Reply #9: Insane

[Ramulux]

First off, the teabagger number is absurd and not realistic in the slightest and should not even be part of these negotiations.

John Boehner wants $40 billion in cuts. We are giving him $34.5 billion. How is that not anything short of complete and total defeat. He got 7/8 of what he wanted and we got nothing. This was not a negotiation. This was republicans pulling a massive childish stunt and democrats just going along with it. The idea of cutting all this in the middle of a recession is fucking insanity, yet somehow you are claiming victory because we got the republicans down to 34.5 from 40? billion? There is no other side to this argument. Its not republicans saying they want cuts and democrats saying they want tax increases, its republicans demanding something and democrats demanding nothing.

We lost this entire debate because no case was made by us. We have completely and totally allowed the republicans to push this idea that the only way to reduce the deficit is with massive cuts to non-defense spending. There was no counter, no democrats demanding something in return for these cuts, no compromise, just republican demands and democratic capitulation.

How you see this budget negotiation as anything other than a complete and total surrender is beyond me.