I'm tired of MSM FOOLEYS, readers!
"As Clock Ticks, Congress and White House Stand Firm" by SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — President Bush and Congressional Democrats were at a stalemate Monday over federal spending, taxes, domestic surveillance and the war in Iraq, and neither side made a move to negotiate, even though lawmakers have just a few weeks left to wrap up work for the year.
With Congress back at work after a two-week recess, Mr. Bush and the Democrats spent the day lobbing verbal grenades at one another. Mr. Bush appeared in the Rose Garden to chide lawmakers for failing to finish their work, and his aides said he would do so again at a news conference on Tuesday — a rare departure for a White House that typically keeps its news conferences a secret until an hour before they occur.
“They have just two weeks to go before they leave town again,” Mr. Bush said. “That’s not really a lot of time to squeeze in nearly a year’s worth of unfinished business.”
At the Capitol, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, responded by calling Mr. Bush’s arguments “pretty weak,” and accusing the president of being intransigent. “If not for the stubborn refusal of the president and his Republican enablers to work with us,” Mr. Reid said, “we would accomplish a lot more.”
There was little evidence that either side was trying to ease the war of words.
The White House said there were no immediate plans to invite Congressional leaders in to talk to the president, and Mr. Reid said he had not spoken to Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, since before Thanksgiving. Mr. Bolten, a former budget director who has respect on Capitol Hill, has helped resolve previous White House budget battles with Congress.
Tony Fratto, Mr. Bush’s deputy press secretary, said Jim Nussle, the budget director, was taking the lead in negotiations over spending. But Mr. Nussle has not met with Representative David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, since Sept. 19, Mr. Obey’s aides said, when the pair had drinks on the terrace of Mr. Obey’s office overlooking the Washington Monument. The meeting was fruitless.
The impasse recalls one of an earlier era, between President Bill Clinton and Congressional Republicans at the end of 1995. That dispute ended with a government shutdown — an outcome Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats say they intend to avoid. But with both sides digging in their heels, strategists said Monday they did not know how the disagreements would be resolved.
“It’s a huge game of chicken and I’m certain the president is not planning to back down,” said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the White House. Mr. Bush, Mr. Black said, has “the zest for this combat.”
Great! Just great! A WARLIKE PRESIDENT for a WARLIKE NATION!!!!
But Democrats have a zest for combat as well, and are calculating that the public will be paying more attention to issues like the mortgage crisis than to Mr. Bush’s attacks on them.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yeah, a zest for combat until their glass jaw gets hit!!!
So we have a WARLIKE CONGRESS, too, huh?
May the world forgive us!
“This country has bigger problems than the president’s manufactured confrontation with the Congress,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic caucus. Mr. Emanuel warned of a “Bush recession” on the horizon, a signal that the Democrats plan to make the economy a major issue in their 2008 races.
Some of the disagreements over legislation are complicated by internal disputes among the Democrats themselves.
Most immediately, for instance, Congress needs to figure out how to prevent the alternative minimum tax, aimed at wealthy families when it was passed in 1969 but never indexed to inflation, from becoming an even greater burden on the middle class. House Democrats want to end certain tax breaks, including those for wealthy private equity fund managers, to compensate for the $50 billion revenue loss that would result from fixing the alternative minimum tax problem. But the White House is opposed, and there is reluctance among some Senate Democrats to end the tax breaks. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, for instance, is said to be uneasy about singling out private equity fund managers.
Look at Schumer suck big-bank cock!
And he voted for Mukasey!
Why are you a DemocraP, Chuck?
On the war, Mr. Bush wants Congress to approve nearly $200 billion in emergency spending. Democrats are proposing $50 billion, which would pay for military operations for a few months, but want to impose a timeline for troop withdrawals.
Mr. Bush warned Monday that such a timeline would “threaten the security of our country,” adding, “It’s unconscionable to deny funds to our troops in harm’s way because some in Congress want to force a self-defeating policy.”
Hey, I don't care! LEAVE 'EM THERE!
Just go away, asshole! Just GO AWAY!!!
That's all we want! LEAVE!!!!!!!
On spending, Democrats have yet to finish work on 11 of the 12 measures that pay for the day-to-day operations of the government. But even if they do pass the bills, Mr. Bush has threatened to veto most of them, because lawmakers want to spend $22 billion more than the White House has proposed. Senator Reid has said Democrats are willing to meet the White House halfway, and cut $11 billion from their measures, but Mr. Bush has refused.
Yup, asshole wants $200 BILLION for his LYING WARS, but he's quibbling over $11 billion that the American people need!
FUCK THIS ASSHOLE!
The fight over war spending could complicate matters. The Senate Appropriations Committee was said to be working on a catchall bill that would combine the 11 remaining measures into one so-called “omnibus” bill.
Mr. Bush has said he wants separate bills. But Mr. Fratto left the door open to an omnibus bill, refusing to say whether the president would veto such a measure. “We can’t talk about what the president may or may not sign unless we know what’s in it,” Mr. Fratto said.
But will the American people know what is in it?
Yet even as the bill was being prepared, the senior Republican on the committee, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, was sending signals that he would not support the package unless it included the money Mr. Bush wants for Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's called BLACKMAIL!!!!!! Fine!
Don't send up a budget! SHUT IT DOWN!
NO MORE MONEY for BUSH!!!
These two parties have already told the American people to fuck off, so we won't be losing anything anyway!
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said he also wanted the war spending issue resolved by the end of the year as part of an omnibus bill. As for timing, Mr. McConnell would not offer a prediction. “Obviously we don’t have any consuming desire to be here until Christmas Eve,” he said. “We’re working on it."
Yeah, and we'll just slam something together!
WHO KNOWS what might be in there!
This is the SAME SHIT they did to get fascista power over the summer!
Can you see my middle finger being raised in a salute, government!?
Also see:
Bush's Budget Blackmail
