Democrats Attempt Blackmail
Posted December 12th, 2007 by Da King
How can a political party in america get away with the unthinkable proposition of withholding funding for american troops in the field, or in return for said funding, try to cut a deal to increase spending in other areas against the presidient's wishes, when the federal government is already running a deficit, owes a huge federal debt, and Congress appears to be fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax this year by not offsetting the lost tax revenue ? How can that same political party then have the gall to complain about the federal deficit, call themselves fiscally responsible, or utter the phrase 'we support the troops' ?
Answer - Call yourselves DEMOCRATS. In the world of Democrats, there is no such thing as responsibility. You just let your pet media cover up for you. Try to find an honest MSM story about this.
The Democrats are attempting to blackmail Bush and Republicans into 'buying' Democratic support for troop funding by going along with $30 billion in additional spending on the Omnibus bill, which includes 11,932 earmarks. Bush has threatened to veto the inflated bill, and Democrats know they don't have the votes to override a presidential veto if the Republicans stand united against them. Democrats are upset that Republicans won't "compromise" (translation: accept the Democrats terms of blackmail). If Bush and the Republicans do cave to the Dems, guess who the Dems will hold responsible for the larger resulting federal deficit next year ? If you said 'Bush !', you win a cigar. See how that works ? Cute, isn't it ? Democrats would get to behave irresponsibly and blame Bush all at the same time. It's a win-win, except for the taxpayers, of course, who don't matter anyway.
Speaking of those 11,932 earmarks, what happened to all that talk about "draining the swamp" of pork that the incoming Democratic congress was going to address ? I guess we should throw that on the rising scrap pile of broken Democratic 2006 campaign promises, just like PAYGO was scuttled in the Senate last week. You won't hear much about that from the MSM either.
House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis) has offered a compromise plan which would eliminate all the earmarks (which is basically a stunt, because Dems will NEVER agree to it, and some Repubs won't either), and the Dems are said to be announcing another compromise today which will only require an $11 billion bribe increase in federal spending. In a truly unfortunate choice of words, Obey said this about the impasse:
I'm tired of debating table scraps, and it's clear to me that the White House does not intend to compromise; they intend to sit back like Buddha and keep expecting us to compromise with ourselves. I'm done with navel-gazing," Obey said. "I'm not going to sit here and enable them to chisel domestic money down, down, down, down, so you wind up getting $5 billion bucks in return for $50 [billion] or $90 [billion] or whatever the hell it is they want for the war."
Table scraps ? $30 billion is table scraps ? Not to me, Mr. Obey. Remember last week, when Bill Clinton was talking about how he resented not being asked to sacrifice for the war effort ? Well, now you are seeing what Democrats do when asked to sacrifice a little for the war effort. The only possible thing Democrats consider as 'sacrifice' is huge tax increases. Those they are fine with. Reigning in spending in anathema to Democrats. When they are asked to do any belt tightening, Democrats respond like this, as Harry Reid's spokesman Jim Manley did when talking about the current Omibus bill impasse:
"When Americans wonder why there are fewer police on their street, fewer agents on our borders and fewer teachers in their children's classrooms, the answer will be painfully clear: The president and Bush Republicans are unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate in good faith".
This is why holding spending down is so difficult. Anytime it is attempted, Democrats act like you are slapping the food out of people's hands. Btw, without the $30 billion increase (or the $11 billion increase under the compromise plan), funding would continue at CURRENT LEVELS. This wouldn't require police or teachers to be fired, and Tiny Tim wouldn't have to give up his crutches either.
My message to Republicans is - Please, for once, have some nerve and stick to your principles. Abandoning them is what got you into trouble in the first place. You will NEVER be successful trying to pander like the Democrats, so why try.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:37 am
King writes:
"If Bush and the Republicans do cave to the Dems, guess who the Dems will hold responsible for the larger resulting federal deficit next year ? If you said 'Bush !', you win a cigar. See how that works ? Cute, isn't it ? Democrats would get to behave irresponsibly and blame Bush all at the same time. It's a win-win, except for the taxpayers, of course, who don't matter anyway."
And then Da King, speaking to the Republicans, conludes his post by writing "You will NEVER be successful trying to pander like the Democrats, so why try"
Oh King, how ture, how true. Well do I remember when President George H. Bush made a tax deal with the Dims in ‘91. He agreed to raise taxes in spite of his “read my lips’ promise not to, while the Dims in Congress promised to cut spending in return.
Foolishly, Bush the Elder went first. Needless to say, the Dims immediately reneged on their part of the bargain and then blamed the president for breaking his pledge and raising taxes –which was done at their insistence.
As a result of this deceit, the most corrupt & narcissist piece of garbage ever to occupy the presidency, Bill Clinton, won the 1992 presidential election.
You can't trust the Dims. And as soon as the blacks find this out, the Democratic Party will become extinct — either that or it will have to reform itself into respectability.
.
December 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
King and Ghost: Dudes….pass the bong…..cause you must be doing some good stuff.
Jeebus, King…..this post is so patently propagandistic and erroneous….even I was taken aback.
Dems offer budget including money for Iraq. It includes $11 billion more for domestic stuff. The $11 billion is approximately seven hundreths of one percent of our $13 trillion dollar national budget. That does make it "table scraps"….when put in perspective. Even more in perspective would be to recognize that $11 billion is not even one month of Iraq costs.
Now to the egregious error……The reason the AMT correction wasn't passed was because of Republican obstruction. The Dems actually wanted to offset the losses in revenues by closing up offshore tax haven stealing by monied big boys as well as making the poor and homeless millionaire hedge fund managers pay, you know, income tax, instead of dividend tax at the rate of 15%.
Republicans filibustered. They are the party that protects the 5% of Americans who are very wealthy.
Don't forget, PayGo is a Democratic concept that produced a surplus during the last Democratic president. Seems so long ago now, understandably, since Bush and his guys started raiding the treasury.
Why you continue to talk trash about Democrats who are the only ones, to my knowledge, to ever balance anything in terms of budgets……while at the same time boasting about some hallucination over Republican fiscal conservancy is….hard for me to understand.
YOU may think Republicans SHOULD be fiscally conservative and responsible…..but they're just not.
About the spending. Inflation is always with us…..which means prices are always going up, even if only slightly. That would mean the American budget would need to increase as well.
And to listen to American polling…..Americans WANT the budget to be spent at home on domestic projects.
Ghost: From your comment it is clear that you were deep into the weed bag before you passed the bong to King.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Rev Red, do you manage to read the number 11,932 earmarks? If so, do you remember the promise of 2006 by Nancy Pelosi to cut out pork completely? The Dems promised to cut out pork barrel legislation and then just admitted that there were so many pork suggestions that they just couldn't stand by that promise and just had to start assigning their pork projects to bills when they reached the compromise level, that is compromising between the houses before final vote. Why, Red, those poor people never knew what pork had been assigned for the free ride on what bill until they voted. This is how Democrats kill off pork legislation? It seems to me that they took another of their round the horn runs at fooling all of us.
How in the world do you manage to blame the minority party for every little thing the majority can or can't get done? I love listening to you do that and wonder why that same kind of reasoning wasn't right for the six preceding years. You do do some great reasoning sometimes.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Reverend, I made the mistake of reading your post while drinking a soda. Now I have to clean off my computer screen…
There. Next time warn me when you are about to say something so patently absurd. If you are able.
"Now to the egregious error……The reason the AMT correction wasn't passed was because of Republican obstruction. The Dems actually wanted to offset the losses in revenues by.."
Rev, the Senate vote was 88-5 !!!, hardly an indication of Democratic resistance. Do you bother to check any facts before you post, or do you just regurgitate whatever the lefty blogs are saying ? I can think of no other way you could make such an obvious mistake. I actually kind of like PAYGO in principle, even though I'm wary of the Dems using it for more of their endless tax increases, but the Dems trashed the principle of their own volition. You should be holding them accountable, no ? Oh, I forgot, only Republicans are accountable in your world.
And those balanced budgets of the late 90's had more to do with the Republican Congress and an economic boom than Bill Clinton, although Mr. Clinton does get the credit for going along with the Republicans. You can go ahead and admit that. Everybody already knows. The charade can stop. The Republicans WERE fiscally conservative during the Clinton years, and it worked. I will agree they stopped during the Bush years, because I am honest. When will you start being honest and admit the truth about those Clinton budgets ? Hmmm ?
December 12th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Roy,
I think the Rev is using the 'Bush made me do it !' defense for the Dems, lol. The Rev is the master of unintentional hilarity. It's just so silly.
I think the Republicans must have waited until the Dem senators left to go to the bathroom and then voted in their place. What a scream.
December 12th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Again, interesting choice of facts. Why haven't you pointed out all the pork prior to the Dems taking over in 2006 (see Hastert's district)? Or the fact that Dems were virtually shut out of those committee meetings? But hey, whichever facts best prove your point, I guess.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Da Truth,
Is this a bait and switch ? Sorry, but I was talking about the what is happening in the present. If you want to rehash the past, I agree with you. The former Republican congress was a pork-filled mess, who became nearly indistinguishable from big spending Dems, and they are to be condemned for it. The Dems told us they were going to clean all that up, right ?
WRONG. Not sure what you are defending here, Da Truth.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I'm not defending anyone. Merely pointing out facts. You continuously say how Repubs must be doing this, or must be doing that……..but the facts show they are no different than their democratic counterparts. And certainly not better. Facts is facts.