Bush gets weak support, Even loyal Republicans oppose many plans -MSNBC

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - It isn’t hard to understand why few in Washington are taking President Bush’s proposal to kill or cut 154 programs very seriously. Just listen to members of his own party.

“It ought to be expanded, not eliminated,” Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl says of aid to states with imprisoned criminal aliens, a $300 million program Bush wants to eliminate.

“We’ll fight it with everything that’s in us,” Pennsylvania Rep. John Peterson says of the president’s plan to end vocational education subsidies running $1.2 billion annually.

“It does a lot of good, it reaches out to young people,” Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine says of a $2 million program Bush wants to erase, this one supporting teaching about the underground railroad for escaped slaves.

Kyl, Peterson and DeWine are all loyal Republicans......MORE.......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7013465/

[BikeWriter]

1. He's a lame duck...

[indepat]

3. But Repugs will still vote in lockstep for his nominations or desired law

[DuaneBidoux]

2. This is where the rubber hits the road...

All those tax cuts for the wealthy? What do we do now? Oh, maybe we can just pretend that tax cuts come with nothing but positive consequences. The markets will ultimately demand either significant budget cuts or significant tax increases, in fact, it looks like the market made a small downpayment on that request for fiscal sanity today.

With a huge budget deficit there is no such thing as a "tax cut." There is only money we borrow to give to you. Calling what Bush did a tax cut is like going to get a cash advance on your credit card and saying you got a raise.

[natrat]

4. they suck---they have stolen from the treasurey and dont give a shit

[Lexingtonian]

5. well, duh

The Republican Party has moved beyond Grover Norquist. They don't admit it, but they've become a pro-government party again and never really were otherwise. The 19th century is over in Pubbieland.

The Bushies aren't utterly wrong to send up this trial balloon. What it does, though, is let them keep up the pretense that they were 'trying to cut spending'. On the other hand, it does fully undercut the final bit of Eighties conservative mythology of 'government waste' (read: spending money on poor people) and 'unnecessary programs'.

One by one every Republican tenet and Heartland conservative myth/excuse is being gutted and given up... and amnesia about the 'principle' takes its place.

It's sad, isn't it, how the Right wastes our time just in order for themselves to catch up with what was obvious all along. American public life these days is like being forced to attend a school full of obstinately stupid children. You don't know whether to jeer at or be impressed by their pathetic little advances. At the end they're going to tell us 'We're sorry, we were really stupid and did all kinds of hateful things' and hope for cheap forgiveness for all the outrages and inanity, of course.

[Inland]

6. These are all small ticket items that probably ARE worth the money.

Bush has so nicked and dimed everything except defense and his tax cuts, he is putting it all on programs which, even if eliminated, won't make a dent. So why bother?

[whathappened]

7. he doing what

his ceo buddys tells hime to do , make cuts and make it look like you are doing something besides makeing war all the time , if you don't get any of these cuts , ya just say heh , it was'nt my fault , i tryed to balance the money , it there fault now , now give me my crown and let me look like a king

[GetTheRightVote]

8. I am glad to hear that more republicans do not care for this evil budget

:kick: