Probably the biggest problem facing the country right now is the nature of the Republican Party. More than anything, the problem is their dishonesty. Dishonesty is associated with politicians of all stripes and parties, but people really need to start looking more closely at the difference between the kinds of lies that Democrats tend to tell and the lies you hear from Republicans.
It’s obvious that the Republicans made big gains in the recent midterm elections by campaigning on reducing the size of the federal government and the federal deficit. So, they have at least some kind of mandate to impose cuts on spending on the president. A common theme during the campaign was that the Republicans would reduce $100 billion from next year’s budget. A lot of candidates used that number and it was included in their Pledge to America manifesto. However, once they won the elections and took over the House they quickly retreated to a less ridiculous number.
Many people knowledgeable about the federal budget said House Republicans could not keep their campaign promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending in a single year. Now it appears that Republicans agree…
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…
On Tuesday, aides to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Boehner blamed Democrats’ failure to pass the regular appropriations bills for fiscal year 2011 for forcing Republicans to reduce their goal to perhaps $50 billion to $60 billion.
The $50-$60 billion number is still astronomically high, but it is at least within the realm of possibility. But look at what we’re still hearing from Republicans.
Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) similarly proposed outlandish budget cuts, claiming, “My staff and I sat down, we’ve looked at the federal budget, and just our first swipe across the budget, so to speak, we’ve come up with about $450 billion worth of cuts.” Of course, Bachamann has yet to offer any specifics. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he’ll introduce “a one-year, $500 billion spending cut” this month, but that remains to be seen. This week at a town hall meeting in Alabama, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) one-upped Bachmann and his new Tea Party colleague…
Sen. Shelby (R-AL) is the Ranking Member on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. He says we can cut the budget by 30%, or by about a trillion dollars. When Think Progress learned that he had also said we could cut the budget by 10%, they called his office to find out which number he wanted to stick with. His spokesmen feigned ignorance of either number and said that Shelby merely wanted to revert back to 2008 numbers.
All I’m saying here is that we really shouldn’t have to tolerate a party going around talking about cutting the budget by 10, 20, 50 times what is realistically possible. They aren’t even serious about the numbers. They’re just saying whatever bullshit they think people want to hear, or that will win them some attention.
We could make this easier by just changing the rules. We propose something and then they lie about what we proposed and refuse to support it. That is the basic structure of our government right now, and everything else is just extraneous window dressing and noise.
It looks like Reince Priebus is going to be the next RNC chairman. A reward for being an unconscionable asshole?
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Please ban – daryy. Thx
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."you’re forgetting a crucial moving part: the media that not only lets them get away with it, but encourages it because then they have a controversy they can exploit for ratings generation. Many of the media owners also have a financial interest in promoting those same lies, which is another important facet.
until that changes, and it’s not going to any time soon, the nonsense will not only continue, it will gain traction.
I’m not sure if the biggest problem facing the country is the Republicans, or the media who enable them. The GOP could not get away with their stuff if we had responsible and diligent journalists and editors who would blow their whistle on their bullshit.
I think it is 50/50 media and the thugs. For some reason the rethugs get all the media attention whle we get MSNBC.
I think this country is in big big trouble-polititially, financially, racism issues and gun nuts.
Frankly, I’m a little scared.
The first word in “corporate media” is “corporate”. MSNBC has found a niche that makes them a little more money than being a “me-too” network. But NBC broadcast is no different than CBS or ABC in its bias — consider Meet the Press. Villagers all.
Now you understand why some progressives have been lacking in the balance department.
The problem is massive dishonesty and the toleration of massive dishonesty for a generation.
Democrats could take Republican pleas for cutting spending seriously and ask them what they are going to cut and then call out their hypocrisy, but that would not get legislation accomplished because the media would be talking about Democratic draconian cuts.
I don’t have a solution that is quick and easy and happens only in Washington. We either take these two years to build a progressive movement, or we react to ever stupid thing the Republicans do. We can’t do both. And building a grassroots progressive movement massively in areas not used to progressives is going to be hard as hell. But it is going to take that if we are going to get beyond the media iron curtain.
Given enough time, I could put together a budget that would cut 30% out of the budget, but the Republicans would scream. You start with an absolute commitment to $250 billion in payment of interest on the public debt. Everything else in the general fund is on the table, starting with Congressional and Congressional staff salaries and benefits, the upper-level pay scales in the civil service and O-6 and above military and moves out from there. No agricultural subsidies, no subsidies for mine and ranch leases; they pay market prices. Cutting all of the Department of Commerce programs that help export jobs. Bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan now and closing forwardly deployed bases in Europe, Okinawa, Diego Garcia, and the Middle East, turning over responsibility to regional mutual security organizations, end to foreign aid (hint, aid to Israel and Egypt), closures of half the military bases in the US, starting with Fort Hood, Fort Benning, Fort Jackson, Parris Island, Redstone Arsenal, Charleston Naval Base, Fort Sill, Fort Knox, closure of the Houston Manned Space Flight center and reduction of activities at Cape Canaveral. Mandating that all highway funds be devoted to addressing deferred maintenance of highway bridges, with first priority on interstate highways. Allowing the docfix of Medicare not to go through and requiring all doctors to care for Medicare and Medicaid patients at the mandated rates, not to turn away patients who are on Medicare and Medicaid, and not to charge above negotiated co-pays. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the waste in the estimated $80 billion that goes each year to the intelligence community.
Hold Social Security harmless because it is (1) accounted for in a separate fund, and (2) a creditor of the Unites States government deserving of repayment of debt the same as private and foreign government creditors.
The problem is that the Democrats in Congress are neither bold enough or united enough to pull this off.
“Realistically possible” is in the eye of the beholder and is limited by their estimates of who exactly will be pissed off by their actions.
It’s time to expose the real hogs at the trough.
All of the above, plus: 15% of the populace are either too dumb to know they’re being lied to, 10% are dicks who are in on the joke; and 50% are not listening most of the time.