Wow! It Didn't Take Long for the Republicans to Break That Promise

House GOP Repeatedly Promised $100 Billion In Spending Cuts That It Now Calls ‘Hypothetical’

House Republicans made a lot of noise in their pre-election “Pledge to America” regarding exactly how much government spending they were going to cut. At the document’s unveiling, incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) confidently asserted “we can save $100 billion dollars a year. That’s $1 trillion over the next ten years.”

And Boehner was far from the only one laying out $100 billion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts as the benchmark. Incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that the GOP’s goal was to cut “a good $100 billion.” Rep. Kevin McCarthy (of “Young Gun” fame) reiterated the promise, saying, “We’re saying you go through, go back to pre-stimulus bailout numbers. We can live with that.” “We’ve got to roll back there. That will save $100 billion in the first year,” agreed Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN).

Just yesterday, in fact, incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) repeated that the GOP is aiming for $100 billion in cuts. However, according to the New York Times, this promise was not a promise in the literal sense:

Now aides say that the $100 billion figure was hypothetical, and that the objective is to get annual spending for programs other than those for the military, veterans and domestic security back to the levels of 2008, before Democrats approved stimulus spending to end the recession.

“I think they woke up to the reality that this will have a direct negative impact on people’s lives,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who will be the ranking member on the House Budget Committee. “You know, it’s easy to talk about these things in the abstract. It’s another thing when you start taking away people’s college loans and Pell Grants or cutting early education programs.”

Indeed, since the contractionary effects of $100 billion in spending cuts, and the layoffs that would follow, would do real damage to the economy, the fact that the GOP is backing away from its commitment is a good thing. But it’s just the latest in a flurry of budget promises that the GOP has broken, before it even officially comes into power. The Wonk Room has a round up of all the broken pledges. This morning, Ryan said on NBC’s Today Show that, while spending will be reduced, he doesn’t know by how much. “I can’t tell you by what amount…but it will all be coming down,” he said.

 

$100 Billion of cuts in a $3,800 Billion dollar budget is not going to make the sky fall. You could find that in defense spending alone (somewhere around $900 Billion requested for 2011). Oh wait, they don't want to cut the ~that~ spending...we have other countries to rebuild which obviously take precedence over rebuilding our own.

Hell, you can find $40 Billion just in foreign economic and military aid. And, of course, reducing the deficit by $100 Billion a year would be even easier if they didn't look at only one side of the expenditure/revenue equation. No one should forget that the Great Tax Compromise of 2010 is going to cost at least $400 to 500 billion a year for the next 2 years.

 

Yeah, people who believed the Republican's rhetoric and voted them in last November are the real suckers. You just have to look at their borrow and spend track record and know they are selling snake oil. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and you're probably a Republican. Fool me three times and I must be a Republican. Two more years of this is definitely going to be some fun.

 

I gave up any hope for any change on our downward debt spiral when the Great Compromise of 2010 was passed without any way to pay for it. None of them have any credibility on deficits or the national debt any more...not that they had much before that but the last little bit evaporated at that point for me. I have not voted for a lot of them in the last few elections anyway...but I will vote for the Rent Is Too Damn High Party before I vote for another D or R.

 

I can respect that and relate to your disgust with both parties. I would probably follow suit except that I know Republicans would show up every election and vote for the Republican candidate even if the candidate was a reanimated Hitler. Democrats are the ones that stay home in disgust and allow Republicans to be elected and I know that if things are bad now, they can always get worse. Maintaining even a bad political environment is still better that letting the Right make it even worse. How did 8 years of Bush work out?

 

The didn't stay home in 2006. The didn't stay home in 2008. Thank God they stayed home in 2010. Now if they'll only stay home in 2012........

 

Maybe it'd be simpler if the RNC just has Diebold "handle" the election like in 2001.

 

Maybe the RNC could hire the Black Panthers to obstruct voting booths. No wait.. I think the DNC already has them on their payroll.. Dang it!

 

The RNC knows all about putting people on their payroll, especially in 2001.

 

Well, he never froze my pay. You have to remember that the current President decided that my family needed to sacrifice for the deficit while fighting tooth and nail to ensure that families making a quarter million dollars a year wouldn't have to sacrifice at all. He saved a couple billion only to give away 900 billion a week later...so it shouldn't be surprising that the Dems don't have a lot of credibility in my house either. lol

 

You watch way too much Fox News.

The facts of the case are relatively simple. Two men were captured on a video standing outside a polling place in a black Philadelphia neighborhood on Election Day in 2008. One of the men had a nightstick, if an unclear agenda — though a member of the black nationalist New Black Panther Party, he had earlier professed loathing for the Democratic "puppet" candidate, Barack Obama, who went on to overwhelmingly carry that precinct.


Three Republican poll monitors filed complaints of intimidation — itself a federal crime — but no voters attested to being turned away. The Justice Department, while Bush was still president, investigated the incident and later, after Obama took office, decided that "the facts and the law did not support pursuing" the claims against the party and against a second, unarmed man, Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

 

Your response is either naive or total partisanship spewing. Let me guess, the nightstick wasn't a weapon it was a cane, right?

 

So much for open government. The GOP doesn't want you to know who is accepting the government provided health coverage. Nice!

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House of Representatives approved a rules package on Wednesday, the first day of business for the 112th Congress, that will dictate the way the legislature operates this year and reflects a shift to Republican control of the lower chamber. The bill passed on a party-line vote, with 240 Republicans in favor and 191 Democrats against.

One measure that didn't make it into the rules package was a proposal by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) that would have required all members to disclose whether they are taking advantage of their federal health insurance plan within 15 days of taking the oath of office. Crowley's measure also split on a party-line vote, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.

On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dems' House fundraising arm, accused Republicans of a double standard in blocking the disclosure.

 

You missed one very important fact. The "men" were CONVICTED. All that remained was the sentencing.

 

Really? "The only penalty handed out was to Samir Shabazz. He is not allowed to display a weapon within 100 feet of any Philadelphia polling place through 2012. His sentence will run out prior to the 2012 elections."

No one would have ever heard of these two nuts had Fox News not tried to blow this nonincident up for the purposes of Right-wing propaganda. Fox has a history of race baiting especially when it comes to blacks.

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i6PlcZeiW_Nucd6_I72lQV6BEi4QD9GMHAS82.

 

Nice dead link you got there. Try this one - from the horses mouth instead of slanted to your tastes.
FNC Exclusive: Former DOJ Attorney Discusses New Black Panther Party Voter Intimidation Case - America Live with Megyn Kelly - FOXNews.com

 

If I read the punishment right, it seems like a just punishment. If you are caught displaying a weapon at a polling place during a presidential election, you are banned from displaying a weapon at a polling place until the next presidential election.

 

It's not too late for Darrell Issa to investigate this bit of corruption. I hope it's on his list.

 

No thanks! I'd trust a dead link over Fox News anytime.

 

Let me get this straight. You believe all the liberal opinions somebodies twist into your liking, but a live interview with the parties to the story you do not trust. That is exactly why you cannot argue intelligently with a liberal - even one who purports to be "easily the highest educated person in this forum".