San Francisco Chronicle, pg1: Bush has Democrats crying uncle in budget showdown

[DeepModem Mom]

President has Democrats crying uncle in budget showdown
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Monday, November 26, 2007

Washington -- President Bush seems to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a full nelson. Just a year after Democrats charged into power on Capitol Hill against a Republican president with bottom-scraping poll numbers and a soured war, it's the Democrats who are crying uncle in the biggest budget confrontation since the 1995 government shutdown. Democrats do not want a repeat of that fight, which crippled the GOP revolution and revived Democrat Bill Clinton's presidency. Yet they seem astonished to find themselves on the defensive in a budget confrontation where Bush is asking for $200 billion to pay for the Iraq war, but promises to veto domestic spending bills that are $23 billion more than he wanted.

Democrats are struggling even to pass a middle-class tax cut under the banner of fiscal responsibility. A House plan to shield 21 million mainly Democratic households from the alternative minimum tax, and offset the lost revenue with higher taxes on Wall Street, appears to be unraveling. If it does, so does the vaunted "pay as you go" rule that Pelosi pledged would re-establish fiscal responsibility in Washington after years of rampant Republican borrowing.

Bewildered Democrats have concluded that Republicans simply want them to fail....Even Republican moderates are furious....

With just three legislative weeks left until the end of the year, Democrats have just one of 12 must-pass spending bills signed by the president, a $406 billion bill for the Pentagon. Democrats failed to override Bush's veto of a labor, health and education funding bill. Bush has issued 121 veto threats and carried out five, after just one veto during the entire first six years of his presidency, when Republicans controlled Congress.

Pelosi and Reid have already begun backing down. The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and the Senate leader from Nevada wrote the White House this month asking for negotiations. Last week, Reid offered to "split the difference" with Bush on the spending bills. The White House refused....With a narrow House majority and a one-vote margin in the Senate, Democrats face an almost-impossible task trying to muster the two-thirds majorities needed to override Bush vetoes. If House Republicans continue to support the White House and if Democrats want to avoid a government shutdown, Democrats may find themselves with little choice but to cave in to Bush's demands....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/26/MN4QTFUN6.DTL

[Cha]

1. Are they "crying

uncle" because of bushit or because that's the way they want it? I have no faith in those two..what does nancy's district think of her now?

"Bewildered"...they know the bushites by now..that's no excuse..or is this coporatemediawhore writing?

I guess we'd have to know what this person's agenda is.. "Carolyn Lochhead"?

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Aren't we lucky that the Democrats now control Congress n/t

[JDPriestly]

3. From Nancy Pelosi, I have learned a hard lesson about feminism.

Just being a woman, all that Mother Earth, women are for peace, stuff -- it's all nonsense. Just because I am a woman and motherly and want peace and prosperity for my children more than anything doesn't mean that other women do. Women like Nancy Pelosi (and in my view Hillary) are not different in their values than the warmongering men. They will talk as if they want peace, but in the end, they are not willing or strong enough to stand up for peace.

Thank God for Cindy Sheehan. She has stood up for peace. I credit Cindy with changing the attitude of our nation toward the Iraq War. Nancy and Harry have promised everything and delivered nothing to stop the war. Promises, promises, that is all they have delivered. All they have to do is cut off the funding for the pet projects of some of the Blue Dog Democrats and voila the war in Iraq is over.

[mulsh]

4. SF Chron catapulting the propaganda since Chris Matthews

wrote a column for them. Seriously as a long time subscribe you really should read any political article in this paper very carefully. It's a very good source for Republican talking points and adoration of der Gropenfuerer but little else. Carolyn Lockhead learned at the feet of Chris Mathews and Marc Sandalow, the chron's lead rightwing butt boy.