Jim Nussle, *'s pick for budget director, to be grilled by Dems

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062802249.html?nav=rss_politics

Democrats See Chance to Fault Deficits and Pork

By Elizabeth Williamson and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 29, 2007; Page A19

An industrial lubricants program, bus replacement -- and the Grout Museum. A $12 million earmark in an emergency defense bill for "industrial mobilization" on the Iowa border.

Democrats have pork spending on the menu for their grilling of Jim Nussle, President Bush's pick as White House budget director. Nussle's confirmation hearings will focus on the former congressman's pursuit of earmarks for Iowa, as well as ballooning deficits during his tenure as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The plan, Democratic strategists say, is to use the hearings to detail the collapse of fiscal discipline during the Bush administration and to grab the offensive from Republicans who are trying to turn the debate over Democratic spending bills into a morality play on thrift.

"We're not going to let these guys act like the protectors of fiscal prudence here when they've left a sea of red ink," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). He said that the as-yet-unscheduled hearings create an opportunity to give "the president's fiscal management, and what's happened to the budget, a showcase."

Nussle, an eight-term congressman who left the House last year to make an unsuccessful run for governor, was named Budget Committee Chairman in 2001, at the dawn of the Bush administration. During three of his six years at the helm, Congress did not pass a budget blueprint. Meanwhile, big spending increases and huge tax cuts sent the budget spinning from a $128 billion surplus in fiscal 2001 to a $248 billion deficit in 2006, with the red ink hitting an all-time high of $413 billion in 2004.

Nussle's critics call him an inveterate partisan who rubber-stamped Bush's unrealistically austere budget requests and pushed through tax cuts without considering the consequences for popular government programs.

more...

[SpiralHawk]

1. There's absolutely nothing "conservative" about republicons

They have squandered America's money like drunken sailors, usually to enrich their cronies.

And they have trashed the environment we all depend upon for water and food.

Republicons are selfish, greedy radicals, with no morality and no honor.

And that's a fact, Jack.

I recommend never, ever using the word "conserative" when describing republicons: it is just a part of their Orwellian propaganda campaign to disguise reality.

[OnyxCollie]

6. Conservatives are developmentally retarded.

Conservatives are only concerned with meeting the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. They are only concerned with what serves them directly. Their self-centeredness is no different than that of a small child. Actual politics/government that serves a greater need (The New Deal, The Great Society) is viewed with distrust and loathing. It is this advanced thinking, representing a higher level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, that sends conservatives recoiling in horror.

Take the Iraq war, for example: Conservatives say we need to win the war, but ask them what the differences are between Sunni and Shiite and they will look at you like you're crazy. "What does that have to do with anything? I don't know or care what the differences are between Sunni and Shiite." Well, the differences are important if you plan on taking out the strongman dictator who has kept a lid on the animosity that has been brewing between the two groups for about 800 years. Which side do we support, Sunni or Shiite? Which side shares the ideology of Iran? of Al Qaeda? of Saudi Arabia? of Hezbollah? The differences between Sunni and Shiite are starting to look more important now, aren't they?

Immigration is another issue conservatives barely understand. "All these illegals are coming in and taking our jobs! They're taking advantage of our (my) schools and healthcare. We've got to build a wall!" Ask them about the employers who hire illegals. What is being done about that? What is being done to stop companies from hiring illegal immigrants, paying them less than a US citizen, and stashing away the profits for themselves? After the free-market regulators have shown they are ineffective at stopping this, why has government failed to step in and provide regulation/enforcement?

Conservatives are developmentally retarded.

[asjr]

2. Even if Bush wanted to appoint

someone as court jester it would be suspect!

[DU9598]

5. True

And Nussle would make a great court jester ... don't forget he was the young clown who gave a speech on the floor of the House with a bag on his head.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. My sister's congressman. loathes him with a burning passion.

he's right out of the Newt Contract mold.

dumb as a toadstool, arrogant as a high school cheerleader

that's why he got stomped in the governor's race

[babylonsister]

4. Let's hope the Dems feel the same way and point out some of

that loathsomeness.

[ashling]

7. Maybe Nussle will insulate himself from the grilling

by placing a paper bag on his head.