Chuck Grassley now supports an across-the-board freeze on federal spending for 3 years

[babylonsister]

How long has this guy been a senator? This shows the 'quality' of the thinking minds out there. Oy.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017427.php

WHAT IS CHUCK GRASSLEY TALKING ABOUT?.... While the political world has come to expect a certain amount of transparent, mind-numbing nonsense from House Republicans, it's worth remembering that Senate Republicans are often just as ridiculous.

Take Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for example. A five-term senator from a blue-ish state, Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. He's also purportedly the leading Republican in the chamber working with the majority on health care reform.

And when it comes to the basics of the economic crisis, Grassley has now embraced neo-Hooverism with both arms.

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee on Monday said an across-the-board freeze on federal spending is needed to reel in President Obama's massive budget plan, signaling a more active Republican stance in fighting the president's agenda.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, also said the president is pursuing a "socialist" form of government that will stifle the free market.

Mr. Grassley told editors and reporters at The Washington Times that a spending freeze is necessary to get the federal deficit under control and to show voters that the government is capable of living within its means in hard times.

"What you get when you have an across-the-board freeze is everybody is seen as contributing something," Grassley told the conservative paper, adding that a three-year freeze can have a "very dramatic" effect.

That's true, in a Great Depression kind of way.

If I thought Grassley was just spouting nonsense to make the base happy, I could laugh this off as mere partisan stupidity. But I get the sense the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee actually believes this. He seriously wants a spending freeze -- for three years -- in the midst of a deep and serious recession.

snip//

It all comes back to what I call the Republicans' "pre-recession mindset." In the midst of a crisis, too many GOP policymakers, including Grassley, are yet to realize that things have changed.

Grassley's bizarre beliefs reinforce a point from a couple of weeks ago: it's time to leave the minority party out of the policy discussion until they're ready to sit at the big kids' table. The party, at this point, just aren't trying anymore. They deserve a lot of things -- ridicule, scorn, derision -- but at a place at the policy negotiating table isn't one of them.

[Thrill]

1. This Fool is talking about freezing spending during a Recession?

[babylonsister]

4. Yep. Mind-boggling, isn't it. I guess any opposition,

whether it makes sense or not, is what rethugs are shooting for.

[Mz Pip]

6. And during a war??

whatever happened to the GOP mantra about funding the troops?

Does this guy think we're stupid?

[BeyondGeography]

2. Poison for a sick person

:freak:

[Debi]

3. I'm sorry....he's from Iowa....

:yoiks:

[FarLeftRage]

5. He's a moron

from the party of the morons...

[fascisthunter]

7. yes... let's have a depression... will Grassley be handing out soup

at the soup kitchens. Hell, he has money... think he'll be christian and good enough to chip in?

[terisan]

8. Because we gave too much money down the Wall Street Black Hole. Our priorities were upside down.

We did it. We let Wall Street come to us to drop off their debt and pick up the dollars.

The budget needed to come first but everyone let the politicians in power set the order in which we addressed the issues.

We are doing the spending in the midst of the recession-we just gave it to Wall street to spend.

We are the people in control. I think we need to take the responsibility.

something tells me the budget will have a lot of cuts made by Democrats.



I agree Grassley is irrelevant . What power does he have?

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Well you see, him and Hoover used to have tea together

same school different decade

[spanone]

10. after allowing the govt. to spend like a drunk sailor for 8 years....

[surrealAmerican]

11. In what kind of twisted alternate reality could this make sense?

Because it certainly doesn't make sense here.

[AndrewP]

12. A "freeze" on federal spending is just a nice way of saying "fuck social programs"

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Chuck had to say something stupid this week.

Apparently somebody got mad at him last week when he suggested the Wall Street Criminals should off themselves, Seppuku style.

[babylonsister]

14. Thank you, Rachel. nt