Payne: Budget deal winners & losers (The Michigan VIew 04.10.11)

Posted by hpayne on April 10, 2011

WINNER: Republicans. “Boehner has achieved more than just a short-term budget victory – in his first three months as speaker, he’s helped turn the entire Washington dialogue into a debate about the size and scope of government,” reports the liberal Politico.”It’s a big deal. It shows a great deal of leadership,” said Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, Ways and Means Committee Chairman, as GOPers stood and cheered at Boehner’s announcement of $39 B in cuts.

LOSER: Democrats. “The history of offers on this bill goes something like this. Democrats first offered no cuts, then $4 billion, then $6.5 billion, then $33 billion, then settled at $38.5 billion,” writes Fox News reporter Carl Cameron in an article headlined: “Who Won the Shutdown Showdown? It Wasn’t Even Close.”

WINNER: The Tea Party. Despite the grumblings of tea partiers Michelle Bachman and Judson Phillips (the founder of Tea Party Nation, who tweeted Boehner is “selling us out”), this deal is a victory for a movement that has helped GOPers refocus on their core brand: economics. In fact, by keeping the pressure on cuts – not devisive GOP social polices – the fiscal Tea Party movement helped Boehner win more cuts than he originally sought.

LOSER: Policy riders. In the end, Democrats were left crowing about eliminating Planned Parenthood funding and EPA climate change regulations Still, those provisions aren’t dead – just kicked to a new Senate battleground (where the EPA regs were upheld this week despite significant Democrat defections).

WINNER: John Boehner. This is significant. Movements must have strong leaders. They must know how to govern. And Boehner comes out of the shutdown a formidable leader which will help the tea party-flavored GOPers as they take the Ryan budget into battle these next crucial months. A veteran of Gingrich’s disastrous 1995 shutdown, the seasoned Ohio legislator “avoided one major error made by Gingrich- he didn’t turn it into a personal grudge match. Boehner said on several occasions this week that he ‘liked’ Obama and Reid, describing their dispute as centered on policy, not based on personality, reports Politico. “All told, the budget deal was peppered with Boehner’s priorities.”

LOSER: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The man defines the term “loser.” Reid, who brought the country to this precipice because he NEVER passed a budget last year while taking the position that there should be ZERO cuts in the budget, tried to claim victory Friday night. “This is historic, what we’ve done,” Reid said. Huh?

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.co

 

 

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