Centrist Dems Continue Slowly Deflating the President's Budget

[babylonsister]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/centrist-dems-continue-slowly-deflating-the-presidents-budget.php

Centrist Dems Continue Slowly Deflating the President's Budget
By Elana Schor - March 11, 2009, 9:57AM


It started last week, when an influential group of Senate Democrats began signaling to the Obama administration that its $3.55 trillion 2010 budget bites off more than they'd like to be chewing.

The centrist Dems threw up plenty of red flags, from Obama's decision to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans in 2011 to the inclusion of climate change in the budget as an $80 billion-plus revenue raiser. And the most powerful member of this group is Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who quipped to The Hill yesterday that anyone who thinks the votes are there for Obama's budget is "smoking something."

That Conrad is joining the cadre of centrists putting the brakes on the White House budget isn't surprising -- he was also a skeptic of the stimulus -- but it is disheartening for anyone hoping for action on carbon emissions this year.

Conrad and his committee's ranking Republican, lapsed Commerce Secretary-designate Judd Gregg (NH), are singing from the same hymnal in criticizing carbon emissions regulations as too costly in the bad economy, handing the GOP a major cudgel to hit the forthcoming cap-and-trade climate bill when it emerges later on this year.

[seafan]

1. Until we neuter the Blue Dogs, etc., it will be nearly impossible to enact liberal legislation.

Until we neuter the Blue Dogs and the Republican wing of Senate Democrats, it will be nearly impossible to enact liberal legislation.


That's the bottom line.


Thanks for posting this, babylonsister.

[babylonsister]

2. These aren't even blue dogs. Kent Conrad? He's not helping anyone

but the rethugs. Very disheartening.

[Winterblues]

3. Didn't I hear the first part of this just passed the Senate with the help of eight Republicans.

$410 billion of it anyway..

[babylonsister]

4. I don't think that was the budget. Wasn't that

the pork-laden bill? So many bills, I get confused.

Edit to add: this is the omnibus bill, and the president is about to sign it. The budget bill is different. I think. :crazy: