Saturday, April 2, 2011

Budget Busters

Thank goodness! We’ve finally moved on from that little Libya diversion by turning control over to NATO ‘R US. And just like that, the MSM has dropped that hot potato from their power rotation. Soon it will be just a faint, uncertain memory like Afghanistan, Iraq and closing GITMO.

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So that leaves us free to focus on more pressing problems like fund raisers and maybe even squeeze in a round of golf. Oh yes, and the budget.

Our little people will be busy working on the that.

Here’s a quick update.  We have a proposed “budget” that runs a one and half trillion dollar deficit (this year; 20 trillion dollars by 2020), and the R-words are proposing a 61 billion dollar reduction, which the DMC has instructed their members to refer to as “radical” and “extreme.” We’re willing to go halfsies with them, and kick in 33 billion dollars, butt it’s never enough with the R-words.

Hmmm, a $1.5 trillion budget deficit or a $61 billion cut.  In a multiple choice test, which one would you choose as “radical,” which as “extreme” and which as “nowhere near enough, you gutless morons?” This is really hard. No wonder Congress hasn’t been able to pass a budget yet.

To emphasize just how radical and extreme these proposed cuts really are, Big Guy sent our representative from USAID to testify to Congress that these budget cuts would kill 70,000 children.

“We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee.

Killing children. That seems extreme. Let’s ask Planned Parenthood.

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I wonder if Congress could do what everyone else does when faced with an income shortfall: make choices between “essential” and “discretionary?” We might have to hold a seminar on how that works.

In the mean time, maybe this will help Congress execute one of their primary responsibilities. Here are a few “investments” in Wining The Future that we can perhaps do without:

  • Cowboy Poetry Festival cuts, not extreme
  • NPR, PBS and CPB cuts, not radical
  • switch grass for ethanol subsidies, not extreme
  • Midnight basketball cuts, not radical
  • Arts funding cuts, not extreme
  • Bridges to nowhere, not radical
  • Fewer Oversees vacations diplomatic missions for POTUS, FLOTUS, FGOTUS, FWWOTUS & MOTUS, WAY SO extreme

This whole talk of government shutdown is unfortunate, because it didn’t have to come to this. We missed our chance last fall, when the budget was originally due. Big Guy’s team still controlled everything and they could have passed their own bloated budget then. Butt in the spirit of bipartisanship they decided to wait until after the midterms in order to spread the blame around.

Now things are getting very tense, and there’s even a rumor of hunger strikes breaking out across the country to protest such radically extreme budget cuts that could kill not only children, butt our barely recovering economy as well. As Big Guy told a National Clean Fleets Partnership at a UPS shipping facility yesterday:

"If these budget negotiations break down, we could end up having to shut down the government, just at a time when the economy is starting to recover,"

 

UPS facilitiessignature run up stairs

Bounding towards WTF in Landover, MD on Friday

We’ll be WTF by investing in Clean Fleets, shutting down domestic drilling, coal plants and, now, nuclear too. Maybe cutting those switch grass subsidies is a little premature.

And make no mistake, WTF requires us to get re-elected in 2012, so we’ll be hitting the fundraising trail more and more. I’ve had a lot of email about what was on the menu at Big Guy’s $30,400 per plate  dinner at the Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem last week. So, here’s the scoop: the dinner raised $1.5 million for the DNC, and was prepared by by one of the Big White’s favorite celebrity chefs: Marcus Samuelsson.

12be83ae-5a89-11e0-8367-00144feab49a  Marcus Samuelsson’s “wildly popular” new Harlem restaurant

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Did I mention that Marcus was raised in Sweden?

Inside the Red Rooster

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The $30,400 per plate menu:


Cornbread, honey butter

LOBSTER SALAD
asparagus, peas, hot biscuit

Hermann J. Wiemer Riesling "Semi-Dry" 2008
Finger Lakes, New York


BRAISED SHORT RIBS
honey-glazed chokes, spring onions, red wine reduction

Brown Estate "Chaos Theory" 2009
Napa Valley, California


CHOCOLATE CAKE
rhubarb compote, buttermilk sherbert

Ridge Geyersville "Essence" 2007
Sonoma County, California

SWEET POTATO DOUGHNUTS
cinnamon, brown sugar

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Whew! That sounds like both a belly and a budget buster.

RETHINKBig Guy castes a long shadow at the Clean Fleet meet