A federal budget crisis months in the making

[BDBoop]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?_r=1&

Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.

It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.

“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said one coalition member, Michael A. Needham, who runs Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.”

Last week the country witnessed the fallout from that strategy: a standoff that has shuttered much of the federal bureaucracy and unsettled the nation.

This rather debunks the blaming of the President and Senator Reid for the shutdown.

Coalition Letter: Congress Must Honor Sequester Savings and Defund ObamaCare Before It Is Too Late | FreedomWorks

 

[waltky]

Granny all for it if it gets dat 2nd stimulus check to her...

Budget bill moves toward final passage in Senate
17 Dec.`13 WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan budget bill that would ease some but not all of painful budget cuts that would otherwise slam the Pentagon and domestic agencies passed a pivotal test in the Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate advanced the measure over a filibuster threshold on a 67-33 vote that ensures the measure will pass the Democratic-led chamber no later than Wednesday and head to the White House to be signed into law. Top Senate Republicans opposed the bill but didn't try to engineer its defeat. It won sweeping GOP support in the House in a vote last week.

The measure would ease some of the harshest cuts to agency budgets required under automatic spending curbs commonly known as sequestration. It would replace $45 billion in scheduled cuts for the 2014 budget year already underway, lifting agency budgets to a little more than $1 trillion, and it also would essentially freeze spending at those levels for 2015. It substitutes other spending cuts and new fees to replace the automatic cuts and devotes a modest $23 billion to reducing the deficit over the coming decade.

It would also stabilize a broken budget process after a partial government shutdown in October that inflicted political harm upon Republicans. The GOP has since rebounded because of the much-criticized roll-out of Obama's health care law and the party wishes to keep the focus on that topic rather than Washington political brinksmanship.

"This bipartisan bill takes the first steps toward rebuilding our broken budget process. And hopefully, toward rebuilding our broken Congress," said Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., who negotiated the measure with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., his party's vice presidential nominee last year. "We've spent far too long here scrambling to fix artificial crises instead of working together to solve the big problems we all know we need to address."

More Budget bill moves toward final passage in Senate

See also:

Prepare for another debt ceiling fight in 2014
17 Dec.`13 - Republicans will likely demand concessions from Democrats and President Barack Obama in exchange for an agreement to raise the debt ceiling in 2014, the top Senate Republican signaled Tuesday, setting up what could be another heated showdown in the new year.

Although Congress is poised to agree to a two-year bipartisan budget resolution that will avoid the possibility of a government shutdown next year, the federal Treasury is expected to reach its borrowing limit again sometime in 2014. In October, Republicans in Congress reluctantly agreed to a “clean” debt ceiling hike — one with no major policy strings attached — as part of the deal to end the government shutdown. But on Tuesday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted it wouldn’t happen again next year when the issue comes up. “I can’t imagine it being done clean,” McConnell said of the next time Obama asks Congress to raise the borrowing limit. “The debt ceiling legislation is a time that brings us all together and gets the president’s attention, which with this president, particularly when it comes to reducing spending, has been a bit of a challenge.”

Despite early Republican rumblings about demanding some kind of compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling, Democrats are already indicating that they will insist on a clean hike. “I can’t imagine the Republicans will want another fight on the debt ceiling,” Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday. “We passed two debt ceilings in the very recent past, and we should do another one.” (One might hope that the two top power brokers in the U.S. Senate would be a tad more imaginative.)

Although the demands for a debt ceiling hike will likely originate in the House, a chamber controlled by Republicans, House GOP leaders have not declared a strategic plan yet on the legislation. Republican House Speaker John Boehner plans to discuss the issue with members of the conference “in the weeks ahead,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told Yahoo News.

Earlier this year, House Republicans opted to use the threat of a government shutdown in an attempt to pursue their policy agenda instead of tying demands to the debt ceiling hike — a strategy Boehner and his allies originally opposed. For months before the shutdown, Obama vowed that he would accept nothing short of a “clean” debt ceiling hike and surprised many Republicans when he refused to back away from his pledge. And next year, presumably, they'll do it all over again.

Prepare for another debt ceiling fight in 2014

 

[Geaux4it]

Every single shithead Dem voted for this POS. And 12 pubs from the normal right libs in the Senate/

To go after our disabled VETS is disgusting

-Geaux

Disabled Military Retirees Not Exempt from Pension Cuts in Budget Deal

A provision cutting the pensions of military retirees in the bipartisan budget deal that the Senate will vote on this week does not exempt disabled veterans, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Disabled retirees were previously thought to be exempt from the changes to military retiree pay, which could cost servicemembers up to $124,000 over a 20-year period.

http://freebeacon.com/disabled-military-retirees-not-exempt-from-pension-cuts-in-budget-deal/

 

[SwimExpert]

I'm sorry, but it's completely disingenuous to say that anyone is going after vets simply because they're not exempt from restructured pensions. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the end result. But you're making it out to be something it's not.

 

[Geaux4it]

I'm sorry, but it's completely disingenuous to say that anyone is going after vets simply because they're not exempt from restructured pensions. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the end result. But you're making it out to be something it's not.

Ok, then what is it?

-Geaux

 

[SwimExpert]

I'm sorry, but it's completely disingenuous to say that anyone is going after vets simply because they're not exempt from restructured pensions. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the end result. But you're making it out to be something it's not.

Ok, then what is it?

-Geaux

It is a smaller increase in cost of living raises.

 

[Geaux4it]

I'm sorry, but it's completely disingenuous to say that anyone is going after vets simply because they're not exempt from restructured pensions. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the end result. But you're making it out to be something it's not.

Ok, then what is it?

-Geaux

It is a smaller increase in cost of living raises.

I understand this. At the same time, its an attack on our disabled veterans who gave so much. Now, we are going to nickle and dime them. Taking from disabled veterans is disgusting

-Geaux

 

[Wildman]

...smaller increase in cost of living raises.

BULLSHIT !!