GOP Budget Mantra: If You Can't Beat 'em, Defund 'em

With both chambers of the U.S. Congress now dominated by the GOP, Washington lawmakers appear to have abandoned any semblance of bipartisanship.

Prior to presenting its budget current proposal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told his fellow Senators that the appropriations process will prove to be the way for his party to block all new White House efforts and to roll back old ones that were passed before they gained the majority.  

what eye thynk:  The House Appropriations Committee seems to be taking their cue from Mr. McConnell.  They have become Mitch McConnell on steroids. 

If a bill has been voted into law or a regulation they don't like has been created under President Obama's stewardship, they are using committee bills to defund it in order to stop its implementation.  They have effectively abandoned the democratic principle that the issue or the person who gets the most votes wins. 

Current House Appropriation bills under consideration:

1. One bill prohibits any federal money being spent on the Affordable Care Act --- because 50+ repeal votes didn't get the job done.
2. A bill to block the FCC from carrying out recently approved net neutrality rules.  The bill includes a rider that would allow any District of Columbia employer to hire or fire their female employees based on a woman's use of health services like birth control or abortion --- because 1- federal law gives the right to set rules like net neutrality to the FCC instead of Congress and that makes them feel bad, and 2- their legislative control over the District of Columbia makes it fertile ground on which to fight their War on Women, also 3- Jesus.
3. And another appropriations bill eliminates Title X, the biggest federal family planning program, by reducing its budget to zero --- because... What is wrong with these people?
4. Still another drastically reduces funds to enforce  new labor rules such as overtime for low-level managers making less than $50,400/year --- because 1- the President wants this and 2- big business donors don't, and 3. they were only kidding about that "We Heart the Middle Class" thing.
5. One bill that has already made it to the House floor eliminates funding to pay for the regulation of fracking, appropriates no funds for the implementation of the EPA's new carbon emission standards or the new clean-water regulations, and removes all funding for coastal planning efforts written as a response to climate change --- because 1- they aren't scientists, 2- they don't want to listen to those who are scientists, 3-  they don't know any actual living scientists, and 4- the Koch brothers told them climate change is a liberal plot to turn the multi-billionaire brothers into multi-millionaire brothers and if that happens they will no longer be able to afford to  buy  fund the Republican Party.

President Obama has vowed to veto each of the dozen or so spending bills currently in the works that are designed to reduce or eliminate laws he has signed or programs he has championed.

The deadline for reaching a federal budget agreement is October 1.  

Representative Nita Lowey of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said, "Frankly, the fall is shaping up to be the most predictable--and, really, avoidable--budget crisis in memory."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told the media, "If (the President) wants to have a budget negotiation, all he has to do is ask.  I'm a pretty reasonable guy."

Oh, come on!  I don't know which is more laughable--that he thinks of himself as "reasonable" or that he believes his leadership is strong enough to convince the Tea Party faction in the House to vote for a budget agreement made between himself and the President.

Really, John, come on!