For the life of me I can’t figure out why Americans keep electing people who don’t like government to run government. Because the budget for the fiscal year that started six and a half months ago still hasn’t been passed, our government was again on the verge of a shutdown. We are over half way through the budget year and we still don’t know what we are going to spend. We are over half way to a new budget year and we still haven’t started talking about what the next budget should look like.  Another continuing resolution (CR) was passed, with 54 Republicans voting against the Republican bill.

The GOP is in complete disarray. Boehner actually needed to attract Democratic votes in order to get the CR passed so that government could continue running. He can’t keep his own caucus together. Republicans make fun of Nancy Pelosi, but she managed to lead her caucus and get things done. Boehner is proving to be a very ineffective leader.

It’s probably not totally his fault. American voters sent a bunch of people to Washington who think they would like living in a world with no government. Sensing the mood of party activists back home, they are unwilling to enter into the compromises necessary to actually pass bills. Some are planning on a run for a different office in 2012, and know that the people who show up at caucuses will not stand for anyone who doesn’t walk the untra-conservative walk. The only fly in the ointment is that the people who show up at caucuses do control who gets to represent the party on the ballot, but they don’t represent the typical, much more moderate, voter. Catch 22! Follow the leader and end a political career, or hang with the extremists, crash the government, get on the ballot, lose the election. Same result either way.

Just in case you didn’t already know, Representative Tipton of the 3rd Congressional district is one of the freshmen legislators that Boehner doesn’t know what to do with. He did not support his leadership, presumably because he thinks that he needs to cling to the far right in order to be re-elected in 2012. I don’t yet know who will be running against him, but Tipton can’t get reelected without moderate Republicans, Independents, and a few Democrats. Right now I’d vote for a duck before I’d vote for Tipton. Quack.

ColoradoPols already has the odds of Tipton winning reelection at 5 to 1 (generally incumbents are given 2 to 1 odds), with two Democrats possibly running against him—Sal Pace, the current minority leader in the house, and Bill Thiebaut, Pueblo’s D.A.

Homework

No Good Moves for Boehner

People Considering Different Office Buck Party on Vote

Some in GOP Tired of Right Wing

The Lay of the Land

Tipton Voted No

ColoradoPols

Sal Pace

Bill Thiebaut

Al Capone, who was eventually taken down by the IRS, was famous for his involvement in the Chicago St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The modern version is about to occur. President Obama will deliver his budget to the House on St. Valentine’s Day. Both sides have started choosing their weapons.

Yesterday Jacob Lew wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times about the priorities of the Obama budget. In a piece titled The Easy Cuts Are Behind US, Lew sounded the themes laid out by Obama in his State of the Union speech. Lew writes “our goal is to win the future by out-educating, out-building and out-innovating our rivals so that we can return to robust economic and job growth. But to make room for the investments we need to foster growth, we have to cut what we cannot afford. We have to reduce the burden placed on our economy by years of deficits and debt.”

The Obama budget will call for a five-year spending freeze on any discretionary spending not related to national security.  He predicts this freeze will cut $400-billion out of the deficit over the next 10 years. He also notes that to get to this level of savings, programs with strong Democratic support will have to be cut. One of the programs called out for cuts by Lew is Community Service Block Grants. The proposal is to cut the grants in half, for a savings of $350-million and to change the program from a formula driven process, to program where grants are given to the organizations most effective at helping low-income communities.

Obama has used competition in the past. That was the basis for the Race to the Top money ear marked to provide education funds to states that were willing to make substantial reforms in how they approached everything from curriculum to teacher evaluations. There is an even longer history of the federal government using competition to achieve policy goals in the field I’m most familiar with—economic development. A lot of people in the field were shocked when New Markets Tax Credits were targeted toward low-income communities, with no state-by-state defined carve-outs, and awarded to the eligible organizations scoring the highest in policy-driven criteria.

The Obama budget also calls for taking $125-million from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which is charged with cleaning up and protecting the environment around the Great Lakes. And the big headline should be that the budget calls for a $300-million cut in Community Development Block Grants. These are grants that go to cities, counties, and states to help with everything from affordable housing for low to moderate income families, to road and sewer projects, to economic development. The Incubator in Grand Junction was originally funded with money from Community Development Block Grants, as was the new community center in Fruita.

The budget also calls for cuts in military spending, specifically taking $78-billion out of the Department of Defense budget over the next five years. He plans to scrap the C-17 transport plane, saying it costs too much and we don’t need it.

Finally, Obama asks that Social Security be protected and that the tax code be revamped. Good luck on that tax code thingy. I’ve been saying for a very long time that the code is way too complicated if a person like me, with a degree in finance, has to hire a CPA in order to make sure that everything is correct when filing a tax return. Corporate taxes are even more complicated between tax credits and property depreciation.

Complicating matters, the last Congress never passed a final budget for 2011. So, while they are wrangling over how to finish last year’s work, they also have to deal with finding an approach to the Obama budget. There is a split in the Republican Party about what should be cut and how much the cuts should be. When Paul Ryan released his projections, they were short of the $100 billion in cuts that many Republicans promised to deliver in the unfinished 2011 budget. They are looking for an additional $45 billion in cuts to the 2012 budget without touching Defense and while requiring that spending be cut before any debt limit increases are approved. And just to make the whole thing more fun, Speaker Boehner has promised unlimited amendments and debate on the Continuing Resolution, which will end up being reconciled with the Senate version where Democrats are in control.

Who needs soap operas when we have Congress?

Homework

GOP's Strategy to Cut Spending

Wall Street Journal Talks about GOP Budget Strategy

DEM Budget Strategy