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The Obama administration drew a pretty hard line yesterday, telling Congress that Paul Ryan's House Republican budget includes spending levels that break a bipartisan deal, and if GOP lawmakers don't back down, they'll force a government shutdown later this year.
Acting White House Budget Director Jeff Zients wrote to the heads of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Wednesday to lay down the threat.
"Until the House of Representatives indicates that it will abide by last summer's agreement, the President will not be able to sign any appropriations bills," the letter states.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers's (R-Ky.) office said the "hollow" threat would not deter the committee and said refusal to sign spending bills would mean Obama was choosing to shut down the government.
This may seem like routine saber rattling, and it's possible the posturing won't amount to much in the coming months. But there's also a real possibility that we're headed for a major confrontation.
For those just joining us, these spending levels weren't supposed to be controversial at all. Last summer, as part of the debt-ceiling crisis, Democrats and Republicans agreed to spending levels for the upcoming year, clearing the way for a smooth budget process. After all, with the figures already locked in, the most contentious part of the process was already addressed. As far as everyone was concerned, a deal's a deal.
Then House Republican leaders, pushed by their more extreme caucus, decided to break the deal -- and that has set the stage for a potential crisis.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan approved a plan that cut $19 billion in spending beyond the cuts already agreed to, with Republicans ignoring the terms of the agreement they struck and promised to honor. (When defense spending is factored in, the GOP actually makes $28 billion in new cuts.)
The White House weighed in on this for the first time yesterday, effectively telling GOP officials that President Obama expects Republicans to stick to their own deal -- and if they don't, there will be a government shutdown two months before the November elections.
Republicans seem to believe the president will back down, and give the GOP what it wants, because he won't want a shutdown, but the administration's statement yesterday makes it quite clear Obama will honor the bipartisan agreement -- and if Republicans don't, the shutdown is on them.
Cooler heads will probably prevail. Indeed, if the right-wing GOP lawmakers shut down the government in September, it might even help Obama politically and put the House Republican majority in jeopardy. But for now, the endgame is unclear, and both sides are saying they won't yield.
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"Cooler heads will prevail"???!!!???
Steve, that's the funniest thing I've read today. Very deadpan - nice job.
Bust a deal, face the wheel. That's what Auntie says.
In the American I've grown up in, a deal is a deal, and any and all who would renege on a deal is a scroundrel deserving of nothing!
Our dear Friends in the GOP choose the elephant as their moniker - they best not forget Middle and Working Class Americans are watching, and are all too willing to Occupy the Ballot Booth this next November! -Kevo
It seems that the Repubs are only worried about themselves and are willing to break agreements to get their way. A deal is a deal and it should be adhered to by the Repubs. Breaking the deal only shows the nation what kind of people they are. This will severely hurt them in Nov.
Ugh, just wait until they spin this into, "Look what Obama is doing to government!!" instead of calling it what it really is... a Republican temper-tantrum because they just can't get their way this time.
"Cooler heads will probably prevail." Like Basilisc, I thought that was a strange thing to say. What year do you think this is, anyway, 1990 or something?
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
Oh, wait.....you said Republicans AREN'T honoring their deal.....never mind.
Here is a look at Washington's deficit for the first half of fiscal 2012:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2012/04/first-half-of-fiscal-2012-how-is.html
Increasing tax revenue from the wealthy will do nothing to balance spending unless it is accompanied by restraint on the spending side of the ledger, something Washington seems to be unable to grasp.
Whil a Buffet style surcharge might not solve all our fiscal problems, it would help and would be part of a solution or are you content to be part of the problem?
Nicky I agree. Increasing taxes on the wealthy is fine and I'm all for for it, but the amount of time spent talking about this tax makes it look like the "Buffet Rule" will wipe out our 15 Trillion dollar debt. The figures I see (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that the Buffet tax will bring in around $5 Billion a year. Fine....but now lets get a lot more cash in and/or a lot less cash out along with that tax on the wealthy. We are adding close to 2 Trillion a year to the debt - which the much talked about Buffet tax will cover 0.3% of that.
I hope that Congress is working on other revenue and cost cutting issues besides the Buffet Rule. If you watch listen to the media, it doesn't look like they are. They are stuck on this... which to me is more about political posturing than solving anything budget wise.
@Nicky, why not just go ahead and say that "Republicans" don't seem to grasp the cost-cutting side of things?
As we all know, Obama has already offered Republicans a $4 trillion deficit-reduction package which they spurned, he's signed off on $1 trillion in cuts, and he's also stated several times that even the more liberal members of Congress have been convinced to look again at making stringent cuts to programs Democrats are loathe to further squeeze. Republicans for their part have stated they will not accept ANY favorable ratio of spending cuts-to-revenues (not even 10-1!). Yet what has the GOP offered up? Fine, Paul Ryan's budget would cut spending, (to unsustainable depths) yet still create additonal trillions in debt. Even today, Republicans are offering up another of their ridiculous bills with no concern that it be paid for, whereas each bill that Democrats introduce is in line with PAYGO.
The media may be fixated on the Buffett Rule bill, but Pres. Obama has never claimed the Buffett Rule would be the sole balance against spending, and to imply that "Washington" - meaning Democrats and Republicans - can't seem to grasp the concept of spending cuts doesn't take into account the many spending compromises Democrats have made and are still offering.
cutting npr and public broadcasting also has minimal effect, but Republican's thought that was a big deal didn't they?
Er no. No one ever claimed that this deal will be the cure all for the tax system. No one has ever stated as much. In order to get anything passed in the US Congress in today's world requires a great deal of media attention. I think you are confusing politics w/ usual w/ sensationalism.
5$ billion more a year is still 5$ billion more a year. It is still increased revenue regardless of how you look at it. Is it everything? No. But postulating that 5$billion in increased revenue can't help is just silly.
Although to be fair to skip, my response is meant for @Nicky and I was mostly using your phrasing to piggyback on.
Paging George Santayana ...
In my understanding, Bain Capital was known, and despised, even by Wall Street (!), because it reneged on the deals it made -- regularly and as a practice.
I see some ex-employees are suing Bain for firing them because they were not Mormon. Maybe this is how Mormons do business, and is the House GOP salivating for Romney?
Why is anyone surprised that the Republicans are breaking the deal? They do that all the time, except of course their pledge to Grover Norquist.
They pledged to work to create jobs and then went to social issues. They pledge to save SS and Medicare and then they try to privatize both.
Let's see how the media spin this... Are we going to see 50 thousand repubs. on TV, radio, newspapers, blogs and the pundits sit their shake their heads in agreement verse 10 dems. cut in every 3 sentence or just over talk them until they can find a flaw in their argument, then clue the emprogs. of how the Pres. is going to caves....
http://mediamatter.org/research/201110170023? http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514
Then clue the polls on, 1. How many people want the 2 parties to work together 2. do you think parties should stick to the agreement 3. who do you think is right...
deva vu all over again, instead of putting the fault where it belong.... Result: Blame the President, it's his fault... Same old tired lines... And the media are like cheerleaders...
Instead, of looking at the facts, House GOP been in control since 2010 they produce 0 jobs bills, 1100 bills that affect women health, civil rights, shutdown Post ofc., roll-back our labor laws, blocked "Jobs Act," "Transportation Bill," "VAWA," "cut abortion rights," down grade credit rating, "cut federal funding," etc. all skew toward the rich favor.
Now we're facing another election w/ 2 candidates, 1 that's good at playing "3 Card Molly" w/ lies, hide n seek, and phony outrages, which remind me of a Corporation who's getting ready to shutdown the plants and taking their profits in shelter accounts (Enron, Bain Capitol).
And on the other hand a candidate who putting it out there with the facts about the "Romney-Ryan budget plan, Repub. governors whos blocking or diverting federal money from its intended projects, turn back the process.
Where are the working people, the unions? So-called iberal media?
But those were jobs bills! It said so right in the titles!
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers's (R-Ky.) office said the "hollow" threat would not deter the committee and said refusal to sign spending bills would mean Obama was choosing to shut down the government.
I love watching these idiots demonstrate their idiocy. Does this guy have a clue why it is his party and Congress are at the lowest approval levels ever recorded? Is he aware that 75% of voters blame his party for the loss of national credit rating last year?
Oh please, let them do this. It will do greater harm to the cause of Southernism (which is what Modern Republicanism is) than all the dead bodies on the field after Pickett's Charge. We can call the shut down the Republican Unemployment Act.
Yeah, owing $15 Trillion and climbing has NO affect on your credit rating. :)
Skip, did you actually read their reasoning? If not, here it is... And recall, it was Boehner who walked away from deal after deal...
You are proving my point to a degree grumpy. From bullet #1 above:
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics
So they are saying the "agreed upon" plan isn't enough to prevent the downgrade - even if their was no shutdown.
So yes the inablility to agree is also, but having 15,000 billion in debt does not help.
Allow me emphasize what Skip left unemphasized:
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.
Now allow me to let you in on a little secret: Boehner and Republicans in the House and the Senate don't care about the debt. Never did, never will. They care about the debt only inasmuch as it allows them to get on their soapbox about how the only way to prosperity is for granny to starve and cjhildren to go uninsured. Oh, and food stamps need to be cut. And also too, f*@k the poor. On the other hand, racking up debt for stupid wars and corporate giveaways is just hunky dory.
Don't forget it was Boehner who came out of the debt fiasco on every media outlet saying, "We got 98% of what we want it." Now the deal is not good enough, the President trick us.... Please these are a bunch of lying, greedy, sneaking sack - a - crap....
Skip-
If you just take the parts you like out of anyone's statement, you can always claim that they're "making your point". Up to that point, no one had been worried about the debt. Why? Because they believed that the government of the USA would honor its debt payments. They began to fear that it would not, not because the debt was too large on which to pay the interest, but because a significant and influential portion of the government (specifically, the GOP) had essentially decided that it didn't need to be paid. That was the cause of the downgrade; if the debt had been $1 billion at the time, we still would have been downgraded, because once you start acting like a deadbeat, you get treated like one. Just ask your friendly neighborhood credit card company or cash advance place.
Now everybody sit back, relax, and watch the Republicans frame Obama as some dictator who would willingly shut down the government if he doesn't get his way.
Isn't that what the Democrats did last year to the Republicans - accuse them of wanting to shut it down? Same tactic...different year and party. Both parties are a joke.
@Skip Hoffman - not even close. In their own words, Republicans were chomping at the bit to shut down the government. Here is an excellent ThinkProgress.org compilation of Republican chatter on shutting down the government:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/17/145043/boehner-shutdown/
Okay June, let's just flip it then - as I said earlier both sides are a joke. I am no way defending the Republicans (or the Democrats) I am just pointing out that both sides are playing at this petty crap and really only care about getting their way through no matter what - from the post above:
The Obama administration drew a pretty hard line yesterday, telling Congress that Paul Ryan's House Republican budget includes spending levels that break a bipartisan deal, and if GOP lawmakers don't back down, they'll force a government shutdown later this year.
I think what skip's trying to say is that now Democrats are threatening to let the government shut down after the Republicans did it.
Hang on...this "pox upon both your houses" is as ridiculous as it is unwarranted. Democrats wanted the debt ceiling raised last summer, as both parties always have since it became an issue to deal with, because the alternative - the US Gov't defaulting on its debt - would be catastrophic. Republicans wanted to play a game of chicken with the US' credit on the line (and yes, I'm aware Dems have done this in the past as well, and it was as wrong then as it is now) by threatening a government shutdown. Cooler heads prevailed (although not without collateral damage) and a deal was reached. A deal in which, it should be noted, both sides gave up something they didn't want to give up.
Now, Republicans are threatening to renege on their deal, and Dems are threatening to hold them accountable. The dynamic hasn't changed; Republicans are still threatening a gov't shutdown. This isn't a case of "both sides are playing at this petty crap." One side is playing petty crap, the other is honoring their part of the deal and telling them in no uncertain terms that there are consequences to not honoring theirs.
But if it makes you feel wise and superior to condemn both parties equally because...well, I'm not really sure why you would, unless you really just can't stand that Republicans are obviously the ones playing games here and you hate giving Dems credit for taking the right position.
The other option is you're really Tom Friedman.
Brooklyn, I still want a pox on both houses :). It does not make me feel superior - just frustrated that our government has gotten to this point. I understand that the government must spend beyond it's means sometimes to run the country so to speak, but what the government has done is far beyond what was/is needed (IMO). I have been independent for many, many years because many of the laws and policies have been implemented for politics - it helps one party or the other with a certain constituency. Yes, many laws DO truly help, but lately is seems the two major parties will push bills that will endear voting blocs - and usually at a hefty price. The more they spend on that voting bloc...the more they will have that "demographic". I am oversimplifying and being a bit cynical, but you can probably look at any pending legislation and figure out who it benefits and who that benificiary usually votes for and ...viola that bill was introduced by the party that benefits from that bloc (whew...what a sentence!). To me Congress and the Executive office is pretty much doing what will get them re-elected. Yeah, sometimes the country "lucks out" and gets a good bill for the good of all, but that is ONLY by accident.
Go ahead, Rodgers and the rest of the GOP - call what you think is Obama's bluff (remember, he said he doesn't bluff). Anyone with a brain knows that if the government shuts down it is Congress's doing, and anyone who's paying attention knows that this is coming about because the GOP made a deal and can't hold up their end of it. Stick to the deal you made and see how easy this cooperation thing really is. Who knows - actual American people may benefit from it for a change.
This is another game of brinksmanship. Republicans think Obama will back down, but public opinion is going to decide who wins. But if the Occupy Movement is active this summer, then the win goes to Obama. The Republicans are trying to change the political debate to the deficit issue because they have nothing else to run on for the elections. Obama needs to stay on point with the "fairness" issue because it is more visceral than numbers.
I may not agree with everything Paul Ryan has proposed, but where are the Democrat counter-proposals?? I'm sick of BOTH parties refusal to deal in reality, and that reality is that trillion dollar annual budget deficits are unacceptable and unsustainable, and that BOTH parties are responsible when it comes to having a National Debt equal to our annual GDP.
I'm all for raising tax rates on higher income individuals and removing the insane amounts of corporate tax breaks and subsidies that result in corporations like GE not paying a cent of tax, but not BEFORE across the board cuts of spending and staffing levels of the ENTIRE Federal Government (the Secret Service and GSA may have a self-made head start on the rest when it comes to staffing levels, thanks to recent misconduct), not just the parts the Republicans or Democrats don't like.
The House of Represenatives passed the Republican drafted budget proposal (Ryan Plan) and sent it to the Senate in both 2011 and 2012. ALthought many may disagree with it, it does provide a basis for the budget discussion.
The President's FY2012 Budget proposal received zero votes in the Senate in
2011 (vote was 0-97) in 2011
The President's FY2013Budget proposal received zero votes in the House, when introduced as an amendment in 2012 (vote was 0-414) in 2012. Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have no plans to draft a budget proposal again this year. "There's no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion," Reid told the Los Angeles Times
Today, will mark the 1,086th day since Democrats in the Senate passed a budget.
Once the House sends the Senate a real budget, not a list of GOP fantasies and wishes laid on the backs of the poor and the middle class, then there might be a budget passed. As it is, you can't make filet mignon out of a pile of cow s#!t.
What did the democrats have against the President's FY2012 and FY2013 budget proposals? This year ZERO House Democrats voted for the FY2013 proposal. Last year ZERO Senate Democrats voted for the FY2012 proposal. Were the presidenst proposals for the last 2 years not "real" budget, but a list of left wing fantasies? Or do Democrat Representatives and Senators have no balls to stand behind thier president?
Where has been the Senate Democrats proposal - must be up Harry's ass, because none have been submitted in YEARS.
Today, will mark the 1,087th day since Democrats in the Senate passed a budget
>Today will mark the 1,087th day since Democrats in the Senate passed a budget.
And yet the country still seems to function, the sun still rises, and Armageddon has not descended. Budgets, I hate to break it to you, are meaningless... because Congress and the administration break them all the time. Take, for example, the Bush wars. Done completely off the budget, but they still happened. Stop pretending your statements mean anything.
Yes the country still continues to function and the purpose of why a budget is drafted and passed are not met. One as a financial record of federal revenue and expenditures. Two, to articulate the nation's priorities by allocating discretionary funds to various federal programs. Without the budget there is no framework within which congress appropriates funding to specific departments and programs.
Apparently Democrats don't like budgets. House and Senate Democrats showed the value of the support of the President's last two fiscal year budget proposals by unanimously voting against them. Talk about something proven NOT to mean anything.
But the administration does like spending money. The National Debt has increased more under President Obama's term in office than it did during 2 terms under Former President Bush. The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. As of March 2012, it has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.
And Bush managed that in a good economy, while Obama has been spending to fix what Bush and his cronies' policies wrecked. Apples and nuclear bombs are what you're comparing there. Here's a little Econ 101 for you: in a recession, the government spends to make sure the bottom doesn't drop out. If not, it spirals ever downward, as conservative corporations look out for themselves rather than the economy. Seriously, go do some reading about economic theory that isn't written by a GOP or FOX mouthpiece.
A "financial record" is already kept, and more honestly, by other entities. There's no point to a framework when it's routinely ignored for political gain. A prime example is the Ryan "really, the revenues are there somewhere, just figure them out for yourself" plan. Even the framework, in that case, is full of crap. As for support, they're not supporting any of it, for their own reasons; if you'd like to know why, I suggest you ask them.
Ask "big ideas" Repub "intellectual" Newt Gingrich how shutting down the government worked out for him.
It worked pretty good for We The People, with several years of a robust economy. That combination of a Democrat President and Republican controlled Congress in the late 1990's was also the ONLY time in the last twenty years when our Federal Budget was headed in the right direction.
xrayspex - Nuclear Newt and his shutdown was NOT responsible for that. Also, the improvement in the economy was despite the GOP Congress, not because of it.
It was a result of several factors, but having Federal Budget sanity is what I primarily give Newt credit for, something the clowns that took over the White House in 2001 and Congress in 2007 truly went "nuclear" on (if you haven't figured out, I have major issues with BOTH parties, and I believe the elected "representatives" of BOTH parties have EPICALLY FAILED to serve our nation by refusing to deal realistically with tough issues and in many cases, refusing to deal with them at all) .
Please Please call Obama's bluff and shut down the government! Imagine the billions of tax dollars saved by this shut down. Its a wet dream!
Actually, they'd still be spent, since the military will continue spending its 27 cents per dollar, Medicare will still be paid out (21.4 cents/dollar), and the debt will still be paid on (14.5 cents/dollar). In fact, unless the shutdown goes on for months, the only savings that will be made would be less than 5%... and if you think that it would continue until next tax day, or that they'd let the IRS completely shut down, you've been sniffing something you shouldn't.
Be careful what you wish for. I doubt this continued irresponsible brinksmanship will reassure our creditors or rating agencies.