continuing resolution
Not only are the Obama administration’s $450 billion-over-10-years military spending cuts not likely to be enacted before the 2012 election, but no significant deficit reductions of any kind should be expected to be enacted this year.
The witches’ brew of hyper-partisan politics, the 2012 election, the influence within the GOP of it’s tea party wing and the narrow majorities in the House and Senate will combine this year to do what they did in 2011: Make a deal on any aspect of the budget impossible to achieve. More energy and effort will be expended this year on avoiding, delaying, or reducing the sequester’s military spending cuts than in developing an agreement on any additional Pentagon reductions.
In addition, given the narrow majorities in both houses, the spending reductions that were outlined by Pentagon officials today will provide the representatives and senators from the congressional districts and states that would be harmed with ample opportunities to make life miserable for the Democratic and Republican leaders.
Just a reminder as the House and Senate resume the battle ("negotiating" just doesn't fit this situation) today over the continuing resolution: the issue that really should be the focus is the length of time this CR will be in place.
As I said last Tuesday, there is absolutely no practical reason the CR shouldn't be for the whole year rather than just until November 18 as House Republicans are insisting. The spending level for the year was agreed to in the Budget Control Act that was adopted on August 2 and both parties should be required to maintain the deal they agreed to way back then, that is, a mere seven weeks ago. There's no reason to have a short-term CR with that spending cap in place. The only reason is that the GOP wants to continue to be able to use the threat of a government shutdown multiple times in the future to get policies in place that otherwise would never be considered let alone adopted.
This is not good budgeting or management. It's nothing more than fiscal terrorism.
House Democrats last night didn't do what they have done so many times before since the 2010 election: they didn't provide the House leadership with the votes it needed to pass a budget bill.
A combination (you can't really refer to it as a "coalition" because they weren't working together) of tea party Republicans and Democrats voted against the leadership-supported continuing resolution and it went down 195 to 230 with 48 Republicans voting no.
This may have been the worst defeat and biggest rebuke ever for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). A number of House members told me after the vote that both leaders had worked the vote hard but couldn't convince enough (some thought "any" was more correct) to vote for the legislation. Two members even told me that Boehner had gone to the congressional leadership equivalent of DEFCON 1 by moving way beyond twisting arms to threatening GOP members with losing their committee assignments -- almost the ultimate congressional punishment -- if they didn't vote for the bill. Even that didn't work.
I know this will be a shock for many CG&G readers, but I try to call it pretty much straight down the middle when it comes to Republicans, Democrats and the budget. This time, the GOP deserved to be called out...and then some...on the unnecessary pain it's trying to put the country through on the continuing resolution. The technical term for the Republican plan is "BS."
My posts from yesterday morning (here and here) that asked which way House John Boehner (R-OH) was going to go on the CR may have been answered yesterday afternoon.
According to this story by Greg Sargent in The Washington Post yesterday, Boehner supposedly let the White House know that he couldn't or wouldn't support a deal on a continuing resolution that wasn't supported by 218 Republicans in the House. There are 241 Republican members of the House in this Congress and at least 40 identify themselves as tea party supporters. That makes the math simple: There's no way for Boehner to get the 218 votes he says he has to have from the GOP caucus if he loses all the tea party people.
Here's the money quote from Greg's story:
