22 January 2011 They want jobs so give them wedge issues.

Republican spending plan signals a new culture war

The morning after the House voted to repeal the health-care law, Speaker John Boehner walked into a TV studio in the Capitol complex to announce his next act: "a ban on taxpayer funding of abortions across all federal programs…"

“Actually, Mr. Speaker, 63 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue, according to exit polls for the November election. Voters asked for jobs - and you're giving them a culture war.

“About 30 minutes after Boehner left the studio, leaders of the Republican Study Committee, a group that claims most House Republicans as members, walked into the same room to announce its new spending bill. Among the items the group proposes to eliminate or decimate: the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Title X birth control and family planning, AmeriCorps, the Energy Star program and work on fuel efficient cars, and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Ostensibly, their cuts were about reducing the deficit, but their list clearly had more to do with settling old scores. Many of the items - including the renewed targeting of Big Bird and the rest of PBS - were holdovers from Newt Gingrich's '95 wish list...”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/21/AR2011012104553.html

Cassi Creek:

It’s not yet the end of January and the teavangelist\GOPers have signaled their intent to spend the next two years trying to turn back the calendar to the 19th century. They are targeting health care, social safety nets, public education, immigration and governmental regulations of industry and commerce. Daryl Issa has already sent requests to the various corporate backers, asking them which specific regulations they want removed.

We’re fortunate that the Senate still is controlled by the Democrats. Otherwise, we’d be headed down the funnel back to the “contract on America” days when Gingrich shut down the government in a fit of anger over a seating assignment on Air Force One. We’re not that distant from that sort of behavior. I fully expect that we are going to see the House try to remove or withhold funding for everything they oppose ideologically. I’ve received a series of e-mails from our representative detailing the plan to essentially abolish Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA, NIH, and any other agency that stands between corporations and the rape of the once-middle class.

The teavangelist\GOPers know that American corporations are never going to return jobs already off-shored to American factories, never going to pay anything above minimum wage if possible to avoid doing so. Somehow, they’ve convinced the voters yet again that cutting taxes for the wealthy will create jobs. Now it’s time to point to those jobs and they don’t and won’t exist. The distraction of the day is, of course, abortion. They’ll milk that for the next 8 months until the annual “war on Christmas/Christians” season rolls around.

Abortion funding is not problematic for me. I’m as willing to see public payment for abortion, as I am to see public payment for prostate malignancy treatment. Both should be decided upon by a patient and a physician, not an elected legislator nor an insurance company clerk. In addition, neither should be used as a distraction for the jobs that the teavangelists\GOPers knowingly lied about in October and will knowingly lie about for the next two years.