As another budget deadline approaches, Republicans and Democrats are finding themselves at an impasse as they try and run with “politics as usual.”
On Friday, the Democratic-controlled Senate blocked a Republican House bill that would provide stopgap federal spending, plus aid for people battered by hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.
The legislation also calls for $1.6 billion in spending cuts to help defray the disaster costs. Let me repeat that, the legislation also calls for $1.6 billion in spending cuts to help defray the disaster costs. In other words, cutting $1.6 billion out of $3.7 trillion (or cutting 0.04% of the budget) being spent this year.
Democratic leaders would have none of it. Television networks buzzed with congressional leaders calling it “Tea Party 2.0″ as well as several other well orchestrated phrases chose to implicate “radical” Republicans.
White House spokesman Jay Carney blamed House Republicans for the deadlock. He said they passed legislation that was certain to die in the Senate, just as they did during last summer’s fight over extending the federal debt limit.
“The fever hasn’t broken,” Carney said. “The behavior that we saw this summer that really repelled Americans continues.”
What Mr. Carney fails to comprehend, and what most Democratic leaders have yet to grasp, is that average Americans were not “repelled” by a group of freshman Republicans trying to get our country to stop spending money that we don’t have. We were relieved.
We were relieved at the attempt to bring sanity to this fiscal mess, but disgusted with both parties’ inability to cut spending. All the finger pointing and name calling will not bode well for any incumbents as we head into elections.
The Democratic strategy of resisting every spending cut and then trying to blame the impass on Republicans will fail, and it will fail miserably.
The Democrats fail to see that the Tea Party is not an extremist fringe group. At its core is sound government and fiscal responsibility. We expect the people that we send to Washington to govern intelligently and responsibly. It appears they cannot.
The politicians need to learn that the Tea Party is not a “radical” minority, they are my father, my mother, my sister, and my brother. They are me, they are you, they are all of us.
I’m afraid both parties just don’t get it. They just spend and spend and spend. Most Americans have had to cut spending back 10 to 50%, why can’t Congress?