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Who won the budget showdown?

Posted 09 Apr 2011 in Congress, economy

At literally the eleventh hour last night, Democrats and Republicans essentially called a truce on the budget fight.

Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown late Friday night after Republicans and Democrats reached a last-minute deal on historic spending cuts in the 2011 budget.

Just around midnight, House and Senate approved a six-day “bridge” bill that will keep the government operating while they draft bipartisan legislation to fund the government for the final six months of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Democratic and Republican leaders feared a government shutdown would damage them politically, with polls showing voters opposed to a work stoppage but evenly divided over which party would be to blame for it.

…Under the terms of the agreement, the six-month bill will slash $38.5 billion from current spending levels, which is $23 billion less than the reductions Republicans originally demanded but $30 billion more than what Democrats had initially offered to cut.

…House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, agreed to remove the Planned Parenthood provision in exchange for an agreement that would allow Congress to take up the funding issue separately. The Republicans also won inclusion of a provision that will require the Senate to vote on a bill to de-fund the health care reform law [a.k.a. Obamacare -FMP].

Another provision won by Republicans would prohibit the District of Columbia from spending local or federal funds on abortion services.

Boehner announced the deal to his rank-and-file late Friday night and received enthusiastic applause, although some Republicans said they opposed the deal because the cuts didn’t equal the $61 billion that the House had already approved but the Democratically controlled Senate had killed.

Sounds pretty much like a stalemate; both sides get to claim victory. Democrats protected federal funding of Planned Parenthood abortions (except in DC), Republicans get to claim the first actual reductions in government spending in decades. Not bad when you consider the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.

And therein lies the problem. With Democrats still in charge, it’ll be an uphill battle to pass serious reform to entitlement spending. But for now, the Republicans have managed to show a lot more leadership and responsibility than the Democrats did last year when they held all the power in DC. And that didn’t take much.

The only REAL winners in all this are our men & women in the armed forces, who will receive their paychecks on schedule (no thanks to their Commander-In-Chief).
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RELATED: Left Coast Rebel beat me to the punch about the feckless John Boehner.

The Republicans — thanks to incompetent, weak leadership — lost the messaging battle. This battle was budget, budget, budget, dollars, dollars, dollars, but the geniuses inserted “riders” into the budget, including one directed toward de-funding Planned Parenthood. I don’t think that $1 of taxpayer money should go to Planned Parenthood (or funding abortion) but I also believe that inserting this and handing the narrative to the insane, infanticide-left was a stupid move and gave the loony left the perfect screaming-from-the-rooftops about the Hitlerian “cuts against women” opportunity, especially since these guys had no ability (or cajones) to battle against the pr tsunami.

Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT

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