Very Serious Republicans: "I know you are but what am I?"
by digby
Brad Plumer gives us an update on the budget negotiations which are apparently continuing through the week-end. They are reportedly getting to a compromise that would raise the cap on sequestration a little bit, to be paid for down the road because both parties are afraid of deficits. The little bit of restored money will go equally to discretionary programs and defense in the amount of roughly one trillion dollars.
For perspective, you can see that the goalposts have moved so much that "winning" is now actually below Paul Ryan's original budget.
That worked out well.
But House Republicans could still balk. They want sequestration to be kept in place come hell or high water. And you just won't believe this:
On Friday, 18 House conservatives sent a letter to John Boehner demanding only a "clean" continuing resolution bill that would fund the government at the lower $967 billion level next year and keep sequestration in place (albeit with more flexibility for federal agencies). "The Budget Control Act is the law of the land," they wrote. "Our Democrat colleagues are now threatening to shut the government down in order to change that. We should not permit that to happen."
Chutzpah doesn't even begin to describe that. Any right winger who can use the argument that it's the "law of the land" and accuse the Democrats of threatening to "shut down the government" to change it are such immature imbeciles that they should not be allowed to hold office. This is basically what they're doing:
