Borger: Budget good will, vanished without a trace
Editor's note: Gloria Borger is a senior political analyst for CNN, appearing regularly on CNN's "The Situation Room," "AC360°," "John King, USA" and "State of the Union." Watch her on "CNN Newsroom" at 2 p.m. ET Thursday and on "The Situation Room" at 6 p.m. ET Thursday.
Washington (CNN) - In a way, President Barack Obama's budget speech Wednesday was all about timing: He had played the adult in a successful congressional lame-duck session in December. He reprised the role in averting the government shutdown crisis.
In the meantime, House Republicans had delivered a politically risky budget, calling for the transformation of Medicare into a voucher program - and no tax increases for the wealthy. They would vote on the highly flammable political proposition in a day or two.
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On the FY 2011 budget....just a thought
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions on TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither.
The good will isn't gone. It is just drowned out by the ideo-illogical rhetoric. Happens every time the Grand Old Tea Party wins an election.
Naw. That's not right. Come to think of it. It is even worse when they lose an election. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.
Suck "Good Will"! Gee Gloria, it seems getting attention as a commentator these days requires presenting a cynical view before acknowledging that the President's proposal actually makes sense. More to the point, it seems CNN can't make up its mind with its waffling between FOX and MSNBC!
Republicans have no intention of compromise. They have clearly stated that over and over. Only a deaf-mute could have missed the message! Yet, you seem to think the President should turn the other cheek?
I agree, he should turn the "other cheek" – - WITH A GOOD LEFT HOOK TO THE REPULBICAN JAW ! ! !
Why is it that every plan the Republicans come up with has to do with taking government run programs that work and putting them into the hands of the private sector? Medicare? How much richer do the insuance companies really need to be with their billions in profits each quarter. Social Security? Anyone ever wonder why they have tried to give that program to Wall Street since nearly its inception? It's all about profit for the guys who fund their campaigns and hire them after their political careers are over. Always has been, always will be. Holding Americans who are truly hurting in this downturn hostage for extra bonus tax breaks for billionaires, anyone?
What good will?? the republicans have been unwilling to compromise since the beginning.
Well Gloria, you follow polls more than I do. The President is on the right side of this issue because it seems like he follows polls as well. An overwhelming majority believe taxes should be raised on people who make more than 250K a year. An even bigger majority say they should definitely be raised for millionaires and billionaires. A majority of Americans do not want Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security touched in order to balance the budget. I think the White House gets it and the GOP don't. Plain and simple.
Gloria, Gloria, Gloria . . .
Your take on Obama's speech is soooo old politics. It's sad to see a bright commentator who's comments are stuck in an old paradigm. Old school is football. You have X's and O's. The offense has a play written down on a sheet long before the game and everyone follows it. The defense reads the play an their only goal is to stop the play. New School politics is soccer. You have strikers, middies and sweepers. You have a goal, but the play . . . well you kind of make it up as you work your way down the field base on conditions.
Obama is playing political soccer. You're PO'd because he didn't have a play that is easy to discern. Makes your job harder. You have to think. It looks indecisive is your hoping to find it in a book. It's not indecisive, it's completely responsive. You look at the winds, read the currents and create a plan that will work . . . based on what is happening now.
And the reason that this makes sense, is that in times of change (we're there) the playbook you came to the stadium with will be out of date minutes after the kick off. Sort of like your article.
How amusing and yet sadly predictable. Borger out with another false equivalency piece levelling criticism at Obama for, just once, doing what the GOP has been doing non-stop ad nauseum since day one of his presidency. And yet, when have we even once seen Queen Shill or the Bobblehead Bunch at CNN ever write a scathing piece about the absolute partisan nincompoopery the GOP has deluged us with for nigh on 2.5 years? Almost never. See, in order to create the false equivalency, they have to pretend Obama is just as bad, but then pretend that the GOP is not so bad. Personally, if I was a senior citizen, I wouldn't be considering it at all partisan or campaignery to hear my president declare firmly that he's not going to allow the Medicare and Medicaid systems to be gutted, overhauled and turned inside out such that they disappear over time...and you can certainly add everyone under 50-55 to that seeing as how the GOP put a 10 year delay on it in hopes they could still grab up the elderly vote in 2012. How would you like to be 54 years old right now and getting told that sorry, you missed out by a few months...if only you had crawled out of your mother sooner, we wouldn't be taknig Medicare away from you by forcing your contributions to go up to 70% and keep rising. Anyhoo, this is expected every time I read a Borger piece. Fabricated pseudo-intellectual criticisms of anything Obama or the Dems do...because hey, someone's gotta do it if we're all going to keep pretending that there's no difference between the two parties and they're taknig equally legitimate positions.
this is why america doesnt trust either party.... both only want to help there set of voters...ugh..
There has NEVER been goodwill form Obummie. From the bum shoveling Obummie care down our throats, his positions on terrorist, not securing our borders, and his failure to lead on economic policies. After being dragged kicking and screaming to cut money from a budget that should have been passed 6 months ago, he comes out with a "speech" but nothing has been put on paper as to a new budget. He is a liar from the word go and I hope the repubs rub his face into a budget.
BHO was never an adult. And he continued to demonstrate that with his supposedly serious budget speech, which had no budget and was intentionally insulting to the invitees as was his speech when the SCOTUS was present. He's an agitator, not a leader; i.e., empty suit.
Borger has her typical agenda, what a hack! Did she actually hear the same speech that I did....hmm, one has to wonder?
The President wants to include all Americans to get out of this budget crisis he inherited and move into the future.
The GOP/TP wants to make the middle class and poor take the brunt of it and shove more profits to their rich friends and corporations.
My questions are: Do you belong to the 98% that have to work for a living or have a hard time in this system that keeps you knowingly down? Then your choice should be to support the President’s plan and get a fairer system where you can have some benefit too.
Or, you belong to the 2% where the wealth is concentrated – then your choice is clear too: Go GOP/TP and try to keep it all – the heck with the country. It should just go the way it always went, moving the wealth of the country from the bottom up to you.
It will always remain a mystery why still so many people vote Republican when they get screwed by them every time. That the rich and big business go GOP/TP is understandable – but the other 30% – 45% act verifiable dump or masochistic!