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We get a downgrade due to spending but the dims till won't cut anything while spending more.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led Senate blocked a House bill Friday that would provide disaster aid and keep government agencies open, escalating the parties' latest showdown over spending and highlighting the raw partisan rift that has festered all year.

In a tit-for-tat battle, the Senate used a near party-line vote of 59-36 to derail the measure passed earlier by the Republican-run House. That bill would fund federal agencies and provide $3.7 billion in disaster assistance, partly paying for that aid with cuts in two Energy Department loan programs that finance technological development.

With the support of 10 GOP senators, the Senate had voted last week to provide $6.9 billion in disaster aid and no cuts to help pay for it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered a compromise Friday that would accept the House's lower level of disaster spending but lacked the loan program cuts. Republicans refused to let the chamber approve it, but the Senate will consider it Monday, when Republicans seem likely to prevent Democrats from getting the 60 votes they would need to prevail.

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Well, I see you are still up to your old tricks here in the center ring of the Big Top b50m.

Once again resuming my role as "the rest of the story" with a FULL disclosure of the situation.

I will admit, you have got spin and half truths to a fine art b50m.  A TRUE FOXOPHILE!

 

From:  THE HILL

 

Top Dem signals fight over GOP plan to fund FEMA with Energy cuts

By Pete Kasperowicz - 09/15/11 02:31 PM ET

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House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday afternoon indicated that Democrats will oppose House GOP efforts to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) a $1 billion boost in the current fiscal year by cutting back on a Department of Energy program aimed at funding advances in the auto industry.

House Republicans on Wednesday introduced a continuing resolution that would allow the government to operate through Nov. 18, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the House would consider that resolution next week. Among other things, the resolution provides another $1 billion for FEMA that it can use in the current fiscal year.

That increase is offset by a $1.5 billion cut to the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. In a discussion on the House floor Thursday, Hoyer said that program has helped to create thousands of U.S. jobs by fostering innovation in U.S. auto companies.

 

"What we are doing, in my view … is undermining a specific item in the current scheme of things that is creating jobs," Hoyer said. "It appears that … the CR would target a particular item that is exactly what we want to do, and that is creating jobs."

Cantor argued back that the program can be safely cut because it would still have billions of dollars left to use as grants, since billions have gone unused for years.

"There's currently $4 billion in unobligated budget authority remaining under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, and this so-called pay-for just rescinds $1.5 billion of that total, and the program will have remaining in it $2.5 billion," Cantor said.

"And I think it's worthy of note … that this money has been laying around since Sept. 30, 2008," Cantor added. "That is three years."

Hoyer responded by saying there is currently $3.9 billion in pending requests for funding under the program, which he said could lead to up to 60,000 new jobs.

Cantor reiterated that billions of dollars are going unused in the program, and that only $780 million of $4 billion has been used this year. He also rejected the idea that the program has created jobs, and said many would argue that the funding has been used in the context of jobs that "already existed" at U.S. auto companies.

Cantor added that claims of specific job growth through the program are promises that "can't be substantiated."

Cantor said the House would likely take up the rule for the continuing resolution on Tuesday, and debate the resolution itself, H.J.Res. 79, on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the Senate is still pushing for $6.9 billion in new funding for FEMA, which would not be offset.



Last edited by rocky
From S&P statement:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.


"With the support of 10 GOP senators, the Senate had voted last week to provide $6.9 billion in disaster aid and no cuts to help pay for it."


Not until this most recent crop of Republican juvenile misfits in the House has disaster aid ever been expected to be offset with cuts somewhere else. 


How did the President say House Republicans were acting -- "my way or the highway?"



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