After Wisconsin, How Do Democrats Argue Against a GOP Government Shutdown?

Who is talking Government shutdown? Democrats or Republicans? Looks like it is the Democrats who went on the talk shows today afraid (give me a break) that Republicans will shut down the Government on March 4th if the Democrats don't agree to significant budget cuts (the cuts the American people want).

This is right out of the Clinton playbook -- knew he was around the White House for a reason and this seems be it. Obama is no Bill Clinton and John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich. Republicans have learned a lot since those days on how the Democrats and media spin for the Democrats. The Sunday morning talk shows allowed the American people to see that all this talk of Government shutdown is so the Democrats can keep spending at the current rate to put the Country more in debt. Progressives see no reason to cut their pet projects like high speed rail even with the deficit growing by the second.

All the while the Democrats in DC led by Obama are cheering on the Wisconsin Democrat members of the legislature who left the state to keep from voting along with the illegal strike by teachers shutting down some school districts.

Are Congressional Democrats going to flee next so when the budget goes to the Joint Committee to iron out differences, they will be out of town? Looks like the Senate Democrats are going to try and force a Government shutdown which most likely will be applauded by the American people for saving money.

After Wisconsin, How Do Democrats Argue Against a GOP Government Shutdown?2:15 PM, Feb 20, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAY

Congressional Democrats engaged in more saber rattling today over concerns House Republicans will shutdown the government if Democrats don't agree to some pretty signifcant budget cuts. The continuing resolution funding the federal government expires on March 4:

Senior Senate Democrats slammed Republicans on Sunday for a "reckless" threat to shut down the government as political posturing intensified on both sides over federal spending and the budget deficit.

The House of Representatives approved legislation on Saturday to cut federal spending by $61 billion through September. But The bill, pushed through by Republicans, was sure to be significantly changed by President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats in the Senate.

"Unfortunately Speaker Boehner seems to be on a course that would inevitably lead to a shutdown ... That's reckless," said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer on CNN'S State of the Union program, speaking of House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress.

"We have said shutdown is off the table ... Boehner, Mitch McConnell, other Republican leaders have not taken it off the table when asked, and there are lots of people on the hard right clamoring for a shutdown.

The obvious point here is that if it's so "reckless" to shutdown the government, why have Wisconsin legislators, the President and the DNC all supported the government shutdown in Wisconsin? Not only that, they have shutdown the government by fleeing the state and breaking the law, not to mention the illegal union strikes shutting down schools and national Democrats helping to organize the angry mob descending on Madison.

Conventional wisdom in the Beltway has it that a government shutdown would be bad for Republicans, just as it was the last time it happened in 1995, when Former GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich took on Clinton over the budget. However, Michael Barone recently made the point that it may not have been that bad -- Republicans only lost 9 seats in 1996 after the historic gains in 1994. (True, Clinton won in 1996 but Bob Dole's candidacy was never much competition.)

Now the budget crisis is much, much worse than it was in 1996 -- Obama and Congressional Democrats added $4 trillion to the deficit in just over two years. I don't think the magnitude of our current fiscal problems are lost on voters. And the more Congressional Democrats ratchet up the rhetoric towards the House GOP over the shutdown, the more they're liable to be called out as rank hypocrites following right on heels of the Democratic temper tantrum in Wisconsin.

Causing a government shutdown may still be a risky gambit for Republicans, but it will be very hard for Democrats to make the case against it with any moral authority and stir up voter sympathy.

Source: Weekly Standard

Democrats have been allowed to join in the discussion and offer amendments this term of Congress unlike the Democrats who refused to include Republicans in discussion in on bills or offer  amendments most of the time during the last two sessions when Pelosi cracked her whip. Most times the Republicans were excluded from even seeing the bill until it was presented on the floor as Democrats on the Committees met behind closed doors to work on bills. Same thing happened in the Senate and now they want Republicans to get on board with their runaway spending? Not going to happen.

Senior Progressive Democrats took to the airwaves talking about Republicans shutting down the Government on March 4th because they want budget cuts for FY 11 that Democrats don't want. How would House Democrats know about about the FY 11 budget because they never had one and just deemed a budget passed in the House and the one in the Senate was thrown together at the last minute. Democrats and the media forget the Democrats no longer control the House and lost seats in the Senate.

Obama and the Progressive Democrats are cheering on the Democrats for shutting down Wisconsin state government but blast Republicans because they are standing firm on budget cuts and saying the House Republicans want to shut down the Government. Think that the term Bravo Sierra would work very well to describe Obama and his Democrats puppets in the Congress. How dumb do Progressive Democrats including Obama think the American people really are?