{"id":714,"date":"2013-01-01T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T22:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/01\/01\/purists-put-progress-in-jeopardy"},"modified":"2013-01-01T22:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T22:48:00","slug":"purists-put-progress-in-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"Purists put progress in jeopardy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It comes down to this: Are the purists in the House of Representatives going to blow up an imperfect fiscal deal because it isn\u2019t pure enough and, thus, risk raising taxes for tens of millions of their constituents?<\/p>\n

Seems as if that\u2019s a distinct possibility. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall Senate Republicans singing the praises of the deal brokered on New Year\u2019s Eve by Vice President Biden and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. They don\u2019t like it any more than some liberal Democrats didn\u2019t like some of the tax provisions contained in the bill. But they sought and reached some middle ground, which usually results in effective legislating.<\/p>\n

Now it sits in the laps of the House members, most of whom are Republicans \u2013 many of whom are ideological Puritans who just cannot fathom the idea of compromise. They want it their way, or else. The \u201cor else\u201d could produce considerable chaos when the financial markets open for business Wednesday, threatening a lot of people\u2019s nest eggs. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll confess that I don\u2019t like much of the budget package cobbled together either. I wish it had contained immediate spending cuts. But buried deep in the bill, near the end of it, there is language that says the cuts will occur in March, after the extended deadline when the automatic cuts are supposed to occur. It remains for Congress to make the cuts rather than allowing the axe to fall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a deal-breaker in my view.<\/p>\n

It is, however, a non-starter in the eyes of those rigid House purists who now are insisting on having it their way \u2013 or no way at all.<\/p>\n

The 112th Congress is going out with a bang, illustrating for all to see precisely how it earned the title of Least Productive Congress in history.<\/p>\n\n

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It comes down to this: Are the purists in the House of Representatives going to blow up an imperfect fiscal deal because it isn\u2019t pure enough and, thus, risk raising taxes for tens of millions of their constituents? Seems as if that\u2019s a distinct possibility. I don\u2019t recall Senate Republicans singing the praises of the … Continue reading Purists put progress in jeopardy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}