The Senate Budget Committee

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I have just started watching the The Senate Budget Committee that was held the same day as the House Committee I made several posts about earlier, in case you missed them

Conrad Opens up and lays all kinds of suggestions on the table as a way to move forward. Sessions, Senator Sessions, opens for the minority. He sits there and bitches that the Democrats have not presented a budget. He points out that Ryan presented a budget and that Senator Toomey presented a plan.

Seems the way Republicans think the system works are there five pieces to the budget process. The President, House Republicans on their Budget Committee, House Democrats on their Committee, Senate Republicans on their Committee, and Senate Democrats on their Committee. Rather than the President submitting a proposal and then two budgets getting reconciled four budgets need to get reconciled from the President's proposal. Conrad brought all the building supplies to make a house and offered to work together to build something great and Sessions said, "Go build it, come back, and we, the Republicans, will say whether we like it or not."

Saying the Senate has not come up with a budget is cleaver politics but it is going to screw our country. I posted a link to Senator Murray's opening statement in the Budget Committee which I think sums it quite nicely. After that is a link to the full hearing, and then a little bit about what Sessions was referring to.

SenBudOpenMurray - C-SPAN Video Library

Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Resolution - C-SPAN Video Library

Pat Toomey: Americans Who 'Really Need Help' Are A 'Small Segment'

One of the Senate GOP's leading budget mavens unveiled Wednesday the party's plan for cutting aid to the poor by $440 billion, saying the people "who really need help" in America make up a "small segment of our society."

 

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Perhaps those on the right complaining bitterly about where is the Senate Budget should spend two minutes and watch this video from the Senate Budget Committee hearing held Apr 18, 2012.

bipartisanship - C-SPAN Video Library

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Wow. Almost a year old information! I'll get right on it!

 

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Wow. Almost a year old information! I'll get right on it!

As many people think 'no budget for 4 years' happened yesterday one year is not that bad.

 

[waltky]

Obama doin' an end run around Congress...

Obama Bypasses Congress With Public Economic Pitch
16 Feb.`13 - Weeks before President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, White House aides were locking down a plan for the sales pitch that would follow during three days of travel focused on his main themes.

The effort to promote Obama's proposals on jobs, wages and education involved visits to Asheville, N.C., Decatur Ga., and Chicago, participating in a Google+ chat and mobilizing the president's formidable former campaign apparatus. One thing it didn't include? Congress. For the White House, this is a campaign for public opinion, not one to write specific legislation. When it comes to broadening early education or raising the minimum wage, Obama is not ready to make lawmakers a part of the process yet.

Instead, Obama is trying to change an economic debate that has been focused on deficits and on managing the national debt to one about middle-class opportunities and economic growth. Just into his second term, Obama and his aides want to move away from the type of budget confrontations that have defined the past two years and take advantage of his re-election to pressure Republicans. "If the Republicans reflexively oppose everything the president does, we have to go directly to the American people to marshal their support to get things done," Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said. "The metric we're looking at is whether you start to see fissures in the Republican coalition."

This president, like recent ones before him, has gone to the public before in hopes of persuading lawmakers. It hasn't always proved a winning tactic. President Bill Clinton failed to use the public to win support for his health care overhaul. President George W. Bush was unable to make changes to Social Security in his second term. Obama tried to muster public support to fight climate change but the legislative effort came up short. Even Obama's all-out effort on behalf of sweeping health care changes only succeeded in keeping Democrats unified, not in winning over Republicans. But Obama and White House aides are heartened by what they believe were successful public appeals for extending a payroll tax cut in 2010 and for preventing a doubling of interest rates on federal student loans last summer.

What made those different was that they addressed pressing issues: The payroll tax cut was expiring at year's end and interest rates on student loans were set to double last July 1. Expanding preschools and raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour by the end of 2015, on the other hand, are policy ideas just sprung on Congress during last Tuesday's prime-time speech. "When there is no clear path between what he called for in the State of the Union and then going on the road, and there's no road map about exactly when we're going to get into these issues, it's a little bit like shouting in the forest," said Patrick Griffin, the White House legislative director under Clinton. "Something has to be queued up in order to make these visits work."

David Winston, a Republican pollster and strategist who advises House Republicans, said the key to a successful policy campaign is two-fold. "The first and central is how important is solving whatever problem is being defined," he said. "The second one is does the defined benefit solve the problem." He argues that even though Obama in 2010 won the health care fight in a partisan showdown, the public didn't judge health care to be as important as dealing with the economy. As a result, Republicans won control of the House in elections that year. The White House strategy now in part recognizes that the economy remains the No. 1 public concern even as the president engages Congress on issues such as immigration and gun violence.

MORE

 

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Obama doin' an end run around Congress...

Pretty good intel from a chimp.

I definitely wouldn't call it an end run. Although the flanking maneuver the double-envelopment might be appropriate. I would call it an airborne assault. Dropped directly within the enemy force. Asheville, NC as the first stop? That's a gutsy move. Doesn't show up on C-SPAN. Not completely surprised but it is an indicator of status. PR might need a little work. (I take that back, just found the Chicago visit on C-SPAN.)

The Organizing for Action's board are some of Obama's heaviest hitters. I couldn't find the whole board membership.

Cons coming out hard against the OfA. I am not sure if this is a zero-sum game. Depends how bad the team, and it has to be the whole team, wants this. It has to really mean something to those involved. They may just be worn out. The audio on Michelle's intro to the Organizing for Action site had the vocals all on the left and the background on the right, sloppy. That hair style definitely working for her.

The link's article had several comparisons to Clinton's health care push. I think there are fundamental differences in the two, which I will not go into, but there are definitely lessons to be learned.

I think this would be best played as a good cop/bad cop scenario. Need some pit bull to bite the Repugs in the ass and not let go. The Repugs can find their own carrot but they definitely need to know where the stick is coming from.

Time for Obama to go all in. This is where capital is spent or lost. He looked like a man with a mission Tuesday.

 

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I just finished watching the Chicago stop of his tour and a little from his Decataur stop and some from his Asheville stop. The Asheville crowd seemed the most thoughtful of the three. It sounded good but wary of a Democratic President saying he will help businesses grow. The Decataur crowded seemed very excited and believed that Obama could and would make a difference. Ironically the Chicago crowd was very enthusiastic but did not believe he was going to make any difference in their lives, just another white guy making promises that he will somehow forget along the way.

And the crowd that takes him the most seriously? That would be the crowd that attacked him in the media. They know what he can do and sure as Hell wants to make sure he doesn't.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The Asheville crowd seemed the most thoughtful of the three.

only a libturd would think of a crowd as thoughtful?? Was the crowd writing thoughtful research papers???????????? SLow???

They know what he can do and sure as Hell wants to make sure he doesn't.

yes dear, great great insight!!! Republicans want to stop Democrats!! Who knew?? You may be too intelligent for us.

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

 

[emptystep]

The Asheville crowd seemed the most thoughtful of the three.

only a libturd would think of a crowd as thoughtful?? Was the crowd writing thoughtful research papers???????????? SLow???

They know what he can do and sure as Hell wants to make sure he doesn't.

yes dear, great great insight!!! Republicans want to stop Democrats!! Who knew?? You may be too intelligent for us.

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

You see this guy writing anything down? (Than again he doesn't have anywhere to keep his pen and paper.)

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The Asheville crowd seemed the most thoughtful of the three.

only a libturd would think of a crowd as thoughtful?? Was the crowd writing thoughtful research papers???????????? SLow???

They know what he can do and sure as Hell wants to make sure he doesn't.

yes dear, great great insight!!! Republicans want to stop Democrats!! Who knew?? You may be too intelligent for us.

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

You see this guy writing anything down? (Than again he doesn't have anywhere to keep his pen and paper.)

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

 

[emptystep]

only a libturd would think of a crowd as thoughtful?? Was the crowd writing thoughtful research papers???????????? SLow???






yes dear, great great insight!!! Republicans want to stop Democrats!! Who knew?? You may be too intelligent for us.

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

You see this guy writing anything down? (Than again he doesn't have anywhere to keep his pen and paper.)

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

I don't know. One 'crowd' wants to cut the department of transportation's budget by 50% in one year and one 'crowd' thinks we should at least pay for the road repairs we have already signed contracts for.

By the way what is your measure of intelligence?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

You see this guy writing anything down? (Than again he doesn't have anywhere to keep his pen and paper.)

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???

I don't know. One 'crowd' wants to cut the department of transportation's budget by 50% in one year and one 'crowd' thinks we should at least pay for the road repairs we have already signed contracts for.

By the way what is your measure of intelligence?

Can you say which crowd supports the most intelligent programs and why??? Impossible for a liberal, right???