The Federal Budget Battle May Mirror the 2012 Elections

The Federal Budget Battle May Mirror the 2012 Elections

Government shutdown looms large as a result of the Republican-run House of Representatives’ insistence on drastic cuts to the federal budget that runs through September 30, as politicians position themselves for re-election in 2012.

The House, spurred by GOP freshman Representatives who were supported by the tea party, has passed amendments that have shaken the very core of the traditional Republican Party. Most, if not all, of the 81 freshman elected last fall signed an agreement with or made a promise to the tea party to vote to repeal and replace what is now termed “Obama care,” and to stop “out-of-control spending” and “government overreach,” as well as to champion social conservative values such as abortion and gay rights—or would it be more correct to say “non gay rights.”

On Friday, “In rapid-fire action,” Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press wrote, “the Republicans-controlled House voted to stripe federal money from President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and from Planned Parenthood and to bar the EPA from issuing global warning regulations.” The amendment offered by Representative Denny Rehberg of Montana to block funding for the health care overhaul law was approved by a 239 to 187 vote. The proposal to block aid to Planned Parenthood won bipartisan support—240 to 185. Ted Poe’s amendment to strip the EPA of its authority to issue regulations on global warming passed with a 249 to 177 vote. The EPA changes shields greenhouse-gas polluter and private own colleges from federal regulators, block a plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and bar the government from shutting down mountaintop mines it believes will cause too much water pollution.

On Saturday before dawn, the Republican-controlled House, after offering more than 70 amendments, passed HR 1, agreeing to cut $61 billion from hundreds of federal programs and to shelter coal companies, oil refiners and farmers from new government regulations. Passed largely by a party-lines vote, the house approved the measure by a 235 to 189 vote. The $1.2 trillion bill covers every Cabinet agency through September 30. In essence, the bill imposes severe spending cuts on domestic programs and foreign aid and also targets schools, nutrition programs, environmental protection, and heating and housing subsidies for the poor. The Pentagon was awarded less than two percent increase, while the domestic agencies would have to endure cuts of about 12 percents.

Republicans marched forward with the mantra: “The American people have spoken. They demand that Washington stop its out-of-control spending now, not some time in the future.”

The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, says the GOP-led house will refuse to approve even a short-term measure at current spending levels. Taking a line from former President Herbert Walker Bush during his campaign for his failed second term as president, Boehner intoned, “Read my lips: We’re going to cut spending.” Democrats say Boehner’s insistence is tantamount to an ultimatum that threatens a government shutdown such as that in 1995-1996 when Bill Clinton was president. Senate leaders have said the bill “dead on arrival,” and President Obama has threatened to veto the measure if it, somehow, makes its way through the Senate.

“Battle lines over the steep federal spending reductions hardened Sunday even as congressional leaders maintained that Democrats and Republicans want to avoid a political impasse that could lead to a government shutdown,” wrote Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune Washington Bureau. Democrats reject the more than $60 billion cuts as being too severe, warning that 800,000 jobs will be lost. Paul Ryan said the Republicans will not “rubber-stamp” the high “spending levels enacted two years ago.” With leaders deadlocked, both sides are positioning the other for blame in the event the stalemate does not end and the federal government has to shut down.  

The tea party backed Representatives in the House are bent of cutting the federal budget even more that $61 million, even if more jobs are lost and the recovering recession degenerates into a depression—so long as big business is left without regulations and rich folks pay less tax. “If jobs are loss,” Boehner says, “so be it.” In essence, the poor and the middle class don’t matter.

Democrats and Republicans agree that present spending is unsustainable, and some are aware that the revenue level is not insufficient to fund necessary programs. A few are bold enough to tell the truth—that everybody will need to pay more taxes in order to maintain necessary spending levels as Robert C. “Bobby” Scott has indicated (Conservatives scream “bloody murder” at such idea, but the nation needs to face reality more than ideology). Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin on Meet the Press said on Sunday, “We know we need to cut spending. Now the question is how further should we go? You can’t reach a budget balance with 15 million Americans out of work.”

The battle over the budget, fueled by the tea party, may very well mirror the 2012 elections. The tea party (apparently made up of Republicans, independents, Libertarians, and some other small groups) has, in a very real sense, hijacked the Republican Party and has used its newly acquired political power to push the party to the extreme right—and even threatens to remove them from office in 2012 if they fail to deliver on tea party issues. But the American people don’t usually vote in large measure for candidates who are extreme right or extreme left; they usually vote for centralist candidates. With the infusion of the tea party, therefore, the Republican Party, if historic trends hold true, may become spoilers in the 2012 elections (The emphasis here is on “may become”).

Many political pundits agree that if it were not for extreme candidates in the 2010 election, Republicans would have taken control of both the House and the Senate—the season was certainly right for that to have happened. The same may be the case in the 2012 elections. The issues will be the same—battling over the federal budget deficit, federal regulations, entitlements, the health-care law, and social issues such as abortion and gay rights. Candidates that take extreme positions on these issues, whatever the party, usually fail to get elected—and it may be true in 2012.

However, nobody’s crystal ball is clear enough to make the prediction. So the battle goes on—each party betting on the odds.