The Continuing Resolution (CR) - 2011 FY Budget deal that was negotiated last Friday night was reported by Speaker John Boehner to have resulted in a $38.5 billion reduction below FY 2010 spending levels. Since last Friday that $38.5 billion number has evaporated until it may really be only $300 million of real spending cuts or less than 1% of what was announced after considering how real such things as a $6.2 billion savings for not spending money left from the 2010 Census is. The WSJ reported the $38.5 billion figure included phantom cuts, one time gimmicks that will be restored in FY 2012, etc. How pitiful after Republicans campaigned & promised to reduce spending $100 billion their first year starting January 2011 & also promised to repeal or @ least defund ObamaCare as much as possible - none of which was included in this Budget deal.
The above described Budget Bill for FY 2011 passed the House & Senate earlier today & of course BO will sign it since he got virtually everything he wanted as indicated above. Even after last fall's Republican House takeover & good gains in the Senate America is still on BO's glide path vision for deterioration - seems like BO doesn't even have to run - he can walk past this competition using the corrupting atmosphere in Washington DC to his benefit without raising a sweat. In 2008 we had a no win election of BO - Socialist/Communist vs. McCain Socialist-light who voted for the Budget Bill today exactly as BO wanted.
The vote in the House supporting the Budget Bill was 260 to 167. Of the 167 voting against the measure 59 were financially responsible Republicans - far too few. The numbers keep getting worse when you realize that only 21 of the 87 freshman House Republicans voted against the measure What happened to the other 66 freshman House Republicans in only three short months - as if you don't know?
Most disappointing once again was that Rob Woodall (GA), James Lankford (OK), & Kristi Noem (SD) voted with the establishment old guard Republicans - is this what they were sent to Washington for? Below is the list of House Members who voted in your interest. Naturally NJ's Frelinghuysen, Lance, Runyan (one of the 66 disappointing freshman), & LoBiondo voted the wrong way.
In the Senate the vote supporting the Budget Bill was 81 to 19. The fifteen Republican senators who voted against the measure were led by Jim DeMint (SC), Mike Lee (UT), & Rand Paul (KY) who were recently joined by Lindsey Graham (SC) in a separate caucus. The others were Coburn (OK), Crapo (ID), Ensign (NV), Hatch (UT), Inhofe (OK), Johnson (WI), Risch (ID), Rubio (FL), Shelby (AL), Toomey (PA), & Vitter (LA). What happened to Saxby Chambliss (GA), Johnny Isakson (GA), John Cornyn (TX), Richard Burr (NC), Jerry Moran (KS), & Jeff Sessions (AL)?
The only encouragement I can take from the above is that we now know where the people who supported this bill stand - & it is not with us, it is with their congressional careers. Still, how discouraging it is to have elected 87 new House Members only to find that 66 of them have already abandoned ship. It doesn't give much hope for the deficit ceiling fight (I barely have the strength tonight to call it that) or the fight for trillions in the 2012 budget negotiations. It is looking pretty hopeless for America @ this point.
H R 1473 YEA-AND-NAY 14-Apr-2011 3:00 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011
| Yeas | Nays | PRES | NV | |
| Republican | 179 | 59 | 3 | |
| Democratic | 81 | 108 | 3 | |
| Independent | ||||
| TOTALS | 260 | 167 | 6 |
| Ackerman Adams Amash Bachmann Baldwin Bartlett Barton (TX) Bass (CA) Becerra Blackburn Blumenauer Brady (PA) Braley (IA) Broun (GA) Brown (FL) Butterfield Capps Capuano Carson (IN) Chabot Chaffetz Chu Clarke (MI) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Conyers Cravaack Crowley Cummings Davis (IL) DeGette DeLauro Deutch Doggett Doyle Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Edwards Ellison Engel Farr Filner Flake Fleming Forbes Frank (MA) Franks (AZ) Fudge Garamendi Gardner Garrett Gingrey (GA) Gonzalez | Gowdy Graves (GA) Green, Al Green, Gene Griffith (VA) Grijalva Gutierrez Harris Hastings (FL) Heller Higgins Hinchey Hirono Holt Honda Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hurt Jackson (IL) Jackson Lee (TX) Johnson (IL) Johnson, E. B. Jordan Kaptur King (IA) Kingston Kucinich Labrador Lamborn Larson (CT) Lee (CA) Lewis (GA) Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe Long Luján Lynch Mack Maloney Markey Matsui McClintock McCotter McDermott McGovern McHenry McNerney Miller (MI) Miller (NC) Miller, George Moore Mulvaney Murphy (CT) Nadler Napolitano Neugebauer | Pallone Pastor (AZ) Paul Payne Pearce Pelosi Pence Pingree (ME) Poe (TX) Polis Price (NC) Quayle Quigley Rangel Rehberg Reyes Richardson Richmond Rigell Ross (FL) Roybal-Allard Rush Ryan (OH) Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Schakowsky Schmidt Schweikert Scott (SC) Scott (VA) Serrano Slaughter Southerland Stark Stutzman Sutton Thompson (MS) Tierney Tipton Tonko Towns Velázquez Walsh (IL) Waters Watt Waxman Weiner Welch West Wilson (FL) Wilson (SC) Woolsey Wu Yarmuth Yoder |
| Giffords Gohmert | McCaul Meeks | Olver Reichert |
Yesterday Senator Coburn reported on Greta's FOX hour that the IMF stated its displeasure with the 2011 budget deal. No surprise. The main surprise is that our congressmen are putting their careers over our nation's economic health. If the Fed ends QE2 this summer and our debt continues to grow 4 to 5 billion per day, interest rates will spike and the dollar may collapse. How short sighted our Congress people are. We need term limits ASAP.
ReplyDeleteDoug - Question for you.... Will you be doing a piece on your blog re: What does it mean to be a FairTax co-sponsor other than signing up for a congressional bill?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this blog seems to be part of the problem we're experiencing within the beltway extremism. This is certainly not part of the solution toward compromise.
ReplyDelete