The House of Representatives voted yesterday against raising the debt ceiling in time for the August 2 deadline because the measure did not include spending cuts. All of the Republicans voted against it as a matter of principle; many Democrats joined them in recognition of how stupid this symbolic measure really was. Meanwhile, President Obama's budget proposal for 2012 remains forever that, having been voted down unanimously last week by the Senate. Must have been the trains and windmills.
The Republicans have vowed to put everything on the table for spending "reductions" - except military spending and corporate welfare - leaving only for consideration of cuts or elimination the very public amenities that make a country worth living in. Without the rest of the county going along with demands the Republicans are forcing down our throats, the country can't pay its outstanding bills and the whole global economy goes kerplooey over a game of political chicken.
Why haven't Americans revolted yet? Are they too clueless, or are they too polite?
I found proposals for the 2012 federal budget - particularly cuts in federal spending for home heating assistance for the poor and Pell grants for college students - to be appalling. I wouldn't have been so appalled by the cuts if they had been proposed by the Republicans; given their history of budget priorities, that would be expected of them. But these proposed cuts came from the White House's $3.7 trillion budget blueprint!
You know, when I voted for Obama in 2008, I thought I was voting for a Democrat. Now I know how all those budget hawks who supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 felt when they were thought they were voting for a conservative.
President Obama did try to appease his base with increases in education spending as well as increased spending on high-speed rail projects and alternative energy, but the attempt to trim the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade by freezing various spending programs at current levels without reforming social programs like Medicare hasn't impressed anyone. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) finds the plan too timid, as does House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). And Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell couldn't resist a jab at Obama's plans for spending money on rail transit and clean energy as money for "trains and windmills," as if they were toys. In McConnell's home state of Kentucky, where almost no one uses any kind of public transit and where the economy depends on coal mining, trains and windmills probably are thought of as toys.
Yes, yes, you say, Obama's domestic spending cuts are all too bad, but he has to prioritize his own goals and make concessions to the Republicans who control the House to get anything done. Yeah, how's that working out so far? I'd rather see Obama act like Harry Truman and fight the opposition to the bitter end, as Truman did against the Republican Eightieth Congress of 1947 and 1948. Chris Matthews suggested that possibility once, and Pat Buchanan replied with a stinging rejoinder. "Chris," Buchanan said of Obama, "do you see any of Harry Truman in this guy?"
Buchanan has a point. I don't even see any of Harry Reid in this guy.
So, we won't get much in the way of high-speed rail spending, we won't get any clean energy programs, and we'll get even more draconian domestic spending cuts when the negotiations are completed between the White House and Congress and the smoke clears.
Three weeks ago, Obama spoke of a Sputnik moment. This budget is our Kaputnik moment.
In that spirit, to sum up our national predicament, I present a video clip of the failed Vanguard TV3 "Kaputnik" satellite launch of December 6, 1957.
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