Dems too scared to produce budget

Jay Carney said the president wanted to meet with the GOP caucus to “hear and listen to their ideas, their concerns.” Mission accomplished, but it wasn't pretty. David Nather of Politico calls it a "smackdown" between President Obama and  Rep. Paul Ryan, who says he was just trying to clear up a few misunderstandings about his Medicare plan:

“It’s been mis-described by the president and others,” Ryan said. He added that he wanted to clarify his position with Obama “so that in the future, he won’t mischaracterize it.”

Heh. Now that it's all clear, have the Dems pulled the granny-over-the-cliff ad yet?

Sounds like Ryan, Cantor and company have tired of the games:

Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, pressed the president to stop describing his 2012 budget plan, which would replace the government-run system for senior health care with a privately administered program as a “voucher,” according to several Republicans in attendance.

Obama immediately pushed back by accusing the GOP of mischaracterizing his own plans, suggesting they had intentionally distorted his health care reforms, including a gradual $500 billion reduction in Medicare advantage plans, extra insurance often purchased by middle-income seniors.

“We pressed him repeatedly to stop the demagoguery,” House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told POLITICO after the meeting which lasted over an hour. GOP leaders also asked Obama, who was flanked by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to “stop saying that we don’t have the best interests of the country at heart,” Cantor added.

“The demagoguery,” Obama pointedly reminded his guests, “comes from both sides.”

Ooh, gotcha! He's rubber and they're glue! Nather checks Obama's facts and finds them wanting.

The truth is Obama misrepresents everything, including his own plans. Though, to be accurate, he never actually comes up with any real plans of his own, just "visions" and "blueprints." It's easier that way. Rep. Candice Miller sounds almost naive in suggesting the president actually produce a budget that could be scored by the CBO:

Rep. Candice Miller, a Michigan Republican who is one of the more moderate voices in an increasingly conservative conference, said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and others laid down an important marker – urging the president to produce his own detailed budget cutting plan to counter Ryan’s.

“We want him to send something that the [Congressional Budget Office] can actually score,” she said.

A real budget? Fat chance! Obama declined, and preemptively blamed his failure on the GOP:

Obama’s response, according to Miller: “He said that anything I propose would have no change [sic] of being approved by your conference.”

Leadership! Segue to today's must-read, John Hinderaker on the non-existent Democrat budget:

Score one for Senator Jeff Sessions: the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee has been laying a two-by-four to Senate Democrats on a daily basis for some weeks now, blasting them for failing to produce a budget. The Democrats' abandonment of their duty is so palpable that even their strongest supporters are now forced to acknowledge it.

Hinderaker goes on to quote the Washington Post's Dana Milbank and the NYT. Milbank:

Although there’s general agreement that the most pressing issue facing the federal government is its runaway finances, the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget in 762 days, a new standard for dereliction of duty.

“They put forward as many budgets today as they did all year,” Don Stewart, an aide to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, quipped after Tuesday’s under-a-minute session.

That would be zero. Read the rest.

And from the NYT, an opinion piece entitled "Passive in the Senate":

With only a three-vote majority, Democrats, led by Harry Reid, are understandably fearful about losing the Senate next year and have decided that treading water is better than taking a showy but risky dive.

Senatorial profiles in courage, eh? They've even given up rearranging the deck chairs. Hinderaker uses a different metaphor, but whether it be by water or fire, we're headed for disaster:

As the Democrats fiddle, America's economy burns. Today's bad news--private sector job creation falling, home prices dropping, food and energy costs sky-high--sent the stock market into a tailspin. One Wall Street analyst says that "[w]e're on the verge of a great, great depression." The Democrats' economic policies have failed, and pretty much everyone knows it. For them to fail even to propose a budget is, as Milbank says, a dereliction of duty. One can only hope that the voters will punish them for it.

Please pass the Power Line piece on to your friends. These cowards need to be held accountable.


Many thanks to MichelleMalkin.com for the link. Also linked by CMR and Larwyn -- thanks very much.

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