Mid-Terms: GOP Clueless, Extreme

08 October 2010 |permalink | email article

A closer look at the House Republicans’ recent “Pledge to America” appeals to GOP hardliners and tea party vigilantes. But the supposedly deficit-reducing plan calls for trillions of dollars’ worth of specific tax cuts, but only $100 billion of non-specific spending cuts to offset that cost.

What House Minority Leader John Boehner won’t tell average Americans is that the ‘Pledge’ devastates three critical areas: schools, cops and health care affecting every American. Bloomberg, took a look and added specificity in several areas where the GOP whiz kids offered none.

Education: Obama requested over $70 billion for DOE next year. The GOP proposal would mean a $5 billion cut in the Pell Grant program, which helps low-income students with college tuition grants.

Health Care. GOP spending cuts would mean billions in fewer resources for the Department of Health and Human Services; a $6 billion hit for the National Institutes of Health and major cuts at the National Cancer Institute where spending is up 10% in two years.

Social Services.  Congress would cut money for Justice Assistance Grants – a.k.a. state and local law enforcement. Without cuts, that’s $2 billion. Republicans would take $400 million from local police forces alone.

The pledge purports to offer exceptions for seniors, veterans and the military but would save at least $100 billion in the first year alone to pay down the debt and move closer to balancing the budget. Spending $2.5 billion each week alone in Afghanistan is something which Boehner and cohorts view as irrelevant to the ‘Pledge.’

Briefly Noted

On his “Hardball” show Thursday edgy Chris Matthews pressed hard for an ultimate scoop, trying to keep alive the notion Hillary Clinton might well switch places with Joe Biden and be on the 2012 ticket with President Obama – thus keeping Bob Woodward’s “it’s on the table” speculation alive. Arianna Huffington didn’t buy it, and Howard Fineman, ex-Newsweek and new senior editor at Huffington Post was even more emphatic that Woodward’s balloon has popped. Sorry Chris!

Quotable

When the public sours on you, former Vice President Walter Mondale told The New Yorker Sept. 27, the Presidency seems “like a unique four-year marriage contract, in which divorce is not an option.”

“If you believe in dictatorships, vote for him.” Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in New York, on his Republican opponent, Carl Paladino, the tea party-backed developer from Buffalo in what has become a nasty, brass-knuckled brawl.

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