Frisco Nan & Steny On Spending Cuts

Frisco Nan's press conference earlier this week displaying her attitude toward any budget cuts was instructive.

Looking shocked and incredulous, she blurted that Paul Ryan's recommended 2011 cuts would affect some tens of millions of dollars for meals delivered to old people. Nan was outraged, claiming this just couldn't be allowed to occur.

It's truly laughable. You'd think that there is really no spending cut Nan could accept. And I think that's actually true.

Then Steny Hoyer was on CNBC yesterday morning spouting his canned lines whenever a budget cut is under debate.

Sputtering unconvincingly, the silver-haired hack began to rant about how Republican tax cuts of trillions of dollars for the wealthy, combined with spending cuts, would drive the economy into another 'worst since Hoover' recession. This was vented with a straight face, as if Hoyer genuinely has forgotten the 25% spending increase in 2009 that the Democratic Congress built in over 2008. Or the largest peacetime surge in spending under Wonderboy during the recent Congressional session.

What's lamentable is that neither Frisco Nan nor her former aide, Hoyer, is capable of saying something along  these lines,

'We agree that, given the current debt and deficit levels, and the strengthening economy, spending can be carefully reduced. Nobody could seriously believe that spending can only be increased, never cut. But we have to carefully assess how to cut so as to cause the least pain and suffering among our poorest citizens.'

I know, it's still pretty nauseating. But this sort of statement would probably seem reasonable to gullible mainstream liberals, and maybe even fool some independents.

But, thankfully, it's just not in Frisco Nan, Steny or Harry Reid to be reasonable. They really believe that spending just has to go up- all the time. Regardless of contexts.

Perhaps the best line was one I heard yesterday attributed to Reid. He apparently complained that he wasn't about to just let the Tea Party determine the federal budget.

Well, look at it this way. If you think the Tea Party had a major influence on last Novemember's elections, then Harry's really out of touch, isn't he? Because if the Tea Party sentiment is as broad as it seems to be, and Reid ignores it, the Democrats will probably lose a few more House seats, and maybe the Senate, in 2012, regardless of what happens to Wonderboy.