The House and Senate passed competing versions of a $2.57 trillion budget for 2006 on Thursday night. The two chambers provided tens of billions of dollars to extend President Bush's tax cuts over the next five years, but differed sharply over cuts to Medicaid...
The votes, 218 to 214 in the House and 51 to 49 in the Senate, set the two chambers on a collision course. The House budget included steep cuts in Medicaid and other so-called entitlement programs. But in the Senate, President Bush's plans to reduce the explosive growth in Medicaid ran into a roadblock when lawmakers voted 52 to 48 to strip the budget of Medicaid cuts and instead create a one-year commission to recommend changes in the program.
In a surprise move, the Senate also voted to approve a total of $134 billion in tax cuts, $34 billion more than President Bush requested and $64 billion more than the Senate Republican leadership had initially proposed.
In addition to extending the cuts on capital gains taxes and dividend income, the move was intended to repeal an unpopular tax, enacted in 1993, on Social Security benefits for the wealthy.
While the tax cuts brought the Senate budget resolution closer in line with the one passed by the House, the Medicaid issue moved the two further apart.
That vote was a rebuke to both the White House and the Republican leadership, and it threatens to prevent Congress from adopting a final budget this year.
So, the people we elected who claimed they were going to slash the budget are not following through on their promises. Of course, they have six years to be a__holes and not follow the will of the people. That will give them plenty of time to line their pockets. I am so disappointed in the Republicans who broke ranks and decided to add more money to government spending on entitlements rather than be more responsible. Here is a case in point....
The Senate also approved, 66 to 31, a proposal by Senator Coleman that restored $2 billion in proposed cuts to urban development grants, over the objections of the White House, which called for trimming back the program. "I'm thrilled," Mr. Coleman said afterward.
Oh yeah, Norm, build more rec centers, more midnight madness really helps the inner cities. Look at the freakin' wonders these grants (when they aren't embezzled by people who were supposed to build a theater)have done for Cincinnati. These programs are mere pork and circumstance. I had expected better from you, Senator Coleman....
The issue brought forth such passion that Senator Judd Gregg, an ordinarily taciturn New Hampshire Republican who, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, proposed the $14 billion in spending reductions, addressed Mr. Smith in deeply personal terms on Thursday on the Senate floor. He said Mr. Smith's amendment would "gut the only thing in this budget" that would help tame the deficit and enforce fiscal discipline.
"And it's being done by Republicans," Mr. Gregg added. "You know, you just have to ask yourself how they get up in the morning and look in the mirror."
Preach on, Senator Gregg...
Mr. Bush has proposed $51 billion in entitlement savings. The House budget goes even further, calling for $69 billion in spending reductions on entitlements. The version proposed by Senate Republicans included $32 billion in entitlement reductions, $14 billion of it directed at Medicaid. Fiscal conservatives see the cuts as the only way to chip away at the deficit....
And, I am ashamed to say, one of my state's Senators, Mike DeWine, uberRINO, came out against the cuts....
Here are the other Republicans who became traitors and voted against the spending cuts:
Aside from Mr. DeWine and Mr. Smith, the Republicans voting for the amendment were Mr. Coleman, Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
WRITE, CALL, EMAIL THESE FOOLS AND TELL THEM TO TRIM THE FAT!!!
