Well, they (foolishly) averted a shut down:
After a long day of trading offers, the White House and House Republicans reached agreement Friday night on a budget framework that would cap 2011 appropriations near or below $1.050 trillion while cutting domestic and foreign aid by more than $40 billion from the rate of spending at the beginning of this Congress.
Behind the closed doors of special meeting of the Republican Conference, Speaker John Boehner presented the package to his party as at least an agreement in principle and said at one point: “We have a deal.” The Senate should now feel confident enough to move ahead with a stop gap spending bill to avert—or at least shorten—any shutdown beginning at midnight…
The only reason the Democrats agreed to a deal is because they figured they’d lose if the government shut down – that is absolute. Entirely political animals who don’t care about the fate of America, Democrats would have shut the government down for a month if they thought they’d gain an advantage out of it. We could have – and very much should have – pressed them to do it…we could have got $100 billion in cuts out of them.
But, still, we did get some cuts – and now its on to the fight over, first, the debt ceiling and then, more importantly, the 2012 budget. At least it is now known – and I hope the GOP leadership is paying attention – that the Democrats will not go for a shut down…they are deathly afraid of the American people figuring out that a shut down doesn’t affect American life. So, press them harder, next time.
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