And so the dance that will inevitably end with another GOP el foldo begins yet again:
President Barack Obama proposed new tax credits and job-training programs on Tuesday in a 2015 budget that drew instant condemnation from Republicans, who dismissed the document as an election-year campaign pitch.
The $3.9 trillion blueprint for the fiscal year that begins on October 1st also would boost spending on roads and bridges and expand early-childhood education while paying for some of the additional spending by scaling back tax breaks for wealthier Americans.
The proposal has almost no chance of passage in Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives, but it lays out Obama's policy priorities ahead of November congressional elections. Democrats will be fighting to keep control of the U.S. Senate and avoid losing ground in the House.
True, the White House proposal on the measly portion of the budget that is still discretionary doesn't have any chance of passage through Congress - at least not intact. Not that Congress is particularly relevant any more, what with O having a pen and a phone and all, but let's say for the sake of discussion that it was. You could get the idea from the above quote that the Democrats are in deep, deep trouble - as The One seemed to implicitly acknowledge just yesterday. He isn't in such hot PR shape either, with the endless ObamaCare disaster, the endless economic depression, and the latest in what is now an evidently endless series of foreign policy humiliations. Consequently, you would surmise from this that Republicans are in a very strong position, and should be poised to run roughshod over his Infernal Majesty and his minions on the budget.
And, of course, you'd be wrong. Wolverine may believe that the best defense is a good offense, but the politically astute know that the way to start any negotiation is by making your most outrageous offer so as to have dickering room to slowly retreat toward what you're willing to settle for. The Dems aren't going to get Dear Leader's priorities, but they're not going to give us ours, either.
The difference is, we know what their official priorities are; while making a public display of scoffery at it, what, specifically, are the GOP's priorities? And what do they matter since we only control the House and will never get them through the Senate? Besides, Barack Obama doesn't negotiate anyway, and, at least until next January, doesn't have to.
Which is why, just like each of the previous three years, nothing will come of any budget proposal, the clock will wind down, and we'll be headed for another shutdown showdown in the last week or two of September, just as always. Republicans, not willing to endanger their anticipated re-taking of the Senate, will cave on yet another "clean" continuing resolution, thus fratricidally enraging Tea Partiers even more than they were already from within their IRS concentration camps, causing them to stay home in droves on Election Day and keeping the Senate in Donk hands, and maybe handing them back the House as well. After which Red Barry will triumphantly announce that all ObamaCare delays and deferrals and waivers are hereby cancelled - retroactively to the original text of the statute.
And then the Right will learn, anew, what true "irresponsible budgeting" really is. For starters, the next "stimulus" probably won't be a mere $302 billion worth. And the downpayment on a "hostile takeover" of the health insurance sector will be a lot bigger than $5.5 billion:
Health insurers such as WellPoint Inc. and Humana Inc. stand to gain $5.5 billion from the government next year to cover losses from ObamaCare in a program the law’s opponents label a bailout.
The money, outlined in President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins in October, is designated to help insurers who find the cost of the law higher than expected, based on the percentage of older, sicker people who sign up compared with younger enrollees.
The dictator said it himself yesterday: "Our budget is about choices, it's about our values."
That being a "royal our," of course.
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