I've Seen The Future

Reading tea leaves, anyone?

Well, one day into the Republican-led, 112th Congress and everyone is all up in arms about the Republicans (quietly) admitting they are frauds. Surprise!!! The Republicans knew all along that they could not keep their campaign promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending in a single year.

Now aides say that the $100 billion figure was hypothetical, and that the objective is to get annual spending for programs other than those for the military, veterans and domestic security back to the levels of 2008, before Democrats approved stimulus spending to end the recession.

Yet “A Pledge to America,” the manifesto House Republicans published last September, included the promise, “We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone.”

Republican leaders have repeatedly invoked the number. On Tuesday the Web site for Representative John A. Boehner, the incoming House speaker, included a link to his national radio address on the Saturday before the midterm elections, in which he said, “We’re ready to cut spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving roughly $100 billion almost immediately.”

And the pundits are understandably, having a blast.

1) Will the American public be mortified at a broken promise they probably didn’t want in the first place?

2) Is there any way the Democrats can use this against John Boehner and Company?

3) Given the crippling effects to social programs a $100 million, single year slash would have had, will this be a win-win for Republicans in 2012?

4) Given the crippling effects to social programs a $100 million, single year slash would have had, will this be a win-win for Democrats in 2012?

5) Will this make the average American voter even more cynical, ingraining the idea that it doesn’t matter who we vote for anyway?

6) How will the Republicans handle the Tea Party freak out?

7) You fill in the blah-blah-blah __________here.

If you can put up with a little raw language, listen to Ed Schultz look into the crystal ball on yesterday's MSNBC's The Ed Show. He knows how to read the tea leaves.



Yes. Trying to repeal the New Deal = Most.Radical.Congress.Ever.