Example: Senator John Thune (R-SD), a wonderful man, recently appeared on Meet the Press with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO). When Ms. McCaskill accused Republicans of “giving taxpayer checks to Big Oil,” Thune should have asked her what checks she was talking about.Perhaps Thune didn't respond incredulously because earlier in the year we had a huge debate on Oil and Gas Subsidies, a debate Bialosky has apparently forgotten.
Later on Bialosky brings up the rating agencies.
The potential downgrading of America’s creditworthiness has little to do with the debt ceiling and everything to do with the gargantuan spending plans proposed by the Obama Administration.Pity that S&P was pretty clear in it's downgrade that it is the political atmosphere that makes compromise unlikely that created the problem. Republicans are not going to allow revenue increases, they are only going to allow draconian cuts in spending. There will be no compromise, unless it is on the Liberal side of the fence(where Obama shows himself more than willing to give in). The forthcoming Committee will recommend some structural changes in Medicare and Social Security, and some more discretionary cuts; this bill will fail. The balanced budget amendment will fail. Leaving us with the plan of across the board cuts. There will be a compromise to exempt the military from these cuts, and there you go.
I could be wrong; perhaps as the weeks go on we will see the house Republicans scared by the downgrade into softening their approach a bit. But I doubt it.