Leave it to Levin to put this budget 'compromise' in perspective, pointing out the seriousness of the situation for Republicans in both policy and politics...
Going one step further, Dan Riehl brought some interesting facts to light when he blasted the GOP leadership for deliberately exploiting the issue of military pay on two fronts during recent negotiations:
He and others in leadership, including Cantor, wanted the issue in play. Republican Reps. Gohmert (TX) and Kingston (GA) had already fashioned a House Bill to deal with the issue early on. Boehner refused to let it come to the floor. However, he didn't only want to use it against Obama, he also employed it to pressure incoming freshmen to support the latest continuing resolution, lest they be accused of not supporting paying a military engaged in multiple wars.
He also spoke of the Levin piece with Cavuto:
As for concern over games being played with the numbers that would make this deal a bigger cave-in than it appears, Mark Levin raised some un-answered questions currently swirling around the deal, ones Republican leadership has, so far, refused to answer. If the $40 billion, or whatever dollar number now being circulated includes $10 billion already cut in previous CRs and an even larger portion of it comes from increases not being enacted, as opposed to actual cuts, Boehner may have caved for as little as $12 - $16 billion, or so, while exploiting the military to even get that.
My thoughts on the actual numbers reside in the fact that since the government is still up and fully running, and we know that we're spending about $4 billion a day (as we run a $1.46 trillion deficit this fiscal year), aren't we automatically losing around $20 billion in ANY deal since the language of this bridge bill won't be finalized and voted on until Wednesday? So this compounded with what Levin and Riehl have informed us of cuts almost nothing. That's weak leadership, Republicans...not to mention the shared feelings of many conservatives with a statement released by Rep. Allen West in which he says he is "disgusted at the perception that Leaders in my own Party...are now using the men and women in uniform" to pass a short-term budget bill (aside from the fact that Dems and Obama were verbally demonstrating they were willing to hold military pay hostage). Finally add Planned Parenthood funding and EPA regulations back into the pot, and it sounds like a sham of a deal all around. Oh, what we have to look forward to with leadership like this on the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget battles.
