GOP headed back to mean, old, heartless money cutting

WP: House GOP Leaders Set to Cut Spending

from JoeUser Forums
The Washington Post has an article coming in tomorrow's (Monday, 10/17/2005) print edition that follows up on current events news -- the G.O.P. (Republican party in the U.S.A.) is headed back to old and familar territory -- cutting money from the budget, "gutting" programs and taking money away from programs that desperately need them. I'm sure some old people are about to get pushed down stairs, children will go without school lunches, retirees will go without checks, and budgets for non-essential items will be cut severely meaning less money for researching cures for cancer, heart disease, and other important things -- or so the Democrats and liberals will start screaming.

Meanwhile, deficit hawks (like Joe User's own Clueless Old Liberal) will cry that the cuts aren't enough, aren't deep and draconian enough, and more must be done. They may even go as far as the C.O.L. has many times and show more liberal colors demanding tax increases.

Too bad for all of the above the cuts that are being pursued are in fairly small (and tolerable) amounts. They could be worse, and they could be painful for some sectors of the U.S. government economy, but it seems that our representatives being smart with the amount of cuts they are seeking, and are trying to spread the impact out as much as they can so no one part of the federal sector will be hit too hard.

Clip from original Washington Post article follows. Please see original site for complete article.




House GOP Leaders Set to Cut Spending

Leadership Shake-Up Spurred Policy Shift


By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 17, 2005; Page A01

House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power.
Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief.
DeLay told a packed room of reporters on Sept. 13 that 11 years of Republican rule had already pared down the federal budget "pretty good." If lawmakers had suggestions for cuts, DeLay said he would listen, but he was not offering anything up.
But faced with a revolt among many conservatives sharply critical of him for resisting spending cuts, DeLay three weeks later told a closed meeting of the House Republican Conference, "I failed you," according to a number of House members and GOP aides. Then, in a nod to the most hard-core conservatives, DeLay volunteered, "You guys filled a void in the leadership."
The abrupt shift reflects a changed political dynamic in the House in which a faction of fiscal conservatives -- known as the Republican Study Committee, or RSC -- has gained the upper hand because of DeLay's criminal indictment in Texas, widespread criticism of the Republicans' handling of Hurricane Katrina, and uncertainty over the future of the leadership, according to lawmakers and aides.
Now, cutting the budget -- which only months ago seemed far from possible -- is at the center of the agenda in the House. "No one wants to have an argument with friends, but that argument facilitated the debate that led to the package [of cuts] that [House Speaker J. Dennis] Hastert has now put out there," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the RSC and a leading proponent of cuts to offset new government spending.
But Republicans could be taking a big risk by cutting Medicaid programs while their standing in the polls has plummeted and Democrats gear up for a fight. "We have seen a sea change in the budget policies of House Republicans," said Thomas S. Kahn, the Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee. "Clearly, the RSC's influence over their budget policies is in the ascendancy."

... more at linked article (please click headline link to see all of original article).

emphasis added


So the good lord (or the federal government) opens up the purse strings and helps the poor people that were victims of Katrina, but then cuts money from programs for the poor in other areas? Or at least that is what one of the emphasized sections above seems to imply. Of course they don't mention the totals that were recently proposed for Katrina relief by the Louisiana delegation again (numbers that were ridiculously obscene).

Meanwhile the Post starts up on the Democratic talking points for this issue by pointing out (in the second highlighted section above) that these cuts come at a dangerous time for the G.O.P., when the polls show them losing support, with the President mired in a funk of his own thanks to the Miers nomination, the continued Plame inquiries and more.

Yup, the bad news cycle is coming up at a great time for the MSM to start bashing the G.O.P. with.
politics
5,256 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Good. Damn shame we stopped to begin with.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Steps towards a balanced budget? Sounds like a good thing to me. Who knows, maybe if the government can show that it knows how not to go bankrupt, that knowledge can be passed along to companies and the average citizen. Ha, who am I kidding.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Is it me, or is the Washington Pest actually gleefully reveling in the fact that they have something finally to chomp their excisors in?  And they want us to beleive they are impartial?  Yea, in a pigs eye.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
No comments from the C.O.L. on how this is just a drop in the bucket and doesn't even come close to the amount of money we needed? No comments from same on how we really need to soak the rich and suck every penny from them so we can avoid passing the debts on to our children and their children? No comments saying that we need to go back to Clintonian level taxes for all?

Hmmm, who hid the C.O.L.'s keyboard??
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs...



...could we cut military spending instead?
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

...could we cut military spending instead?

Sure.  You want to leave the men and women in Iraq with no bullets?

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Sure. You want to leave the men and women in Iraq with no bullets?

I was kinda' thinking we'd cut the defense budget by simply removing the men and women from Iraq, including bullets.

That would save an ass-load of money, don't you think?
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
That would save an ass-load of money, don't you think?


We could save about 4 times that load of money if we cut off the dead-beats that are living off the federal dollar while sitting on their own pant-loads doing nothing.

Say, for example, a lot of the people that were sucking up federal money while living in New Orleans before?

Or how about we put those people to work building roads, buildings, and other structures while rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Oooops, can't do that if the people won't take that kind of job, right?
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yep, terp, in America as well as any other part of the globe we've got layabouts. Individuals who consistantly refuse to work, contribute taxes to our state and federal government and prove themselves a detriment, in general.

We'll always have them, and yes, we could spend a lot less supporting them. Unfortunately, if you've looked at the pie chart here; Link
you'll realize that in cutting just 1% of the defense budget you'll liberate quite a bit more money then you would if you cut spending to help the unemployed.

We spend more on defense, as a whole, then we do, categorically, on anything else - does that not tell you where our priorities lie and do you not think we should possibly re-orginize those priorities, particularly when domestic spending should include spending on AMERICANS not IRAQIS.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top

We spend more on defense, as a whole, then we do, categorically, on anything else - does that not tell you where our priorities lie and do you not think we should possibly re-orginize those priorities, particularly when domestic spending should include spending on AMERICANS not IRAQIS.

If you check the Constitution, you will not find government handouts in there, or monetary transfers.  You will find "Provide for the Common Defense".  That means Military.  So as a percent, defense is very low, eh?

And somehow this nation survived and thrived for 160 years without a welfare state.  Some did die in abject poverty, but most did get a hand up from the likes of churches (Evvvvilllll!  Religion) and organizations like the salvation army. Shock!

It was not the goverment that was clearing downed trees the day after Isabel hit.  It was neigbors helping neighbors.  An old, tried and true idea that no longer is accepted as a viable option due to the government trying to be everything to everyone.

Finally, you misquote.  Terp did not talk about unemployment.  That is actually not a government program (usually) as the employers, and hence the employees, pay that fund. 

Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
The proposed cuts in Medicare, Medicade, Home heating assistance and food stamps are the way conservatives plan to meet the Bush statememnts to help the poor? I hope the conservatives cut the hell out of these programs that most Americans depend on and create such termoil that in 2006 the control of congress changes. At the same time, the increase in interest rates are about to send the interest payments on the National Debt sky high. The majority should have enough of the GOP by Novenber 2006.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Finally, you misquote. - Doc



We could save about 4 times that load of money if we cut off the dead-beats that are living off the federal dollar while sitting on their own pant-loads doing nothing. - Terp

I would infer from this statement that these deadbeats are probably, among other things, unemployed. I never quoted terp. (erm, um, until now). 'Helping' the unemployed might include such things as job placement programs, grants for education, etc., etc. - not simple handouts.

If you check the Constitution, you will not find government handouts in there, or monetary transfers.

Now, Doc, you know better then to use that quote, but I think you counted on me being lazy enough to remember, or, at least, cut 'n' paste the entire passage from the Preamble to the Constitution, which reads:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So what our founders were really doing here, when they wrote the preamble, was form an introduction of sorts. The founders were attempting to explain what their end goals were in creating the frame or structure for our government which is the United States Constitution; not define those goals at the beginning.

Let's go with what you touched on, however, yes, provide for the common defense is in there, along with establishing justice (our judicial system and legislation of law), and promoting the general welfare. I'll let you define that last one. How do you think our legislators ought to promote the general welfare? Do you believe there is an unconstitionality occuring when our government, for the people, by the people are not having their general welfare serviced?

Defense for the common good is great, in fact, I believe it is the prime excuse / need for any government in the world, but we've gone overboard. Bases in other countries decades after the war which wrought their existence? Needless spending. Continued payment for wars that were initially promised to hold to one price tag and threatening to cost more? Irresponsible.

Let us lift up Americans with American bounty, not use it (on credit basis) as frivolously as toilet paper.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
The proposed cuts in Medicare, Medicade, Home heating assistance and food stamps are the way conservatives plan to meet the Bush statememnts to help the poor? I hope the conservatives cut the hell out of these programs that most Americans depend on and create such termoil that in 2006 the control of congress changes. At the same time, the increase in interest rates are about to send the interest payments on the National Debt sky high. The majority should have enough of the GOP by Novenber 2006.


It Is Alive.

Darn, for a while there a few of us were getting our hopes up that the C.O.L. had moved on.

Nice to see that he's still out there playing turn-coat for the party he claims to be part of.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
I hope the conservatives cut the hell out of these programs that most Americans depend on and create such termoil that in 2006 the control of congress changes. At the same time, the increase in interest rates are about to send the interest payments on the National Debt sky high. The majority should have enough of the GOP by Novenber 2006


The majority of American's don't depend on food stamps and government assistance. You are getting this confused with what you want America to be col. Col, until you understand that people like yourself are in the very small minority, you will continue to lose to the republicans.