"

YES!!!!!

It's the staffers who WRITE THE BILLS.

[EDINVA]

sorry, but you are aptly named .. you don't know, diddly. EVERYTHING that gets done gets done in Committee .. when you watch a floor vote, it's all over. It's those budgets that fund the comittee staffs ... so you have an equal number of young D staffers to young R staffers. Their job is to thwart the opposition. So, instead of having, i.e., 6 GOP staffers and 4 D staffers, you have 5 of each. They will now be more successful at obstructing at the committee level. They will stay on Capitol Hill and continue to exert their influence. The GOP staffers will not be able to accomplish so much ... it's a real loss, leaving aside the symbolism of Frist starting of on the entirely wrong foot .. there's a world of difference getting control without a majority because ONE Senator who was elected GOP switched to D .. AND, winning a majority through an election when all the odds and history were against you. Of course Daschle is happy and wants this proportion to continue .. he won't live long enough to see another super D majority. GOP loses again, even when they win.

[Leto]

. Maybe I'm missing something, but is the division of committee funding really that important? About the only thing I can think of where it would make much of a difference is in the amount of staff available to assist in issue research Well if we had 66% foing to the pubbies rather than 55% then more rats staffers would have lost their jobs ...which is a good thing. If Frist didn't cave on the rat demands on approving judges then this isn't too bad, but if he gave in on the approval on judges then we are looking at another Trent Lott or Dole as leader... I sure hope not.