 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Bushwacked Eleven
|
|
|
|||||||
|
BS: Bushwacked Eleven |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: Bushwacked Eleven From: mousethief Date: 24 Apr 01 - 11:38 AM From Business Week Online, April 10, 2001
WASHINGTON WATCH
How Bush Blew the Budget George W. Bush has just learned a little lesson about the U.S. Senate. It's not the House of Representatives. Nor is it the Texas legislature. It is, instead, filled with some of the toughest pols in the country -- all with egos the size of the Lone Star State. Most of them think they should be President. After all, they could do as good a job as whoever is sitting in the Oval Office. And right now, most of them know -- just know -- they could do a better job than the untested Bush. Nor will they be taken for granted. As Linda Loman said about Willy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, "attention must be paid." Bush never had a clue. In an effort to railroad his budget through Congress, the President thought he could roll Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans. After all, he figured, he could rely on 50 Republicans and Vice-President Dick Cheney to break ties. All he had to do was put enough heat on wavering Republicans and they would cave, Dubya believed. NOT ENOUGH VOTES. Fat chance, and Bush paid a stiff price for his naivete. Days before he sent his budget blueprint up to Capitol Hill, the Senate rewrote it. His signature tax cut was slashed by 25%, and his efforts to hold spending increases to 4% this year were trashed. The Senate instead made room for 2001 spending hikes of more than 8%. The Bushies put the best face they could on the defeat. Budget Director Mitchell Daniels insisted there was "sort of a 'boys will be boys' notion to this thing." But Hill GOP leaders knew better. Not only could Bush not get his $1.6 trillion tax cut through the Senate, he couldn't get any changes to a bipartisan $1.25 trillion version offered by John Breaux (D-La.). "We didn't have the votes," conceded a glum Senate Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles (R-Ok.). Three times, the GOP called on Cheney to break tie votes. And each time, to keep the budget process moving forward, Cheney & Co. made concessions. Result: The Senate ended up promising to spend more money without approving Bush's plan. It reserved $300 billion over the next 10 years for a Medicare drug benefit, double the $153 billion Bush proposed. It boosted Bush's farm budget by $58 billion and added funds for education, veterans' benefits, and health care. Altogether, the Senate budget blueprint called for $20 billion more in spending than Bush wanted for fiscal 2002. After all that, Bush still lost the backing of two moderate Republicans - Jim Jeffords of Vermont and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Both feared Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut was too big and were talked into joining moderate Democrats in crafting a $1.25 trillion version. "Raw politics," complained Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah). Actually, what beat Bush was not politics, but the absence thereof. Politics, says my dictionary, is the "science or art of government." Rather than seeking consensus or compromise, which is the essence of politics, Bush thought he could use muscle to get what he wanted. TOO LATE. The tactic worked in the polarized House. But it failed in the Senate, done in by the likes of Democrat John Breaux of Louisiana, a man with a fine bayou appreciation of real politics. In January, Breaux warned Bush that the President didn't have the votes to jam Congress on his tax cut. And in the midst of last week's budget debate, Breaux looked at the brewing stalemate in the Senate, took note of Bush's stonewalling, and was disgusted. "Same old," he grumbled. A few hours later, Breaux got Chafee and Jeffords, along with a handful of Democrats, to back his $1.25 trillion tax-cut target. And within 48 hours, the Senate passed a budget that looked a lot more like Breaux' than Bush's. Every Republican voted for it. On Apr. 9, Bush sent the details of his own budget up to Capitol Hill. But it arrived 72 hours too late. The Senate had already scotched the tax-and-spending blueprint for its own version. If Bush doesn't want Washington to have another year of "same old," it's getting to be time for him to look up the meaning of the word "politics" in the dictionary. Gleckman is a a senior correspondent in BusinessWeek's Washington bureau. Follow his views every Tuesday in Washington Watch, only on BW Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
---------- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: Little Hawk Date: 24 Apr 01 - 11:56 AM Well, well...checks and balances, right? Your USA governmental structure definitely does have some good points in its favour. In Canada, a majority government is nothing short of a temporary dictatorship that does whatever it bloody well wants to until the next election. I kid you not. The only thing protecting our public is the basic sense of decency and moderation that is still natural to a lot of Canadian politicians... That is not the case in Ontario, however, under Mike Harris's Conservatives. Not at all. The only thing that can stop a Canadian federal or provincial majority government in its tracks is a public scandal (generally one involving misappropriation of funds or something sober like that...not sex in the offices of power). We have not 2 parties, you see, but several...and a majority government here IS a de facto dictatorship with limited tenure...figure a minimum of 4 to 5 years generally speaking. - LH |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: mousethief Date: 24 Apr 01 - 12:00 PM That's the thing about a parliamentary structure ... you get the temporary dictatorship. So the people must occasionally flip their flop and vote in the opposite number, to keep things on an even keel. Here we keep things on an even keel by splitting the houses of government, and having a democratic congress and a republican president, or vice versa. This of course is the real meaning behind the 1994 republican "landslide" -- the people realized, to their horror, that they had the same party in both the executive and legislative branch, and rushed to correct the imbalance. Alex |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: Little Hawk Date: 24 Apr 01 - 12:52 PM You're absolutely right, Alex. It's one of the USA's strongest virtues. People used to do the flip-flop routine here too, in the same instinctive way...between the Liberal and Conservative parties. But then the Conservatives made themselves so unpopular in the 1980's that they fragmented and virtually destroyed their national power base. Since then, Jean Chretien's Liberals have won every national election by default, and it has not been a good thing. It's the antithesis of true democracy. By the way, people here also instinctively tend to vote in the federal opposition parties as provincial governments...figuring they can balance the party forces by so doing. In practive, however, it doesn't work. Unfortunately. - LH |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: mousethief Date: 24 Apr 01 - 06:07 PM From The Nation:
Stoning Wellstone: Annals of the permanent Bush campaign ST. PAUL -- U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone had just finished rousing a crowd of 2,000 trade unionists, farmers, environmentalists and students with a fiery condemnation of George W. Bush's free trade policies, and now he had a problem. He couldn't get down the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol here to join the march protesting Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas scheme. Wellstone is just too popular with his constituents. He could barely move in the face of a steady stream on men in Teamsters jackets, farm wives holding newborn babies, green-haired college kids and Catholic priests approaching to offer variations on the words of a steelworker who told Wellstone, "I am so damn proud to be able to say you're my senator." Most of them asked a question as well: "How come Bush hates you so much?" Let there be no doubt as to the identity of George W. Bush's least favorite Democratic U.S. Senator. It's Wellstone, the rabble-rousing Progressive who represents not just Minnesota but what remains of the the fighting populist spirit of the upper midwest. Elected in 1990 following a grassroots campaign in which he toured the state on a beat-up school bus, Wellstone was No. 1 target in 1996 for Republicans who thought the senator had doomed himself with a lonely vote against punitive "welfare reform" legislation. He won reelection with ease that year, proving to both the Republicans and to their whimpering Democrat allies that bashing the poor might not be nearly so smart a political move as Dick Morris thought. As Wellstone prepares to seek a third term next year, it would be reasonable to assume that he might finally be in for some smooth political sailing. But reason doesn't figure into the calculations of the Bush White House, where the president himself, Vice President Dick Cheney and political commissar Karl Rove practice the politics of vengeance. The Bushies despise Wellstone who, unlike most Senate Democrats, has been fighting spirited battles against the new administration's policies on everything from the environment to the tax cuts for the rich to military aid for the "Plan Colombia" drug-war boondoggle. Other Democratic senators who face reelection contests in 2002 are, according to polls, more vulnerable than Wellstone. But the Bush camp has been focusing highest-level attention on "Plan Wellstone" -- their project to silence progressive opposition. Last Tuesday as Minnesota House Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty was just hours away from declaring his intention to mount a Republican challenge to Wellstone, he got an urgent call from Rove asking him to step aside for Bush's preferred candidate, St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. Then, on Wednesday morning, with just 90 minutes to go before his planned announcement, Pawlenty was driving his kids home from a dental appointment. The car phone rang and Pawlenty found himself talking to the Vice President of the United States. Cheney told Pawlenty that the president did not want Coleman -- a party switching former Democrat who chaired the losing Bush presidential campaign in Minnesota -- to face a difficult primary contest from a credible Republican. Pawlenty finally "agreed" to step aside. Minnesota is not the only state where the Bush camp is seeking to pick senators. But the level of involvement in the Wellstone race is remarkable. Coleman dropped a planned gubernatorial bid after two White House pressure sessions with Bush. And now that Coleman is leaning toward a Senate race, Bush, Cheney and Rove are pulling out all the stops to make sure they are in charge of the anti-Wellstone campaign. Even Pawlenty, as he was proclaiming himself a "team player," admitted that, "It makes you wonder about the process and the integrity of the process." What does Wellstone say? "I think the way to oppose George W. Bush is to stand up to him, to speak out when his policies are wrong, to put holds on bad legislation he's promoting. Obviously, that's not the sort of opposition Bush and Cheney approve of. The nice thing is that, even if they can dictate the Republican nominee, the people of Minnesota still get to choose their senator." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: DougR Date: 25 Apr 01 - 12:54 PM Alex, I disagree with your assessment of the 1994 election. I don't believe the electorite considered the imbalance of the two parties as the major reason for the Republican victory. I think they bought Newt Gingrich's promoted "Contract with America." Latest polls show that 63% of Americans approve of GWB's performance to date. He must be doing some things right. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: kendall Date: 25 Apr 01 - 01:06 PM They didn't poll me, Doug.I do think you are right on the reason for the blood bath in '94. Too many voters believed what Newt was saying.His "Contract on America" sounded good. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: jaze Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:42 PM Is it just me or is anyone else horrified at yesterdays Supreme Court decision to allow police to arrest,handcuff, and cart off to jail people who commit MINOR traffic offenses ie not wearing a seat belt! I thought the Republican motto was LESS government interference in people's lives. This sounds like a police state. Yet in Nevada, a man with 16 previous DUI's crashed into 2 sisters, killing one and paralyzing the other from the neck down. What a world. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: Little Hawk Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:56 PM I wouldn't place much stock in polls at this point, Doug, it is too early in the presidency. The first year tends to be a sort of "honeymoon" period, don't you think? Anyway, in a way I'm sort of relieved that he's not WAY down in popularity, because when American presidents are their usual response is to launch a bombing raid or a military intervention on some small and wretched country...wherever it's convenient at the time. - LH |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: DougR Date: 25 Apr 01 - 07:01 PM Geeze, Jaze, since when did the Republicans become responsible for Supreme Court decisions? That just puts you in the 27 or 29 percentile of Americans who don't approve of Bush, Kendall, my friend. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: catspaw49 Date: 25 Apr 01 - 07:32 PM No need for you to worry up there though Hawk, although you may have a point. This is one where I think Carlin has it right. We quit bombing white people after WWII and since then we've had damn little success bombing yellow people. We're very PC and know it's a lousy idea to bomb black people, but if you're brown...... we'll bomb the livin' shit out of you! Spaw |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: kendall Date: 25 Apr 01 - 09:36 PM Georgie Porgie Pudding and Pie, Left the Poor to starve and die. Georgie Porgie the Son of a Bitch, Took from the Poor to give to the Rich!
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: kendall Date: 25 Apr 01 - 09:40 PM I'd be willing to bet my banjo that the woman who was arrested for no seat belt gave that cop some major guff. Doug, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: MAV Date: 25 Apr 01 - 11:02 PM Kendall,
Too many voters believed what Newt was saying.His "Contract on America" sounded good
The same voters gave x42 high marks for job approval ...for signing the "contract"........INTO LAW!!!!
mav out PS Catherine Harris says "No more punch card ballots"
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: Ebbie Date: 25 Apr 01 - 11:38 PM Kendall, I can see the woman being hauled in for giving the cop big lip, but the Supreme Court? I have the same reaction as jaze. As it happens, I do use seat belts but the idea of being cuffed and hustled off to jail for, what next- jaywalking? Ebbie |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: DougR Date: 25 Apr 01 - 11:55 PM Kendall, I suspect you are right. The lady may well have expressed her indignation in a most unlady like way. That may come out later (but it probably won't). It does sound like a minor infraction, but suppose, just suppose, before the cop stopped her, someone ploughed into her car/pick-up, whatever, and her babies were thrown through the windshield to their death. Would that, then, be a minor infraction? It could have turned out that way. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: mousethief Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:06 AM We quit bombing white people after WWII Tell that to the Serbs. Alex |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Bushwacked Eleven From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Apr 01 - 05:13 PM Right on, Alex! And Bill Clinton bombed the Africans not too long ago too, as I recall...seems to me it was a pharmaceutical factory which the Pentagon mistook for a weapons manufacturing facility, wasn't it? Funnily enough, his popularity was WAY DOWN at the time too. Hmmmm..... - LH |