Catwho wrote:
And yet, it was Senate Republicans that blocked the 21st attempt at forming a budget committee today. Filibustered!
Um... Because it's the same thing I just explained to Alma that didn't work in the past and wont work today. Saying "we'll form a budget committee, but only if you agree to continue funding everything we want" isn't exactly a fair offer, is it? It's like saying "We'll discuss what we'll have for lunch after we eat lunch at my favorite restaurant". There's no guarantee that said budget committee will result in any sort of budget agreement, doubly so if the Democrats have
already gotten what they wanted before anyone sits down at the table.
I'll repeat the same thing I said earlier about these conference committees (may have been in this thread, don't remember): The House rules require that the conference resolve whatever issue it's formed for within 20 days of members being assigned. Those who don't know this might take Reid's offer to "immediately seat members for a conference committee" as some kind of positive concession from him. But the reality is that by doing this, he's basically ensuring that nothing will come out of the conference. So he's not even offering something that
might result in a budget agreement. He's essentially saying "give us what we want, and we'll give you nothing in return". But he's doing it in such a way that ignorant people will think he's making a fair offer.
That's reasonable politics, but that's all it is. Only the foolish and the ignorant would think it's a fair offer though. If he were serious about reaching a budget agreement, he would have gone through the process of negotiating such a conference, along with a full agenda, and all the pre-work required to make one work, and he would have done this months ago. Instead, he just tosses out a PR stunt designed to fool the masses, while doing nothing that will actually result in a budget deal.
At this point, the only thing that will work is some kind of actual funding reduction agreement as part of the CR. It probably doesn't even have to be that huge. But the Dems are trying to play this out in the media instead of actually trying to fix the problem. That'll work for awhile, but not forever.
Edited, Oct 9th 2013 11:21am by gbaji