Oh, how perfect. If this doesn’t say it all.
Democratic leaders are shocked, shocked, I say, that ideology is important to people. That it means more to them than money, though that’s not really the issue. It’s just that the Right knows how queasy Democrats get when they’re asked to stand up for their own ideology, so they simply expect them to cave.
Of course this wouldn’t make a dent with Pres. Obama, Sen. Reid and other Democrats these days, because they’d sacrifice the entire Democratic Party if it meant they could make peace with the Right.
It’s absolutely unconscionable that Republicans are using women’s freedom to shut down the government, but the Democrats shouldn’t take the blame for this blindness, because Republicans will be seen for exactly what they are. Willing to hold soldiers and everyone else hostage for their extreme views.
“The only thing holding up an agreement is an ideology,” Reid told the Senate’s presiding chair. “I’m sorry to say, Mr. President, my friend the Speaker and the Republican leadership have drawn a line in the sand, not dealing with a deficit we know we have to deal with.
“The two main issues holding this matter up are the choice of women, reproductive rights, and clean air,” Reid said. “These matters have no place in a budget bill.”
We all know what Obama and Reid reflexively want to do if it’s between women and a budget deal. They’d compromise. We saw that plain enough during health care.
It’s not enough that Republicans have already won, because Pres. Obama and the Democrats won’t lay it on the line with mil-billionaire tax increases, as well as rescinding the Bush tax cuts. These fundamental ideas, part of which Ronald Reagan was forced to utilize, and are what helped give Bill Clinton have his prosperous era. Simply going back to Clinton era tax policy, even that’s too ideological for today’s Democratic leaders.
So why wouldn’t the Republicans hold Democrats hostage to their ideology? They know that’s one score over which Obama always blinks.
Democrats have to be willing to shut the government down in order to win. Mark Knoller is also reporting that if short-term CR is presented to Pres. Obama he will veto it.
This post has been updated.
Screen capture from HuffPost.
“The two main issues holding this matter up are the choice of women, reproductive rights, and clean air,” Reid said.
But, how do we know? The Senate has not been able to pass a bill so how do we know what they are negotiating on? One could deduce from this that Mr. Reid agrees with all of the other parts of the bill passed by the house except those regarding the EPA and Planned Parenthood. I do not believe this to be the case so I can only deduce that Mr. Reid is not truthful in his statements.
He has only himself to blame for not addressing the budget issue when he had a 59/41 advantage and a House that would pass anything that the Senate managed to squeeze out. However, he failed – did he even try? – and now it’s time for he and the rest of the Democrats to dine on the turd sandwhich that he’s made for them.
I can’t believe that Reid is the majority leader.
I was wrong, it appears that Mr. Reid has agreed to all of the budget cuts, now $34.5 B, and the EPA and Planned Parenthood funding are the only issue.
“He has only himself to blame” He certainly has PLENTY of blame to shoulder for two pathetic, sickening years of ineptitude as well as the tsunami of shit house rat crazy repugnantklaner/teabaggers who now are buisy burning down the House. But ONLY himself? Isn’t there someone who lives on Pennsylvania Ave who has at least SOME of the blame?
Ya think?
Taylor,
This is not about ideology. It’s about unadulterated fascism being delivered by both parties to Wall Street and the military industrial complex, who owns them. Anything else is just noise.
I would ask what happened to NO DRAMA OBAMA in 2008. Today, it’s high drama all the time and needn’t be.
It is just a game, to which, the ruling elites keep on winning on the backs of the Middle Class and poor. Fascism runneth amok. Sadly, no one is representing me in Washington, DC. Same reason why I will NOT take part in this scam!
In the WSJ/NBC poll, Democrats specifically were asked what Congressional Democrats should do about the budget impasse. 26% of Dems said ‘Stick to your guns’, 68% of Dems said ‘Compromise’. When I heard the reporter say it last night I was thinking, I misheard him. Then I read it today with my own eyes.
My mother used to say “they can only take what you’re willing to give”. What makes this so disheartening is this is not compromise. This is out right throwing away so much of what the Democratic Party has championed and worked over generations to accomplish. We deserve better.
I don’t trust WSJ/NBC poll. The poll taker always gets desired result of said poll taker.
What that poll says are Democrats are totally retarded. Not buying that meme for one second
People have such short memories.
I vividly recall the day Obama caved on the Bush tax cuts, someone asked whether that portended how he’d handle a Government shutdown. He replied that John Boehner had already assured him that they would never shut down the Government.
Right?
Every time Obama negotiates, the poor, the working and middle classes fall further and further behind.
Ramsgate,
I agree. Obama is a RINGER. His mission was to destroy the Democratic party and he’s doing a great job. However, what are all the DC Democrats doing? Going along with him.
So when Taylor encourages us all to vote, while giving us analysis saying, the Left’s problem is we always come home to vote for those that don’t represent us, what is she talking about?
Are we supposed to vote Republican?
The SOLUTION is to not vote for this insanity. You don’t watch the President and the Democratic politicians continue to *not* represent your interests, bitch about it daily and then go vote for them again because the other side is scary, in an election year.
So when analysts like Taylor encourages us to vote, I feel SHE is the problem, without the solution!
I refuse to vote Republican for obvious reasons. I refuse to vote nationally for Democrats because once they get to DC, they no longer represent me. So my solution is to not vote until they return to representing me.
If all we can have in this nation is ONE party that only represents Wall Street, then so be it. Americans made that choice by voting FOR that. I refuse to do so!
Ronc99 says:
07 April 2011 at 2:15 pm
I could not agree with you more. You are saying now the things I was screaming at the top of my lungs a year and a half ago.
The Democrats always cave and the Republicans always play hardball. Theres a reason for that, The Tea Party, Talk Radio and FOX News holds the Republicans accountable and the GOP is fearful of their base, while President Obama and other Dems from what we have seen last year, push their base aside or “under the bus” and Ronc99, Taylor does not tell people to vote for anyone, she can’t, that is other people to decide for themselves who to vote for. She gives analysis and she is right sadly People do come home in the end, hopefully though there will be people that finally stand up for themselves and speak their mind even with candidates they voted for, but disagree with on things. I think there will be a chuck of voters on both sides that might set it out in 2012. I might be one of them. President Obama has a record he has to defend, unlike in 2008, any President running for a second term, has it much harder than the first time around.
Fairminded, I think you should reread what I said. You misunderstood
Republicans say that’s a different tune than he was singing in 2009, when he, President Barack Obama and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi loaded such riders onto a government-funding bill similar to the one now being negotiated. A senior Democratic aide said the two aren’t comparable.
Among the legislative items Democrats attached to that spending measure were:
* A long-desired abortion-rights provision making birth-control pills and devices cheaper for Planned Parenthood and other family-planning clinics who provide them to students on college campuses and poor women. Originally, an effort had been made to include that rider on an emergency supplemental spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was removed amid political pressure.
* The repeal of a school-voucher program in the District of Columbia that is close to the heart of the current speaker, John Boehner.
* A relaxation of restrictions on travel to Cuba.
* Reid’s pet project: Delaying the development of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site through spending cuts and legislative language; and
* A provision designed to facilitate the implementation of taxpayer-funded health benefits for the same-sex partners of federal employees.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52751.html#ixzz1IryfyIrT