Somewhat surprisingly, budget leaders Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have announced an agreement tonight, several days before the deadline for a budget deal. They had to file their bill with the House clerk before midnight or the leadership would have had to violate the House rules to avoid delaying congresspeople’s Christmas vacation. They’re trying to ram their budget home at the last minute so that opponents will have no time to organize against it.
The bill isn’t very exciting. Federal workers and veteran’s are getting hosed. Air travelers will pay higher fees. There’s no help to the unemployed. The Pentagon gets most of their money back. And discretionary spending will be higher that it would have been under terms of the Budget Control Act.
We’ll see if the Republicans are more inclined to follow Ryan’s leadership than they have been to follow Boehner’s.
As for the Democrats, I’d recommend holding Christmas hostage until an unemployment benefit extension is part of the deal.
Agree with your last statement; any replacements in spending to the sequester will be completely thrown away with no unemployment benefits. I wanna see the actual numbers on federal pensions.
Digby’s got Murray’s assurance to us federal workers:
“Murray meanwhile is offering federal workers the most fatuous explanation ever: yes you’ve already given up your raises and didn’t get paid for the furloughs and the shutdown, but if you don’t agree to give up some of your pensions on top of all that our previous round of budgetary malpractice will remain in effect and it’s even worse. See, we’re looking out for you.”
So kind!
“shared sacrifice”
How about Congressional pensions?
And federal employees still vote for Republicans like Ryan (and Murray better watch her polling).
Kick the can down the road again. Another debt ceiling coming up. Will the suckers take the bait? And which ones are the suckers this time?
Not really, unless your memory is so poor as to have forgotten the long long ago of October already. You know, that time they shut down the government and the Republicans lost 15 points in the polls overnight? This was actually even preordained back in the summer when the GOP failed to appropriate up against the constraints of their own Ryan budget and the Budget Control Act.
Keep holding out for that Republican caucus crackup, Booman…
If Boehner wants to punt the Hastert rule, he may have to put unemployment benefits in the budget.
Just a Republican bill. Democrats have caved again.
Real conservatives would demand deep cuts to the wasteful and bloated Pentagon. But that would hurt all the expensive and useless Pentagon contractors and cut into their senior officers ability to fund the political campaigns of their lackeys.
No need for a war on Christmas — Santa and his elves are signing up for retraining in the North Pole oil and mineral mining industries — Canada to claim North Pole as its own. Hotter summers and colder winters soon to follow.
Bush’s puppet Harper’s a real piece of work, isn’t he. Next he’ll be dismantling Canada’s health care system so that they won’t embarrass the US with their lower costs and better results.
Blind squirrel finds a nut:
This budget sucks. But then what did anyone expect with Republicans controlling the House? I’m guessing this passes despite right-wing opposition. I don’t think Republican leadership or most of the rank and file think it wise to be responsible for another shutdown, on top of which there’s no way the sequester can hold much longer. Even Republicans won’t support it.
Looks like the Pentagon got half its money back. Future federal workers and future military retirees got screwed. Also frequent air travelers and the airlines if they can’t effectively pass the entire cost through to customers.
The fucking Pentagon get their money back. Like they didn’t already have enough and that is not even counting how much they have ferreted away in secret black accounts.
Fuck the war mongers.