The Democrats Are Officially Completely Useless

     What does it say when Rand Paul, one of the most radical Republicans in the Senate, votes No on a GOP-engineered spending bill and 10 Democrats and independents vote for it?

     Yet, that's exactly what happened yesterday when Chuck Schumer led the charge to invoke cloture on the spending bill, thereby #1, denying Democrats the filibuster and #2, requiring only a simple majority to pass the short term CR.

     Yes, the Democrats defenestrated their most potent weapon so they could keep open for a few more months a government that the GOP is slavering to shut down. They could've demanded a much shorter 30 day stopgap bill that would've given them time to regroup and advance a saner version of the CR. They could've insisted on inserting amendments to the CR. And, again, they could've debated the Continuing Resolution through the filibuster.

     But they didn't do any of those things. In fact, Schumer gave the GOP everything they asked for without the GOP having to make any concessions whatsoever. It was like the reprise of the Ukraine-Russia "peace talks" in Saudi Arabia which the Russians didn't make a single concession.

     The CR allows Washington DC to spend its own tax dollars to meet its budget but Congress still had to authorize that.

     Trump already signed the resolution into law and Congress is out of session all week next week. So that's that.

     But then there's the House plan that passed by a razor-thin 217-215 vote. So what was in that bill?

     I'll let the fine folks at the UPI take over.

     "The House's plan would set up a massive reconciliation bill that would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts and implement new ones at a cost of $4.5 trillion over the next decade.

     It would also allocate $300 billion for spending on defense and border security, raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion over two years, and add almost $3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

     The budget blueprint would also direct multiple committees to cut billions of dollars, including $880 billion in cuts spearheaded by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Because Trump has ruled out cuts to Medicare and Social Security, budget experts say that may necessitate cuts to Medicaid, which is under the committee's jurisdiction."

     It seems that Schumer and what laughably passes for Democratic leadership is perfectly OK with all that. To their credit, House Democrats were infuriated with Schumer falling supine before Trump.'s feet. Every Democrat in the House voted against the CR with one exception.

     Anyone who knows the first thing about the budgeting process and our financial capability knows, there's no way they're going to extend those tax cuts without that nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. And Republicans are coming for Social Security next. There are over 73,000,000 on Social Security and 80,000,000 on Medicare and Medicaid. 

     And those of us, such as yours truly, are paying a hefty $175 a month premium for health care even though we've been kicking into the fund for decades (In my case, since 1975, when Medicare was just a decade-old). So, Republicans are nakedly attempting to cut nearly a trillion in Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade and, frankly, I'm pessimistic that our premiums will go down.

     We all knew the spineless Congressional Republicans would give everything that Trump demanded. I just never thought even the historically lickspittle Democrats would get in on the action, too.