The approaching federal government shutdown

[giblets]

As for the amount of money a state gets relative to the taxes it puts in, it's not really fair to compare states that way because military facilities and government offices would have to get paid for no matter which state you put them in. So while for instance Virginia gets tons of federal money, most of it is for things like the CIA headquarters and Norfolk shipyard, the Pentagon and other really huge military installations that we'd have to have regardless.

Yes and whichever state you place the government projects in will also get the benefits to its economy.

[DaShi]

The Tea Party blinks first:

Are Republicans ready to declare victory in the shutdown showdown and move on?

For days, the assumption has been that Speaker John A. Boehner was dug into his hardened position on behalf of the conservatives in his House caucus and from socially conservative voices in the Republican Party.

But now — just hours before the first government shutdown in 15 years –some of the most vocal conservatives are urging Republicans to reach a deal before a shutdown occurs. That could give Mr. Boehner the political cover he needs to cut a deal with President Obama and the Democrats.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the founder of the Tea Party caucus in the House and a likely 2012 presidential candidate, tweeted Friday afternoon: “I am ready for a big fight that will change the arc of history. The current fight in Washington is not that fight.”

In an article on Redstate, Ms. Bachmann concludes that “the current battle has devolved to an agenda that is almost too limited to warrant the kind of fighting that we’re now seeing in Washington.”

Likewise, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a possible presidential candidate, said Friday afternoon in an interview that a shutdown would “hurt the Republicans, not the Democrats.”

Mr. Huckabee, who was a favorite of religious conservatives during his 2008 presidential campaign, said: “Nobody’s more pro-life than me. Nobody. But as much as I want to see Planned Parenthood defunded, as much as I want to see N.P.R lose their funding, the reality is the president and the Senate are never going to go along with that. So win the deal you can win and live to fight another day.”

Publicly at least, Ms. Bachmann and Mr. Huckabee are sending a message to Mr. Boehner that they fear voters will blame Republicans, and not President Obama, if a shutdown occurs. That message could help convince Mr. Boehner and the Republican budget negotiators to concede on some of the remaining issues.

Others have chimed in, too. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, one of the more conservative Republicans in the Senate, told Bloomberg’s Mike Hunt that Republicans should “probably” give up on the policy “riders” that have been holding up negotiations.

“It’s pretty unrealistic to think with this president that you’re going to get a lot of riders,” Mr. Coburn told Mr. Hunt. “That’s number one. Number two is, what’s the greatest moral dilemma of our day? Abortion certainly is a big one, but if we don’t address all these other financial issues that are going to cripple those that are with us, we’ll be making a mistake.”

Most of those urging Mr. Boehner to cut a deal are not moderates who disagree with the philosophical positions the Speaker has taken. Rather, several said on Friday that the party should reserve its political capital for a bigger, and potentially more damaging, fight over the 2012 budget and the nation’s growing debt.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who often takes moderate positions, wrote a letter to Mr. Boehner and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, urging compromise.

“It is past time that we set partisan politics aside and work in good faith to reach a compromise that will avoid a government shutdown and allow Congress and the Administration to finally shift its attention to the serious debate that must take place on the long-term budget challenges facing our country,” she wrote.

Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois also said on Friday that Republicans should drop their insistence on the policy “riders” and take the deal that’s in front of them.

“Democrats should give on spending proposals because we need more discipline and Republicans should give on the the extraneous policy riders so that government does not shut down,” Mr. Kirk told Lynn Sweet of The Chicago Sun Times.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/conservatives-urge-boehner-to-cut-a-budget-deal-and-move-on/?hp

Ouch for Boner! Not only are they denying his message that it is not the riders holding up the budget, but they're telling him to cave in as well.

[DaShi]

Actually, New York and California are more like the Irelands and Portugals...you had to have your ass bailed out, not the other way around.

You're off message. Portugal and Ireland are the models for the republican plan.

[Dinner]

It is funny, it is generally the Dems who are see as the homogenous ones, all those things you mentioned, unions, enviromentalism, pro racial minorities, social liberals, are all leftists, and there are plenty of leftists who support all of that.

The republicans are instead seen as an alliance of people who want to pay low taxes with people who think the world is 6000 years old and dinosours roamed all over earth before Noahs flood. And that the two halfs, the economic right and the religious right have little in common.

You did mention most of the party platform for the Democratic Party but the reality is they are a big tent party which has to find a way for southern Blue Dog Democrats (conservative members of the party from the American south) to co-exist with midwestern moderates, and true liberals from New England or California. The only real way to hold that kind of coalition together is to give members the freedom to vote how they want and how they feel they need to in order to win reelection in their district (which run from die hard conservative to die hard liberal). Republicans have successfully gotten rid of virtually all of their moderates and liberals (and those groups used to run the Republican Party back in the 1950's to early 1960's) however starting in 1964 Republicans made a "deal with the devil" after liberals pushed for equal rights for blacks, conservatives (who now dominate the Republican Party completely) adopted the "southern strategy" which has Republicans appealing to white racism and claiming that blacks or (more recently) Hispanics are plotting against whites or at least working to disadvantage whites. That's been the Republican base since the 1968 election of Richard Nixon though in the late 1970's they added fundamentalist protestants who wanted government enforcement of their social and religious beliefs. Since the 90's, to a much lesser extent, conservative white Catholics have also joined the GOP, but Hispanic Catholics & Asian Catholics (Philippinos & Vietnamese) are pretty much against them due to the white racism factor.

The GOP is facing a major demographic problem as the number of white Northern Europeans in the country decreases and the number of non-whites increase. For the last ten years or so they've maintained a major anti-immigrant campaign against non-white immigrants (white immigrants are ok to them provided they are northern European in origin and not southern European) and that has massively pissed off Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and even liberal whites. In the long run, as whites become just another minority, this is suicide for the GOP but they seem determined to ride that horse through to the end.

[The Mad Monk]

I don't know how you can say the Tea Party blinked when both parties agree that the Tea Party faction were never involved in the riders fight.

Government Shutdown Threatened By Republicans Over Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON -- The United States government is on the verge of shutting down over a dispute about subsidized pap smears, according to sources familiar with the budget negotiations.

The White House and Senate Democrats have publicly capitulated to ever-increasing Republican demands for spending cuts, but negotiations over the budget for the remainder of the fiscal year have shifted their focus from money to so-called riders -- provisions that restrict the federal government from spending money on certain projects or entities.

Riders are used by members of Congress to make social policy without going through the regular congressional committee process, or they are used to benefit business interests by specifically blocking the government from spending money to write or enforce certain regulations.

At a late-night White House meeting between the president and key congressional leaders, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made clear that his conference would not approve funding for the government if any money were allowed to flow to Planned Parenthood through legislation known as Title X. "This comes down to women's health issues related to Title X," a person in the meeting told HuffPost.

The negotiations are dominated by men: All of the principal negotiators in both parties are male, as are most of the senior staff involved. (House Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), have largely been left out of key talks.)

House Republicans have been insisting the roadblock to cutting a new budget deal is not just the culture-war riders attached to the spending plan, but a source familiar with a top-level White House meeting earlier Thursday said most of the discussion in fact was about the riders.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Barack Obama met at 1 p.m., and while the discussion started with the numbers, a senior Democratic aide said it soon turned to non-budgetary provisions like defunding Planned Parenthood, Environmental Protection Agency rules -- and then some.
Story continues below
Advertisement

"They started talking about the money, but most of meeting was spent on the riders," a senior Democratic source said. "It wasn't just the top-line stuff. They got down into the smaller details and provisions -- things like mountaintop mining and other rules."

A similar dynamic played out late Thursday night in a meeting that led to no agreement.

Following the midday meeting, Senate Democrats met to chart a course forward and emerged united in opposition to any riders regarding Planned Parenthood -- which does not use federal funds to pay for abortions -- or the EPA.

"The riders that have nothing to do with deficit reduction have sort of taken over Boehner and the Republican Party," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters. "And unless they back off those riders, it's going to be impossible pretty much to avoid a shutdown. It's that simple."

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the number-two Democrat in the upper chamber, said that Boehner was under pressure on social issues not from the Tea Party, but from senior Republicans. "It's not about reducing the deficit. It's about hitting programs. He's gotta cut programs. And we think still we can reach agreement on the money. But he is under enormous pressure and he says it's not from the Tea Party, it's from the old guard, the Republican guard, that wants to once and for all show that they can force through some of these social issues, like abortion," Durbin told reporters Thursday evening in the Capitol. "The rider list gets longer and longer and non-negotiable."

A GOP aide confirmed Durbin's claim that it's the senior members who are insisting on riders. Polls show that the public is likely to blame the Tea Party for any shutdown, but ironically, most new members are more passionate about spending than social issues. Yet the public is likely to conflate the Tea Party with the culture wars if the government ultimately shuts down due to a dispute over funding for family planning.

"It's mostly a few older members who have seen an opportunity," said the GOP aide. "If you were to ask the freshmen individually, only a few would say this is all about the riders. And even amongst that smaller group, they would be split," with some focused on the EPA and others on restricting funds for health care.

"The true Tea Party guys in our conference are all about spending. That's it. Whatever the final deal is -- even if we got [the National Right to Life Committee] to score it -- we'd lose some guys because it didn't meet the full $100 billion," the aide added.

HuffPost spoke to a number of GOP freshmen, many of whom said they were more committed to funding cuts than policy riders. Although most voted for Republican-sponsored policy riders, some said they were willing to compromise as long as the final figure for cuts was large enough.

"My motivation is reducing the threat of the federal budget deficit, and I am flexible as to what gets cut so long as things get cut sufficient to avoid a federal government bankruptcy," Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told HuffPost in March.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that the spending-cut difference between the two parties was minuscule. "If you look at the amount of money that we're actually talking about, in terms of the difference of where the White House is and where the House Republicans are, it's equal to maybe one penny of the entire federal budget," Cantor said at a press conference. "So that means that you can't find one penny to cut out of every dollar that the IRS spends? You can't find one penny out of every dollar that the post office spends? That's what we're talking about here."

Pelosi identified the distinction between the newer Tea Party members and the old guard weeks ago. "I had followed the debate very carefully on [the previous spending bill] and the 200 amendments. The newer members are about money, the more senior members are about riders," Pelosi said in mid-March.

A GOP leadership aide, however, told HuffPost that the culture wars were not the sticking point. "Spending, spending, spending -- that's the big issue," said the aide, adding that the GOP wanted more than $33 billion in cuts.

Either way, Democrats have no plans to defund Planned Parenthood at the insistence of House Republicans, Schumer said Thursday night. "We have been against them from the beginning and we're not changing, nor should we. These are fights that have nothing to do with the deficit," he said.

Schumer said earlier Thursday that Democrats were ready to meet Boehner's number, but that Boehner was using money as a distraction so that the public wouldn't realize his members were fighting over cultural issues.

"The only reason the numbers aren't solved is because Speaker Boehner knows that if he did that, then everyone would know that it's the riders, and he doesn't want that out. But if you look at how many hours in the rooms of negotiators that discussing riders, it's predominant," he said. "The Speaker's folks have admitted that we've been fair on the numbers."

"At one point we had an agreement on money, even though Boehner denies it," said Durbin. "It's hard to believe they would shut down the government because they can't get a vote on family planning and Planned Parenthood. Honest to goodness. Is that what the last election was about? I don't think so."

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, told HuffPost that the funding cut would be a threat to women's health. "We have three million come to us every year and two million come through some kind of federal program either for an annual pap or for birth control or for a breast exam or even prenatal care," she noted, adding that the cuts would disproportionately impact rural areas with relatively few medical options. "More than 70 percent of our health centers, more than 800 centers in the country, are located in rural America or communities that are medically underserved communities. That's what's getting lost here."

Conservative activists have long been pushing for cultural riders and, with Republicans back in control the House, have a chance to push them forward. "Why can't you slash Planned Parenthood and NPR and these -- these non-vital programs? Why can't you slash them?" Fox News host Bill O'Reilly demanded of Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) Thursday evening.

"Well, we're talking about health care. We're talking about education," Rangel replied.

"Health care is another matter," O'Reilly said. "That has to be taken very methodically because people's lives are affected. Nobody's life is affected by NPR. Nobody's life is affected by Planned Parenthood. These are options."

Mike McAuliff, Elise Foley, Laura Bassett and Amanda Terkel contributed reporting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/government-shutdown-planned-parenthood_n_846463.html

[Dinner]

Who said the Tea Party wasn't involved in the Riders fight? My understanding is they were the main force behind the proposed riders.

Edit: Ah, Boehner claims it's not the tea party. He would lie though considering he's already in trouble with the tea baggers and he knows they'll strip him of his position if he doesn't do what they want. I don't buy his denial. If it was really "just a few old guard members" then Boehner could cut a deal with the Dems and get Dem votes to cover the few lost Republican votes. He's not doing that though, is he? Ergo, it's much more then just "a few old guard" folks and it's likely the same folks who run the whole party, the same folks who have been talking about ditching Boehner. He's in fear of his job and it's not from "a few old guard Republicans"; he's in the tea bagger headlights and he knows it.

[The Mad Monk]

Read the bolded parts, then get back to me. If Pelosi isn't pointing the finger, I have to wonder who is.

[Dinner]

I did. Check out my edits. It looks like you were posting while I was editing.

[The Mad Monk]

I did. I see Durbin and Pelosi denying it's the freshmen, where do you see Boehner saying it?

[DaShi]

So the Tea Party folded on an issue they weren't even involved in. Lovely.

[The Mad Monk]

'Historic' deal to avoid government shutdown
AP

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 13 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Perilously close to a government shutdown, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders forged agreement late Friday night on a deal to cut more than $37 billion in federal spending and avert the first closure in 15 years.

Obama hailed the deal as "the biggest annual spending cut in history," and House Speaker John Boehner said that over the next decade it would cut government spending by $500 billion.

"This is historic, what we've done," said the third man in the talks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

They announced the agreement less than an hour before government funding was due to run out. Still under the gun, lawmakers raced to pass an interim measure to prevent a shutdown, however brief, and keep the federal machinery running for the next several days.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_spending_showdown

Apparently, a stopgap stopgap.

[Hauldren Collider]

looks like traffic is gonna be normal next week.

[Asher]

You have perhaps the dumbest government in the modern world. It truly is a stunning cluster**** that Americans are too arrogant to change.

[Hauldren Collider]

It's not dumb, it's different. We prefer our government to be unable to do things without significant compromise. This naturally slows everything down. Another advantage, in the eyes of most Americans.

[Dinner]

Yes, our system of government is indeed ****ed up. Unlike the British system just because you win an election doesn't mean you will have the freedom to govern and frequently the minority can and does simply block everything. Worse the Senate has way to much power and most of it is concentrated in rural low population states which means national policy get shifted more towards what the rural minority want instead of what the vast majority want. Yes, it was set up to be that way but it's still stupid especially since unlike the House of Lords there is no way to do an end run around them if they're behaving badly or selfishly (for instance the queen could always just create more lords until there are enough who will vote the way she wants).