Republican Sen. Lugar to oppose House GOP's $61B spending cuts

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/148097-republican-sen-lugar-to-oppose-house-gop-spending-cuts

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the most senior member of the Senate Republican conference, said Tuesday he will oppose the House-passed proposal to make drastic cuts to the federal budget.

He is the first Senate Republican to publicly state his opposition to a plan that Democrats have blasted as “reckless.”

Lugar, who is facing a Tea Party-backed challenge in the 2012 Indiana Republican primary, is taking a political risk. But he and other centrist Republicans have concerns about steep spending cuts that will eliminate funding for some federal programs in mid-year.

Lugar declined to state his reasons for opposing the bill as he entered a weekly lunch meeting with his Republican colleagues in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room on the second floor of the Capitol.

[bluestateguy]

1. Lugar I guess is not going to pursue the McCain strategy

He's going to win or lose his primary as a non-teabag Republican, rather than trying to out teabag the teabaggers, which is what John McCain did against J.D. Hayworth.

For Lugar it's the Mike Castle approach. And we all know how things worked out for him.

[EC]

2. I think in some of these states that are rebeling the labor

contracts being taken away awaken the sleeping giant so to speak and now they know the Dems are motivated and that the indies are leaning that direction too. So they are thinking the hell with the tea baggers -