Mark Alexander: Shutdown Looms At Midnight

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his proposal for the 2012 budget on Monday, but as we go to press this morning, the 2011 budget process is still stuck in neutral and appears headed for shutdown at midnight tonight.

By a vote of 247-181, the Republican-controlled House passed yet another week-long continuing resolution Thursday that cuts more from federal spending but funds the Pentagon through Sept. 30. Friday morning, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced an agreement on $38 billion in cuts, but said that the Senate will "have our own short-term" bill. The Senate hasn't approved a budget bill of any kind in more than 18 months. Nothing like leadership, Harry.

The hang up isn't so much the dollar amounts, it's whether or not funds are used for Democrats' pet social issues, such as money for abortions at Planned Parenthood. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called removal of those funds "a war on women."

Pelosi also decried GOP spending bills, saying, "In one of the bills before us, six million seniors are deprived of meals -- homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground three million seniors not receiving meals? I don't think so. We've got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don't think the American people want any one of those six million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it."

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, however, only 2.6 million seniors receive these meals. In fact, Pelosi's lie was so bad, even The Washington Post called her on it.

Meanwhile, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) fumed, "We are absolutely outraged. This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians. It's time that the District of Columbia told the Congress to go straight to hell." She continued, "If these Republicans insist that, if they don't get the whole pie they'll take the whole country down with them," she continued, "then we have got to make them pay the price." Don't hold back, Eleanor -- tell us how you really feel.

Barack Obama says he wants "to have an adult dialogue on the budget," but apparently congressional Democrats aren't quite there yet. Then again, neither is Obama. Though he said everyone should "quit playing games and realize it is not 'my way or the highway,'" he called the House bill a "distraction" and has promised a veto if funding for Planned Parenthood is cut. Sounds like his way or the highway to us because that veto would cause (part of) the government to shut down.

In effect, what Obama is saying is, "Pay the ransom (allow us to continue massive government spending) or we stop paying the military, we won't mail tax refunds, we will close national parks and the DC Cherry Blossom Festival will be ruined!"

Both parties will be happy to blame the other if shutdown actually happens, but neither side is winning the confidence of the American people.

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