Anyone listening to the flying rhetorical missiles here in Washington Tuesday would think everyone involved is heck-bent on a government shutdown, even though everyone involved says they're not.
Today's verbal brush fire was started when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed a 30-day government funding measure that would keep the wheels turning after March 4, when the current stopgap resolution runs out. This, the leader said, would give lawmakers time to negotiate for something more long term that would include deeper spending cuts.
Democratic leaders claimed this plan would cut $41 billion from the budget, a similar mathematical twist used by House Republicans last week to claim they had kept a campaign promise to cut $100 billion from the budget, a twist decried by Dems. Problem is, both parties are using President Obama's proposed budget for this year, a budget that was never approved. So, that's why the House GOP cuts in real time totaled $61 billion, not $100 billion, though still a massive number by anyone's calculation. It's also why it's correct to say Senate Democrats are merely locking in current 2010 spending levels, a significant savings, as well.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/20...mer-goes-palin
Note: February 22, 2011