Psst! Obama PUNK'D Repubs On Budget Deal!!! ROFL!

[Beetwasher]

Quote:Now that we have the details of last Friday's budget compromise, and now that we know that President Obama clearly out-played the Republicans in every aspect, will the very serious media and the pants-pissing Professional Left apologize or walk-back their narrative of cave-in and capitulation?

Quote:WASHINGTON – A close look at the government shutdown-dodging agreement to cut federal spending by $38 billion reveals that lawmakers significantly eased the fiscal pain by pruning money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight of hand and going after programs President Barack Obama had targeted anyway.
Such moves permitted Obama to save favorite programs — Pell grants for poor college students, health research and "Race to the Top" aid for public schools, among others — from Republican knives.

The full details of Friday's agreement weren't being released until late Monday when it was officially submitted to the House. But the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially "score" as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.

I can hardly contain my laughter at this point.

The president not only managed to hijack the Republican's deficit-cutting mission statement and make it appear to be his own, but he did so without actually cutting much of anything and denied Republicans everything they wanted in the process.

You see -- the Republicans have touted the compromise as a victory in the war against the deficit, so by extension, the President also gets credit for cutting the deficit even though the savings are all very creative in nature. And as the polls show, the majority of Americans credit President Obama for the compromise.

http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/20...um=twitter

[sandnsea]

And now that the deficit is officially a bipartisan issue and the entire country knows it - Obama quickly puts Bush's tax cuts for the rich back on the table because he knows the majority of Americans want them. Go ahead Republicans. Run on ending medicare and social security for the 90% while defending tax cuts for the 1%.

Now if only some Democrat with a microphone would Say That. Hello Anthony Weiner? Where are you??

[The Capitol Punisher]

One part I take issue with Cesca on:
"I can only imagine that Tea Party Nation will shit after they read the details of the bill. The Republicans got nothing they wanted. Literally nothing.

If the Tea Party didn't like John Boehner before, now they will really love him. He put President Obama in the position of being able to go on television in front of the entire country and claim credit for the biggest spending cut in history and Boehner got screwed in the process. I really can't overstate the brilliance in that."

I see no reason to believe that Tea Party Nation will suddenly start reading the details of anything. Boehner knows this -- why do you think he postured as he did? He knows the following: 1) a shutdown would've been bad news for Republicans and 2) that the Tea Party would flip its friggin lid if it came out of any deal without significant cuts. He might be scum, but frankly, he played his shitty hand rather well. He got to save face with the Tea Party - who will not come out of this any wiser that the deal didn't benefit them - while avoiding a shutdown which would politically kill him.

Basically, I see this as Obama following the Kennedy doctrine vis a vis the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy knew that if he publicly backed Khrushchev into a corner, he would have no choice but to take action. He also knew that Khrushchev wasn't stupid either and knew he was playing a losing hand. Kennedy allowed him to save face by huffing and puffing, enabling him to go back to his people and look good while still averting a nuclear showdown. In Khrushchev's case, he didn't have to rely on the idiocy of his followers because he could control the information.

Obama did the same thing, essentially, allowing Boehner to huff and puff and go back to his people saying he got a good deal, even though he didn't. He rigged the game so that both sides would "win" despite coming out the clear and sole victor of the entanglement.

In the cases of both Kennedy and Obama, it is a display of true genius. But you also have to credit Khrushchev and Boehner for being smart enough to parlay that shitty hand and come out of it without looking weak while still doing what's ultimately proper.

[Cha]

I was wondering yesterday if the cuts weren't "smart cuts" like the "smart" government Obama promised!

Turns out JM Ashby wrote this one..

Another snip from your link, Beetwasher..

As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber passed a bill slashing this year's budget by more than $60 billion. In doing so, the White House protected favorites like the Head Start early learning program, while maintaining the maximum Pell grant of $5,550 and funding for Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative that provides grants to better-performing schools.
Obama also repelled Republican moves to cut $1 billion in grants for community health centers and $500 million from biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, while blocking them from "zeroing out" the AmeriCorps national service program and subsidies for public broadcasting.

Instead, the cuts that actually will make it into law are far tamer, including cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can't be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.

Nice not to fall into the trap of thinking the President didn't do his best to get the best deal for the American People..once again.

The pissing their pants wing of the vultures will never walk back but only on to their next raison d'être..make a buck off Pres Obama hate. Pitiful creatures.

[KonaKane]

Know what gets me? WHY has the MSM been so intent on bagging on this president at every opportunity? Check out the verbage used in the story cited in this thread....Obama "tricks" on the budget....his "sleight of hand".....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_spending_showdown_details

WTF is that? It is all but calling him a crook. They are implying he is dishonest and rotten in doing all this.

Fuck the media whores. I am so sick to death of these butt nuggets. They don't even try to cover their hit stories anymore.

[OptimistesMaddie]

(04-12-2011 03:35 PM)KonaKane Wrote:  Know what gets me? WHY has the MSM been so intent on bagging on this president at every opportunity? Check out the verbage used in the story cited in this thread....Obama "tricks" on the budget....his "sleight of hand".....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_spending_showdown_details

WTF is that? It is all but calling him a crook. They are implying he is dishonest and rotten in doing all this.

Fuck the media whores. I am so sick to death of these butt nuggets. They don't even try to cover their hit stories anymore.

I would say that it is racism..I hate to keep pointing to it but the evidence keeps taking us there. It implies that the black man is not trustworthy.....same stuff we have been hearing for a couple of hundred years in this country, it's just in new packaging that's all.

[RoyGBiv]

(04-12-2011 03:35 PM)KonaKane Wrote:  Know what gets me? WHY has the MSM been so intent on bagging on this president at every opportunity? Check out the verbage used in the story cited in this thread....Obama "tricks" on the budget....his "sleight of hand".....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_spending_showdown_details

WTF is that? It is all but calling him a crook. They are implying he is dishonest and rotten in doing all this.

You know them there black folk are tricky, don'cha?

[Cha]

(04-12-2011 03:35 PM)KonaKane Wrote:  Know what gets me? WHY has the MSM been so intent on bagging on this president at every opportunity? Check out the verbage used in the story cited in this thread....Obama "tricks" on the budget....his "sleight of hand".....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_spending_showdown_details

WTF is that? It is all but calling him a crook. They are implying he is dishonest and rotten in doing all this.

Fuck the media whores. I am so sick to death of these butt nuggets. They don't even try to cover their hit stories anymore.

Can't have it looking like the reCons were too dumb to notice what was going on or had read anything besides the latest memo from Koch.

[KonaKane]

I think you're absolutely right. When Bill Clinton came out ahead in a budget scuffle, and secured a surplus, he was lauded as a master politician and strategist. Obama does it and he's just a shifty, thieving one of "those people" pulling tricks and sleight of hand.

Puke.