Buena Vista Park as the fog rolls in.
Short notes this morning. We start early on Thursdays -
House Republicans move to protect their spending interests. That's not you.
"The House CR also would give federal agencies more leeway to protect certain defense, border security and immigration enforcement efforts from the automatic cuts. By design, the sequestration was intended to be a blunt instrument that didn’t pick and choose which programs to target. The House GOP’s bill, by contrast, would allow federal agencies to spare certain programs, though they would have to find reductions elsewhere to comply with the overall level of cuts."
Senate Democrats look to restore some balance - but they're afraid of the Republicans. Funny how that never works the other way, isn't it?
"The challenge in the days ahead will be to devise a Senate package that can do more than win the needed GOP support for passage. To advance, the measure also would need to be written in a way that doesn’t spark a Republican backlash. That makes some of the more controversial bills, such as the Financial Services and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education measures, less likely to be included in a continuing resolution that will pick up after the current stopgap funding plan expires March 27."
And the bottom line: The vulnerable will pay for these "grand bargains"
"The pain of the sequester is that kind that lurks: a slow, creeping disaster mainly affecting those Americans on the fringes who are barely inching their way back into a still-bleak job market — or hopelessly locked out of it — and poor Americans too old or too young to participate in it. That is how the effects should always have been framed: not as a danger to air travelers and contractors, but as a prowling danger to the most vulnerable in our flock.
Not framing it this way harkens back to a larger problem in our culture: a failure, or outright unwillingness, to acknowledge America’s poor — both working and not — and to appreciate their struggle."
That's about it for now. The fight goes on.