What Good Are Republican Voting Democrats?

[TheBigotBasher]

The Republican voting Democratic Senators have cut back on the Presidents' spending plans, and will expire his signature tax cuts of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples in 2011. These tax cuts as part of the make work pay programme which were already cut by Republican voting Democrats (from $500 to $400). The $13 a week may be condemned by the millionaire talking heads on Fox News as well as Republican voting Democratic Senators as small, but $13 is a real boost to those on low incomes where every $ counts in the daily battle to make ends meet.

It is also crucial to remember that this promise was key to getting the Democratic Party the House, the Senate and the Presidency. Their stupidity could cost it all. When the President promised tax cuts to 95% of Americans this was it.

Despite cutting this Republican Supporting Democrats enabled a massive tax cut for the rich, by supporting the Kyl/Lincoln estate tax amendment which raised the estate tax exemption to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples and lowers the tax rate from 45% to 35%.

I have to say Nancy Pelosi, in the House has been able to consistently deliver strong support in the House. Reid, in the Senate, not quite.

These Republican voting Democrats in the Senate also cut from the House American Recovery Act the following programmes :-

Partially cut:

• $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)

• $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)

• $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)

• $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)

• $100 million from law enforcement wireless (original bill $200 million)

• $300 million from federal fleet of hybrid vehicles (original bill $600 million)

• $100 million from FBI construction (original bill $400 million)

Fully eliminated

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $122 million for Coast Guard polar icebreaker/cutters

• $100 million for Farm Service Agency modernization

• $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

• $65 million for watershed rehabilitation

• $100 million for distance learning

• $98 million for school nutrition

• $50 million for aquaculture

• $2 billion for broadband

• $100 million for National Institute of Standards and Technology

• $50 million for detention trustee

• $25 million for Marshalls Construction

• $300 million for federal prisons

• $300 million for BYRNE Formula grant program

• $140 million for BYRNE Competitive grant program

• $10 million state and local law enforcement

• $50 million for NASA

• $50 million for aeronautics

• $50 million for exploration

• $50 million for Cross Agency Support

• $200 million for National Science Foundation

• $100 million for science

• $1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees

• $4.5 billion for General Services Administration

• $89 million General Services Administration operations

• $50 million from Department of Homeland Security

• $200 million Transportation Security Administration

• $122 million for Coast Guard Cutters, modifies use

• $25 million for Fish and Wildlife

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $20 million for working capital fund

• $165 million for Forest Service capital improvement

• $90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start

• $5.8 billion for Health Prevention Activity

• $2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants

• $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)

• $16 billion for school construction

• $3.5 billion for higher education construction

• $1.25 billion for project based rental

• $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization

• $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing

• $40 billion for state fiscal stabilization (includes $7.5 billion of state incentive grants)

What good are Republican voting Democrats if the programmes they cut are the ones designed to help the poorest in America?

Blue Dogs are not moderates. They are extreme right wingers who are just not extreme enough to join the GOP.

[jobycom]

1. Read up on committees, majority rule in Congress, and stuff like that.

The alternative in most districts to "Republican voting Democrats" is not Democrat voting Democrats but Republican voting Republicans who can shift control of Congress to the Republican Party. If a liberal Democrat could be elected in their district, a liberal Democrat would already have been elected in that district.

You don't have to like them. I don't like them. But we have to live with them, or we cut our own throats. That's the nature of politics in the real world. It's why many people choose to avoid politics. They don't have the stomach for it.

[Occam Bandage]

2. I fail to see what would be accomplished by

replacing a Senator that votes with the Dems 70% of the time with a Senator that votes with the Dems 20% of the time.

[TheBigotBasher]

4. Your own figures

Specter, Collins, and Snowe, have in this session voted with the Republican party in 63.1, 58.5, and 52.8 percent of contested votes.

I am not convinced that during this election had a push been made for better Democrats that they would not have won as many seats. Every Democratic candidate was being painted as a Socialist. The voters demanded a move to the left. That left still being to the right of almost every other centre right political party in the World. Otherwise they would not have given the Party the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

What is important though is the programmes Republican voting Democrats cut. These are the programmes The Democratic Party got elected on. Make Work Pay primarily. This should have been sacrosanct.

[Occam Bandage]

5. Yep. Those are the with-party records of the three most moderate Sen. Republicans in the 111th.

If those Republicans were replaced, they would not be replaced with hardcore Republicans, but rather with liberal Democrats, given their states. That is why most sane Republicans do not try to purge them from the party (Michael Steele's theatrics aside).

I think your theory that the policy positions of candidates have nothing to do with their levels of success in getting elected in their districts isn't one that's really worth discussing.

[TheBigotBasher]

6. It is not the number of times that they vote with the Party that counts

it is the issues that they vote against. Key planks in programmes should be sacrosanct.

[Occam Bandage]

7. And the Republicans who would replace them would vote against "key planks" more often. nt

[Romulox]

10. The very presence of extreme RWer in the Party distorts what "voting with Dems" means.

The Party has unquestionably moved far to the right during the ascendancy of the so-called "Third Way" movement.

[BlooInBloo]

3. You gotta start somewhere. Ponies don't just appear out of thin air.

[Allyoop]

8. Consider

that the amount originally cited in the President's request for funding was somewhat larger than what was expected to be approved.

When I was a newbie in department management, I put forth a budget that requested exactly what I thought was needed to address department needs. My boss set me straight and said I should always ask for a certain percentage more than I thought was necessary because the CEO's department would always cut my budget request.

I think Obama and team are smart enough to figure this out. They won't always get all their initiatives approved or the amount they ask for approved, but they will keep requesting support for all programs Obama promised.

[11 Bravo]

9. I like to keep a couple in my trunk to improve traction on snowy roads.

Other than that, I can't think of a single thing.