Boehner: What? Us Have A Plan?

Hours after losing a vote on the Patriot Act, and hours before losing their third (I didn't even see what the first one was) vote of the week on some sort of UN Tax Bill, Speaker John Boehner had a message for everyone laughing at his leadership team's inability to count votes and win them on the floor.

We're new, we won't be perfect every day. Seriously, I'm not joking, that's his excuse. Following a Speaker who, for whatever you thought of her on policy, always was able to get the votes she needed to win bills, Speaker Boehner looks like a damn amateur. This is not like Aaron Rodgers being the guy to follow Brett Favre in Green Bay. This is like whoever took over for LeBron James in Cleveland. The contrast is remarkable. At this rate, they may not get anything done.

So now, along comes the time to pass a spending bill. I'm genuinely worried that these guys might fail to fund the government in time, not because of ideological divide, but because they may be too inept to find the votes to do it on time, even if they have basic agreement. They seem to have found the perfect way to anger everyone with their proposal too, only adding to my fear that they may come to the point of final passage and only have like 100 votes.

You see, they didn't get anywhere near their $100 billion in cuts. You see, they've cut $32 billion from the budget for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011, and have just not taken up administration proposals that would drive their "cuts" to $74 billion. By any math, they aren't at $100 billion. There's some unhappy people with this.

"It's not enough," said freshman Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.).

Republicans won the House majority by campaigning against government spending, promising to rein in deficits and vowing to reduce the nation's debt. Lawmakers risk retribution from conservative voters and tea party activists if they fail to deliver. Many conservatives want still more cuts.

"I'm not big on not keeping our word," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

Everyone sounds so.... happy. But wait, their failure isn't making anyone else all that happy.

Democrats panned the proposed cuts.

"Maybe they think eliminating important government services is a worthwhile thing to do, but I don't think that's where the American people are," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills).

Some areas the GOP promotes as reductions actually represent no change from Obama's 2011 plan and in some cases actually constitute spending increases. For example, Republicans targeted the FBI for a $74-million cut from Obama's proposal, but the GOP plan would actually boost existing spending levels.

The Wilderness Society's Alan Rowsome said the proposed cut to a program that helps buy land for parks, forests and wildlife refuges would take funding back to the final year of the George W. Bush administration.

Tom Cochran, chief executive officer of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, was already at work mobilizing local officials to fight cuts. "It's going take every one of us, not writing letters but getting in people's faces showing what it means for their constituents," he said.

You see, this is a big joke. Look at the impact of their ineptitude:

Among the hardest-hit would be already financially strapped cities and counties, with cuts nearly wiping out funds for hiring police officers under a President Clinton-era community anti-crime program.

Funding also would be reduced to neighborhood improvements and social programs, such as those serving meals to seniors and paying for projects designed to prevent beach pollution.

One of the biggest hits would be to the EPA, whose aggressive efforts under the Obama administration to regulate industry carbon emissions have been attacked by Republicans. The agency's $10-billion budget would be slashed by $1.6 billion.

Ok, so let me get this straight: We have a potential budget deficit for this year in the $1.5 TRILLION range, so we're going to deliver crippling cuts to cities and counties, police departments, meals for seniors, keeping our vacation sites around the country sanitary, and to the EPA, all equaling up to $32-35 billion, while not touching our bloated military spending, increasing our FBI spending, and not addressing our unfunded liabilities on entitlements in the TENS OF BILLIONS. So basically, we're going to starve programs that have actual real world impacts on PEOPLE who LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY, basically because Speaker Boehner doesn't believe in them, but we're not going to actually address the deficit. Oh yeah, don't forget that they are also trying to block the Defense Secretary from cutting a $100 billion piece of "lard" from his budget, for weapons and systems the Marine Corps say they don't need. Yet these yahoos are the ones out there saying "we need to have an adult conversation" about the deficit. Speaker Boehner repeatedly says we don't have a revenue problem, "we have a spending problem." Well, what in his behavior as Speaker, if you want to call it behavior (it's more inaction), suggests he's right. I'd suggest we have a problem with both, but he is basically proving himself wrong with his inability to do anything.

This House of Representatives is an utter joke. They've now attempted to essentially ban abortion and redefine rape more often than they've attempted to handle the deficit, or create a job. They're considering a motion giving authority to committees to review regulations, something House Committees already were allowed to do. Let me just ask you here, if we elected the cast of Seinfeld to run the U.S. House, would they be doing any worse?