The only good thing about the GOP’s budget cut bill (a bill that is more about meanness than anything else—it’s mean because if implemented, it will make no real dent on the deficit) is that it received not a single Democratic vote:
The House has approved a sweeping package of budget cuts that, if enacted, would shrink the federal government’s role in American life, curtailing its involvement in healthcare, social services, environmental regulation, child care and research.
The bill, approved 235-189 Saturday with overwhelming Republican support and over united Democratic opposition, would reduce federal spending by more than $60 billion over the next seven months.
Let’s hope this spine can hold.
Their budget kills the National Weather Service, ha.
Spine isn’t really about refusing to go along with blatant douchebaggery.
It’s about actively moving forward the laws, programs, and innovations you’ve paid lip service to, for lo these many years.
How is 60 billion not a significant dent in the deficit? I mean, I know the deficit is huge, but still, 60 billion isn’t irrelevant.
That said, how they’re getting to that number is still appalling.
@3: 60 billion is 0.4% of the deficit.
Yeah, it’s virtually nothing. This isn’t about reducing the deficit, it’s about Republicans eliminating programs they don’t like.
Ha ha. You used “spine” and “Democrats” in the same sentence. That’s a good one.
The spine will hold just as long as our attitudes about changing our use of petroleum based products did after the gulf oil spill last year.
(Yes Sloggers…there was a HUGE oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Remember?)
@7, it’s interesting to note that sales of “light trucks”–the jacked-up, coffin-nosed, 3-ton behemoths bedeviling shopping-center parking lots everywhere–are up over 36% from last year. Builders are itching to return to rolling out mile after mile of cookie-cutter suburbs on prime farmland just as soon as the pesky foreclosures will stop dragging down the market; everyone should aspire to a brand-new home untouched by human farts and belly lint, don’tcha know.
It’s an awful thing to say, but that big recession was neither deep enough nor long enough to change habits or minds.
@4: The deficit for 2010 is about 1.2 trillion, so 60 billion would be 5%, not 0.4%
The President and the Democratic leadership should clearly and loudly spell out what these fanatics are trying to do.
Walter Reed Hospital reports that after 70 years of administering X-rays, Cat Scans and MRAs they have seen no evidence of a spine ever in any member of Congress.
Don’t worry Charles, I’m sure they’re still willing to negotiate from the middle and end up voting for a bill that only cuts $30 billion from highly successful and beloved public programs.
This is our fault. We didn’t show up to vote last November, because Obama didn’t immediately give us everything we asked for, and so now we have to suck it up and deal with the consequences. I hope the republicans ream us hard, hard enough for the independents and fence-sitting democrats to remember why they voted for Obama and the liberals in the first place.
This is the most recent list of their proposed cuts I could find, but it’s dated Feb 9th, so there’s gotta be a more updated one:
http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cf…
I mean, Jeebus Fucking Christ. Why don’t they just propose burning D.C. to the ground and let the military take over? That’s essentially what they want anyway.
@rob!, $20 a gallon for gas might…I don’t think anyone will give up their McMansion lifestyle unless the screws are applied. Thinking people will do it for the sake of the planet is as likely as Seattleblues growing a brain.
You don’t understand: when the Democrats pass a bill along purely partisan lines, it’s an ideological overreach. When the Republicans pass a bill along purely partisan lines, it’s a brave defense against ideologues on the left.
@15, $10/gal gas I could almost wish for… $20/gal would likely lead us to invade Saudi Arabia for endangering our greatness, or something…
@14, thanks for that link, Urgutha, I took the numbers and sorted rows from highest to lowest dollar amounts (all changed to millions of dollars):
2000 Job Training Programs
1700 GSA Federal Buildings Fund
1600 EPA
1400 DOE Loan Guarantee Authority
1300 Community Health Centers
1100 Office of Science
1000 NIH
1000 High Speed Rail
899 Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
758 WIC
755 CDC
700 Clean Water State Revolving Fund
600 COPS
593 Internal Revenue Service
544 International Food Aid grants
530 HUD Community Development Fund
405 Community Services Block Grant
400 LIHEAP Contingency fund
379 NASA
348 Land and Water Conservation Fund
338 Treasury Forfeiture Fund
336 NOAA
327 Family Planning
268 Department of Treasury
256 State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance
250 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
246 Agriculture Research
237 Rural Development Programs
234 FAA Next Gen
224 Amtrak
220 FDA
210 Maternal and Child Health Block Grants
201 Farm Service Agency
186 National Institute of Standards and Technology
169 Nuclear Energy
139 NSF
96 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
93 International Trade Administration
75 Legal Services Corporation
74 FBI
72 Fish and Wildlife Service
69 ONDCP
53 Food Safety and Inspection Services
52 Power Marketing Administrations
52 Law Enforcement Wireless Communications
51 National Park Service
49 Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
48 EPA Brownfields
46 Natural Resource Conservation Service
38 Forest Service
34 Energy Information Administration
31 Fossil Energy Research
30 Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies
27 USGS
27 Poison Control Centers
25 EPA State and Local Air Quality Management
20 National Archives and Record Service
18 Clean Coal Technology
16 Economic Development Assistance
15 Strategic Petroleum Reserve
11 National Drug Intelligence Center
10 US Marshals Service
9 EPA GHG Reporting Registry
7.4 EPA ENERGY STAR
7.3 Smithsonian
6 National Endowment for the Arts
6 National Endowment for the Humanities
5 EPA Cap and Trade Technical Assistance
2.3 Juvenile Justice
2 Minority Business Development Agency
Same info sorted by name of program cut (less useful because it’s not organized by Cabinet department, but maybe it’ll help you find something you’re interested in). Layout is annoying because the comments engine destroys column formatting:
Agriculture Research 246
Amtrak 224
CDC 755
Clean Coal Technology 18
Clean Water State Revolving Fund 700
Community Health Centers 1300
Community Services Block Grant 405
COPS 600
Department of Treasury 268
DOE Loan Guarantee Authority 1400
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund 250
Economic Development Assistance 16
Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability 49
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy 899
Energy Information Administration 34
EPA 1600
EPA Brownfields 48
EPA Cap and Trade Technical Assistance 5
EPA ENERGY STAR 7.4
EPA GHG Reporting Registry 9
EPA State and Local Air Quality Management 25
FAA Next Gen 234
Family Planning 327
Farm Service Agency 201
FBI 74
FDA 220
Fish and Wildlife Service 72
Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies 30
Food Safety and Inspection Services 53
Forest Service 38
Fossil Energy Research 31
GSA Federal Buildings Fund 1700
High Speed Rail 1000
HUD Community Development Fund 530
Internal Revenue Service 593
International Food Aid grants 544
International Trade Administration 93
Job Training Programs 2000
Juvenile Justice 2.3
Land and Water Conservation Fund 348
Law Enforcement Wireless Communications 52
Legal Services Corporation 75
LIHEAP Contingency fund 400
Maternal and Child Health Block Grants 210
Minority Business Development Agency 2
NASA 379
National Archives and Record Service 20
National Drug Intelligence Center 11
National Endowment for the Arts 6
National Endowment for the Humanities 6
National Institute of Standards and Technology 186
National Park Service 51
Natural Resource Conservation Service 46
NIH 1000
NOAA 336
NSF 139
Nuclear Energy 169
Office of Science 1100
ONDCP 69
Poison Control Centers 27
Power Marketing Administrations 52
Rural Development Programs 237
Smithsonian 7.3
State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance 256
Strategic Petroleum Reserve 15
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 96
Treasury Forfeiture Fund 338
US Marshals Service 10
USGS 27
WIC 758
Here’s a list of the amendments included in the budget proposal:
http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cf…
Blocks all funding for Obama’s health care plan. Blocks all funding to planned parenthood. Blocks almost all funding to the EPA. Drastically cuts funding for arts.
Again, the republicans basically cut funding to everything they personally dislike. 100% partisan. Not only did they NOT cut military spending, but also includes:
“An amendment by Rep. Forbes (R-VA) that prohibits the use of funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command.”
Sigh…
I do like this one though:
“An amendment by Rep. Weiner (D-NY) that bans foreign aid to Saudi Arabia.”
@13 This IS the Democrats fault for turning completely into spineless Republican-lites. We’d vote for them if we could trust them not to take their marching orders from the same corporations as the Republicans, but we can’t. None of these fucking slashes to programs would be needed if they just had the spine to end the Bush Tax cuts when they controlled BOTH houses AND the presidency. They are pathetic, they have rightly earned our apathy. The Democrats are not the answer to our problems.
@20 “Democrats” is a pretty wide swath of the country writ large, including the vast majority of those who would be knowledgeable on how to fix “our problems”.
Republicans who can’t win the vote are calling for major reforms? Democrats who can’t get bills out of committee in Congress are making brave stands against the bills the Republicans already know can’t get the vote?
This is spine?
This is worst than watching the NFL drafting combines. Can we all please ignore the Congress for the next two years?
A 1990 perspective on privatization of weather information, a few years after Reagan’s aborted attempt to sell off weather satellites to private companies and make people pay for forecasts:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/10/us/wha…
What Congress is doing to NOAA/NWS now has a 30-year history.
It’s small potatoes in the overall goatfuck of HR1 budget cuts; just wanted to point it out because I’m somewhat familiar with it.
No signs of spine, or signs of anything. There may be scattered historical exceptions, but D’s traditionally vote as a bloc against R majority budgets in the House, and vice versa when D’s hold the majority.
Spine or no spine I know this…Social Security and Medicare are going to be cut. So for anyone under 50 years old…have any good recipes for cooking cat food or dog food? It’s what we’ll have to eat when we can finally retire at the age of 75.
These are meaningful (mostly) spending programs. I’m more than willing to cut entitlements to offset such cuts. (that and military spending of course). All for raising the retirement age and curtailing medicare spending to some extent
@25:
I going to be perfecting my spit-roasted squirrel, raccoon, opossum & pigeon recipes before I even consider “Friskies Ala King” – that shit is NASTY!
@25,
I plan to eat the rich.
@25, 27, 28: There may be stiff competition by that time for squirrels, possums, rich people, and other vermin. I recommend, while you still have a paycheck (age 74-1/2 or so), stocking up on the ultra-large containers of spices at Costco, like cumin, dried minced garlic, etc. Things not needing refrigeration would be wisest, as there will be no help with utility bills for unyoked yokels like ourselves. Those seasonings can do a lot for the canned cat food. 5-gallon jugs of FryMax vegetable oil can provide dense calories in a pinch.
It’s because most of the spineless, centrist-purely-for-the-sake-of-being-centrist Blue Dogs got dis-elected last fall. The irony is massive: The Blue Dogs were the ones who reduced the size of the stimulus, guaranteeing that the economy would not start adding jobs until after the 2010 midterms. In so doing, they wrote their own political death warrant. I just wish regular people who need to make ends meet and support their families didn’t have to be the real victims in all this.
Rob @17,
I love the largest-to-smallest order you did.
It would be nice to have something that shows the percentage of total of each of the cuts. For example, the $139 million cut from the National Science Foundation… is that a lot for them? I don’t know how much funding is typical for many of these programs.
There’s gotta be something out there detailing this info. I guess I’m too lazy to look right now though.