That budget compromise all you sensible pragmatic conservatives championed and then cheered about, Jen Rubin — labeling those of us disappointed with the crumbs we were fed silly extremists who Just Don’t Understand Washington and real fiscal leadership?
No, really.
Fortunately, I’ve told you all this repeatedly. But I guess it’s less important to get that message out broadly than it is to punish me and my ilk for our irritating habit of calling out online GOP opinion leaders when we see them fucking up. Over and over and over again.
****
update: according to Rush Limbaugh, the real cuts here amount to about $2 billion. Obama and Dems are getting the public credit, if you can believe a (meh) CNN poll; and politically, the spin is starting to move to Obama’s having been able to save every key program, while giving up virtually nothing.
We’re losers. Obama saved the country. There’s your story. Just as I predicted it would be.
— All of which proves that it’s better to be an honest extremist than a supercilious credentialed dupe, even if the latter comes with a year’s supply of Georgetown party invites.
From the National Conference of State Legislatures:
April 11, 2011
Late on April 8, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced they had reached accord on FY 2011 appropriations. The agreement appears to include net spending reductions of $38 billion or so and elimination of most policy riders.
Of the $38 billion in spending reductions and rescissions, $10 billion has already been enacted into law via three previous continuing resolutions
So the Historic Victory of $38 Billion Precious Dollars is really only $28 billion at most, since ten billion was already counted through the previous CRs. Sort of like how $100 billion in pledged cuts became a $61 billion pledge after people whom Jennifer Rubin admires parsed the language.
This deal just gets better than better. If it gets any better the current $28 billion in new cuts will become only $1 or $2 billion in new spending.
WINNING!
The largest cut in the bill is from the Commerce Department, but this is something of an accounting trick since it relates to unspent Census money totaling $6.2 billion.
You know, as an execrable extremist cynic, I would say the ruling class in DC thinks we have the attention span of a planaria worm.
Given whom we elect, I suppose they are right.
I’ve waited all weekend to decide, for myself, how big of a turd this deal was.
Apparently, it was a huge turd. I didn’t want to believe the naysayers, but I couldn’t stop reading their arguments.
Yeah, George, the Census thing is infuriating. Actually, all of it is infuriating. Unfuckingbelievable. Jeff, you nailed it.
Sheesh, I decided to stop commenting on this over at Ace’s place… I’ve been very puzzled at the general attitude of the cob-loggers and commenters. They seem to be Jen Rubins at about four to one or more. This is odd because it’s a usually consistent hive of conservative villainy and scum; a good thing. But for once Hugh Hewitt got it right: This deal is a draw, nothing more. And you can’t have it both ways. It can’t be a huge win for Republicans yet also be immune to criticism because the prize is so small; the Jen Rubins tell us we shouldn’t grouse about it since the Republicans have such limited power in this situation. Well, limited power produces limited results, not historic victories. And $28 billion on top of the previous CRs is a decimal point’s worth of chicken feed.
[…] Jeff G. reiterates that the budget compromise scam saved us a whopping two beeelyon dollars! [insert evil laugh here] […]
This deal wasn’t a draw, G.O., it was a loss for classical liberals. Apparently we aren’t being represented sufficiently. I would threaten my representative but she’s a Democrat. Bachmann represents a different district next to mine, but she voted against this.
We’re doomed. DOOMED!
Curiously, I can vividly recall the 1980s, when at one point the GOP had the WH and the Senate, yet the same sort of “pragmatists” claimed they had such limited power because the Dems controlled the House, “the purse strings” so it was said…
Lose more slowly, indeed.
At the risk of going down the route of he that should not be named (code nAme: Muffin)
Failshit faggot Republicans.
[…] with that, I have to say it — which might put me out ahead of the curve again with Goldstein as an extremely extreme extremist and an unreasonable ideological purist who wants to purge the […]
You can’t get out of debt till you stop generating more debt. We need to cut the national credit card, not cancel a couple of magazine subscriptions.