This is very discouraging news, and may set a pattern for how Senate Democrats working with the White House deal with House Republicans.
Dems hint at flexibility in budget talks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats indicated Tuesday they may be willing to accept Republican-backed curbs on the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal regulators as part of an overall deal on spending cuts, a rare hint of compromise in private negotiations marked by public rancor.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House,...
Some Democratic Senators are vociferously opposing the idea of reversing EPA efforts to reduce Greenhouse gasses in American Manufacturing.
While Reid did not specify which non-spending items might be acceptable, other officials stressed that opposition remains strong to GOP attempts to defund or otherwise hamper implementation of the year-old health care law. Nor are Democrats willing to accept cutting off federal funds for Planned Parenthood.
Reid also said Democrats had prepared another offer for Republicans that would bring total spending cuts to $30 billion, including $10 billion that Congress has already approved.
So apparently meeting the Republicans half way isn't even under consideration for the wimps in the Democratic Leadership in the Senate. Instead Democrats are obediently jumping through the hoop the level Republicans have arbitrarily set at $30 Billion.
Other elements of the House-passed bill would stop the administration from issuing new regulations on for-profit private schools and block the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing rules on the Internet that are opposed by Verizon and other Internet service providers.
These provisions drew support from Democrats when they cleared the House.
This could be the Plutocracy's death blow to Net Neutrality, and possibly the straw that broke American Democracy's back. The plutocrats are terrified by the way the Left has been far more effective in taking advantage of the tools the internet offeres for organizing. Matthew Continetti writes in the Weekly Standard:
The Paranoid Style in Liberal Politics
Over the last decade the left took to the Internet like conservatives at a gun show: They felt right at home. By 2006 the progressive bloggers (the term “liberal” had too many negative connotations) had become a powerful force. They called themselves the Netroots, organized conferences, pooled resources,and played a key role in forcing Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic party.
Inside this Death Star were legions of twenty-something writers, most of them fresh out of college, tapping furiously at their keyboards, discoursing on the subtleties of macroeconomics and the depravity of American conservatives.
Calling the Netroots a DeathStar shows how seriously the Plutocracy takes us as a threat. Plutocrats will stop at nothing to crush any threats to their prerogatives, their privilege, their wealth, or their power.
EPA: Proposed House budget cuts would harm public health
By Darryl Fears
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson told a Senate committee Wednesday that a proposal to cut a third of the agency's budget would gut a plan to reduce carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act and undermine efforts to limit water pollution in areas such as the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Jackson said the House Republicans' plan to cut more than $3 billion from the EPA would have a major impact. "Big polluters would flout legal restrictions on dumping contaminants into the air, into rivers, and onto the ground," she said. "There would be no EPA grant money to fix or replace broken water treatment systems. And the standards that EPA is set to establish for harmful air pollutants from smokestacks and tailpipes would remain missing."
Democrats shouldn't throw the E.P.A. or Net Neutrality to the Republican Wolves no matter how loudly they howl.
Call Congress. U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121
UPDATE: My apologies for leaving a typo on the title all night. Undone by my dyslexia again.
Majority Of Experts Predict Government Shutdown Next Week