The budget deal reached this past week is a sham.

To start with, I would like to introduce myself to everyone. I am Scott Jones and have been a member of the Desoto County Republican Club for quite some time and a few weeks ago Amanda offered me the opportunity to take on this blog which I was honored to do. To be honest, I wish my first post didn't have to be something negative, but unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that our Republican representatives were sent to Congress in November with a mandate which has been ignored.


Last week, Amanda and I shared a couple of texts with each other and I told her that I wasn't really sure how I felt about the CR for the rest of the 2010 budget year. To some degree, it is small stuff in the big scheme of things. The supposed $61 billion in savings doesn't even cover the interest payments on our debt for 16 days. I have a hard time getting worked up for something so small, but Amanda assured me it was very important b/c of the riders that would defund Planned Parenthood, the EPA, etc. Well low and behold, not only did the deal only get to $38 billion in cuts, they dropped all the riders. With this budget, the Republican leadership has truly shown how weak they are. I say that with the understanding that the R's only control the House, but when you negotiate from a position of weakness, you get what you get. The leadership from the beginning made clear they were afraid of a shutdown, but all they had to do is pass a clean bill to fund the troops and essential services and dare anyone to vote against it. There is no way the Democrats would have not signed a clean troop funding bill with a shutdown looming. To do so, would have been a serious blackmark against them for every future campaign.


Now that we have all that out of the way, let me get on to the real thing that got me fired up enough about the CR to make my first post today. According to this Washington Post article today, the final CBO number on the CR to fund the goverment for the rest of the year comes out to a whopping $353 million dollars in cuts. Thats million with an "M" not billion with a "B". After additional spending that goes into the CR, we get less than 1% of those promised cuts. Is that leadership? I don't think so. I hope everyone will call our Representatives and Senators and let them know that this is unacceptable. This CR should be voted down. Its time to stop the games and make real cuts.