We are sooo PRINCIPLED, let’s shut the government down over 3-4%!

I decided to wait on E-Congress, although that would help with these fools we keep electing, in order to talk today about the big bad government shutdown, looming for tomorrow night.  Democrats don’t want to hurt “the poor and working families.”  Republicans, according to John Boehner, want significant spending cuts.  Like 60 Billion is a lot in comparison.   That is a drop in the bucket and will do very little to any programs for the poor or working families.  The solution laid out below is very simple. The Republican proposal is to cut 1.34% of the federal budget, or just over 4% of  current discretionary spending for the rest of this fiscal year.  Democrats are proposing a cut of just under 1% of the total budget or just under 3% of total current discretionary spending.  At least that is where they started a few days ago.  

According to my sources, the parties have agreed on how much to cut and Republicans are going to win here.  However, now the political theatre begins.  Democrats want to make cuts in one way and Republicans in another.  Additionally, while they have each other by the throats, they are both making demands on non spending amendments they want to add to the budget.  In this case the Republicans are completely in the wrong.  They have demanded to add a restriction to the EPA on implementing Green House Gas Emission rules.  They want to place a requirement that DC not allow any government spending to be directly or indirectly used for abortions.  They also want to prevent enforcement of some of last year’s Financial Reform Package.  They don’t want to change the law, just the enforcement.

While I agree that all of these issues should be discussed, they have no place in the current budget negotiations.  Both Democrats and Republicans have failed this country fiscally, for generations.  Recently they failed to even pass a budget for this year.  The annual Federal Budget is the most important task our federally elected officials do.  It is job number 1.  Nothing should be more important but a national emergency.  We elected this large 2010 freshman class to send a message to Washington.  Get our house in order!  Instead, they are playing the same game they always do.  All are once again failing our country.  There is enough blame to go around.  

The simple solution is to simply take the numbers and have every budget cut by the right percentage and be done with it. We can’t do this to Social Security or Medicare and we have to service the debt.  We did not give ourselves permission to play with these items in this cycle.  We can do this to the military, Medicaid and all other spending.  No other discussion needed.  Including the military and Medicaid budgets in addition to the basic discretionary spending will make the pill that much easier to swallow.  Remember we are only talking about a paltry 60 Billion cut.  That would reduce the total impact to about 2.5% for all budgets.  Fight the ideological issues between now and September, when the budget just proposed, for the next year, should be passed.  Stop wasting days that could be used on the current budget proposal fighting over last year’s failure to do job #1.  It is what my taxes pay for, and I am in the 54% of the country that actually pays taxes.

Sorry for the rant today, but I am sick to death over these fake fights.  It is high time that our elected leaders did their jobs, as we expect them to.  We sent them there to rein in spending.  Get to work!   Both Democrats and Republicans agree that we can spend less, let’s simply not pick favorites and lower spending across the board.

Can we have a shutdown? Yes we can.  Will it hurt one party over another?  I don’t believe so.  Democrats can’t sink any lower and have nothing to lose.  Republicans will actually increase government costs, shutting down and restarting, government.  Neither of our venerable parties seems to actually put spending cuts first.  If they did, we would have an across the board cut, minor as it is, and then move on to the regular budget battles.

Earlier today, the House passed another continuing resolution for one week, which would fund the military through Sep and fund the rest of government through next week.  I applaud the Republican controlled House for doing this. I should point out this was not done to keep government running, but as ploy to make it the Democrats fault we didn’t get anything done.  They knew before the vote that the Senate would not pass it and the President will veto.  Congress is simply playing a game of chicken with our money.   It takes 2 to tango so, what a load of %^&*.   I will also point out that wasting another week on the same ideological fights for this 6 months, is a waste of their precious time and our patience.  So long as the proposed cuts are so small, they have no real measurable impact, they are mostly symbolic.  Get of your *^%$# and get the job done!

What is the opposite of Progress….Congress!